With many stem cell researchers stymied in their hunt for embryonic stem cells, new research indicates that a type of adult stem cell could be induced to grow into a wide variety of tissue types. Adult stem cells are at the center of a number of research programs, but researchers consider adult stem cells to be significantly more limited than embryonic stem cells, which can be coaxed into creating any of the body's tissues. Researchers at Northwestern University, though, were able to do much more with hematopoietic stem cells than earlier thought. They took bone marrow cells and reprogrammed them into cells similar to white blood cells. And they believe their work points the way to additional transformations as well.
- see the release on the adult stem cell project
PLUS: A group of German scientists have demonstrated that the use of adult stem cells harvested from a patient's bone marrow were able to repair the cardiac damage done by a heart attack years or even decades after the attack. Article