There
is good news for those suffering from rheumatoid
arthritis. Transplanting stem cells could be the most effective
treatment. Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago used
stem cells from the sibling of a 52-year old patient to treat
her rheumatoid arthritis. The patient was completely cured nine
months after transplantation and became drug-free a year later.
The researchers concluded that the procedure could be performed
safely and without the development of graft versus host disease.
Stem
cells can also be harvested from human embryos and developed into
various cells and tissues. This is what a team did from Advanced
Cell Technology in Massachusetts who coaxed stem cells from human
embryos to form retinal cells. These retinal cells could be used
to treat blindness. Dr. Robert Lanza, the scientific director
of the center described their findings as the first derivation
of retinal cells from human embryonic stem cells. This could also
be one of the very first applications of embryonic stem-cell technology
and millions of patients with retinal
degeneration might benefit from these cells in future. However,
Lanza has also raised concern over the restriction imposed by
President Bush on the use of federal fund to work on stem-cell
batches that had been created before 9 August, 2001. Scientists
complain that these batches are contaminated and are not enough.
Elsewhere
in Israel, a team from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
took embryonic stem cells and coaxed them to grow into heart muscle
cells. When injected into the hearts of pigs with abnormally slow
heart rates, 11 out of 13 pigs produced their own heart rhythm.
Researchers say the same technique could be used to make a
“biological pacemaker” to treat human patients
with heart conditions. This could replace the electronic pacemaker
currently in use.
Cystic
fibrosis (CF) is another disease which could benefit from
embryonic stem cells. Three people a week die from CF in the UK.
Researchers at King’s College London has developed stem
cell lines with the mutation for CF. Dr. Stephen Minger said embryonic
stem cells could be differentiated into epithelium (lung tissues).
Dr. Minger and his team is the first to grow human embryonic stem
cells in the UK.
On
a related issue, Prof. Ian Wilmut who cloned Dolly the sheep have
formally applied for a license
to clone human embryos to find a cure for Motor Neurone Disease
(MND). Prof. Wilmut stressed that the embryos would be destroyed
after experimentation. The aim is to study how the disease develops
in the embryo and what goes wrong in the nerve cells of patients.
Prof. Wimut plans to take DNA from the skin or blood of a patient
and implant it into a human egg from which the genetic material
has been removed. However pro-life campaigners opposed the research.
Methane-breathing
Microbe as a Biotech Workhorse
The first complete
genome sequence of a methane-breathing
microbe revealed that this bacterium is capable of responding
to changes in its environment by functioning through different
chemical pathways for using methane. Known as Methanotrophs, this
bacterium could possibly be harnessed to play an important role
in efforts to reduce methane emissions that are generated by biological
sources as such ruminants and landfills.
DNA
as a Template to Produce Organic Molecules
It is not new
to use DNA strands as a blueprint for proteins but chemists at
Harvard University have developed an innovative method to use
short DNA
strands as a template to produce complex synthetic molecules.
With this method a collection of DNA strands could be transformed
into a corresponding collection of sequence-programmed small macrocyclic
molecules with potentially interesting chemical biological properties.