Mom’s marrow may cure baby in womb
Filmstar Akshay Kumar with newcomers Maddalsa Sharma and Nilesh Sahay, nephew of Sanjay Dutt, during the music launch of Ganesh
Scientists claim to have developed a “miracle” stem cell treatment which uses mothers’ bone marrow to cure deadly blood diseases in babies who are still in the womb.
Stem cell transplants into unborn babies have long been a Holy Grail for doctors. Now, Dr Amar Nijagal and colleagues at California University have carried out a research in which they took bone marrow cells from a pregnant mother and injected them into the developing foetus. And, the donor cells were accepted by the foetus’ growing immune system without the need for any drugs. The experiment, carried out on animals, is the first time that scientists have been able to successfully transplant a mother’s stem cells into her offspring before birth, the Daily Mail reported.
“This research is really exciting because it offers us a straightforward, elegant solution that makes foetal stem cell transplantation a reachable goal. We now, for the first time, have a viable strategy for treating congenital stem cell disorders before birth,” Dr Tippi MacKenzie of the University of California, who led the study, said. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, found that a mother’s immune response prevents foetuses from accepting donor blood stem cells.
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