By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Human egg cells can be tweaked to give rise to valued stem cells that match the tissue types of many different groups of people, U.S. and Russian researchers reported on Wednesday.
They said the stem cells they have created from unfertilized human eggs look and act like embryonic stem cells.
And they have been carefully tissue-matched in the same way as bone marrow donations to prevent the risk of rejection if they are transplanted into people.
The team at California-based International Stem Cell Corp. hopes to create a bank of tissue-matched stem cells that could be used as transplants that a patient's immune system would accept.
"The process is efficient, it is relatively safe and it is ethically sound," Jeffrey Janus, president and director of research at the company, said in a telephone interview.
The cells are created by a process known as parthenogenesis, a word that comes from Latin and Greek roots meaning virgin beginning.
It involves chemically tricking an egg into developing without being fertilized by sperm.
Several teams have now created parthenogenetic human stem cells from eggs. Other teams have created similar cells using human skin cells or human embryos.
Continune at Reuters
Banking on stem cells
Biotechnology’s potential includes economic benefits for area
By Lisa Eckelbecker TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
leckelbecker@telegram.com
Gary S. Stein, chairman of the University of Massachusetts Medical School Department of Cell Biology, says a stem cell bank could help the Worcester area. (T&G Staff/JIM COLLINS)Enlarge photo
WORCESTER— Some of the biggest hopes for economic development in Massachusetts lie in some very small cells.
Yet as Gov. Deval L. Patrick pushes for a 10-year, $1 billion investment in life science research and development, including money for a stem cell bank in Worcester, some university and business officials say they are still trying to project the economic impact of such an investment.
There could be intellectual property benefits and the formation of new companies, said Dr. Michael F. Collins, interim chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. But as for
numbers, he said, he’s still working on that.
“What I’m attempting to assess is really the impact on the statewide economy, because we view the medical school as a statewide resource,” Dr. Collins said.
Coming up with a projection could be no easy task. When California voters approved a 10-year plan to issue $3 billion in bonds to fund stem cell research, competing projections came up with different outlooks. One group suggested the state would reap income tax and sales tax revenues of at least $240 million from spending on research and facilities, additional tax revenues of $2.2 billion to $4.4 billion if the initiative brought additional private investment into California and up to $1.1 billion in royalty revenues from products developed through the initiative.
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