Baton Rouge center reports stem-cell breakthrough

(Baton Rouge-AP) -- Pennington Biomedical Research Center scientists have found a way to convert stem cells in human fat to human bone cells when transplanted into a mouse. <br/><br/>While there is still

Thursday, May 6th 2004, 10:55 am

By: News On 6

(Baton Rouge-AP) -- Pennington Biomedical Research Center scientists have found a way to convert stem cells in human fat to human bone cells when transplanted into a mouse.

While there is still much work to be done, senior scientist Doctor Jeffrey Gimble says the breakthrough is an important step toward using stem cells for regenerative therapies.

Stem cells are the body's building blocks and have the potential to become many different types of cells that could be used in medical treatments.

Gimble says the goal is that one day doctors will be able to repair broken bones using stem cells donated by people who have gotten liposuction.

Gimble worked with Kevin Hicok and Doctor Lyndon Cooper at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and with scientists from Chapel Hill-based Artecel Sciences, where he formerly worked. The group will have its findings published this week in the journal, Tissue Engineering.

Gimble says a Danish team recently reported similar observations in a paper appearing in the same issue. Gimble's team extracted human fat through liposuction, identified and extracted just the stem cells and multiplied them in the lab. Then, they attached the growing stem cells onto a chip of artificial bone and implanted the chip under the skin of mice for six weeks.

After removing the bone chip, Gimble found that stem cells had converted to living human bone cells and had begun to grow on their own. Still, he says there's much more work to be done, including finding a way to transplant the stem cells from one individual to another without compromising the recipient's immune system.