Human stem cells battle degenerative brain diseases ("Adult stem cells" = aborted fetus' stem cells)

New Scientist Mag ^ | 3-12-2007 | Roxanne Khamsi

[cgk]

Embryonic and adult stem cells offer similar protection against neurodegenerative disease, according to a landmark study in mice which has achieved a number of firsts with human stem cells. For the first time, rodents genetically predisposed to disease lived longer and healthier lives after receiving injections of the human cells, researchers claim.

“We have been talking about stem cells for a decade and no one had cured anything with stem cells before this,” comments Eva Mezey, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, US, who was not involved in the work.

In the new study, Evan Snyder of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, US, and colleagues studied mice with a mutation in a gene called Hex. This mutation leads to a deficiency in an enzyme that breaks down fatty substances called lipids. As a result, these lipid molecules accumulate in the brain and spinal cord, destroying cells and causing the loss control over body movement. Mice with the disorder die prematurely, at around 120 days of age.

In humans, similar mutations in the Hex gene lead to illnesses such as Tay Sachs disease and Sandhoff’s disease, which lead to death within the first few years of life because no treatment exists.

Delayed onset

A day after birth, the mice carrying mutant Hex genes received brain injections of human stem cells taken from discarded human embryos. Snyder’s team also injected a separate group of the mutant mice with stem cells taken from the brains of aborted human fetuses, which are sometimes referred to as "adult" stem cells because they can only develop into a limited subset of cells.

[nmh]

Now they are redefining ADULT stem cells when they are really EMBRYONIC stem cells - utterly disgusting.