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Weekly UpdatesChildren's Hospital & Research Center Oakland is Northern California's only freestanding and independent children's hospital. Primary research funding comes from the National Institutes of Health. The institute is a leader in translational research, bench discoveries to bedside applications, developing new vaccines for infectious diseases and discovering new treatment protocols for previously fatal or debilitating conditions such as cancers, sickle cell disease, thalassemia, diabetes, asthma, HIV/ AIDS, pediatric obesity, nutritional deficiencies, birth defects, hemophilia, and cystic fibrosis.
The hospital reported a groundbreaking study revealing a new avenue for harvesting stem cells from a woman's placenta or, more specifically, the discarded placentas of healthy newborns. The study also found there are more stem cells in placentas than in umbilical cord blood, which can be safely extracted for transplantation. The scientists conjecture that it is highly likely that placental stem cells can be used to cure many chronic blood-related disorders.
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The study, led by Frans Kuypers, PhD, and Vladimir Serikov, PhD, will appear in this month's issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine.
Stem cells are essentially blank cells that can be transformed into any type of cell (e.g., a muscle cell, brain cell, or red blood cell). Using stem cells from umbilical cord blood. Children's Hospital Oakland physicians have cured more than 100 children with chronic blood-related diseases through their sibling donor cord blood transplantation program, which began in 1997.
Placentas contain several times more stem cells than umbilical cord blood. Researchers say the greater supply of stem cells in placentas will likely increase the chance that a human leukocyte antigen, or HLA, matched unit of stem cells engrafts, making stem cell transplants available to more people, and more stem cells offer a greater chance of success. Learn more at www.childrenshospitaloakland.org.
Edited by Louise Townsend
Louise Townsend is a Florida-based writer who formerly specialized in legislative issues for a major Washington, DC, pharmaceutical association.
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