One
of the most difficult problem assosiated with stem cell's treatment
is to direct them into unhealthy organ. If we just inject them into
blood they will stucked in all organs. So if we want to treat a
heart, we should direct stem cells into the heart.
However,
it was a problem until now. You can not distinguish stem cells from
other cells, until you extract them from the ogranism and put into
the microscope, of course. Recently scintists from Emory
and Georgia Tech discovered
a way to direct stem cells using a magnets.
They
coated magnetized
iron oxide nanoparticle
with polyethylene
glycol that protects the cell from damage. The particles become
stucked into cell's lysosome. After that scientists use a magnet
which direct cells to the tail of the mouse. Then procedure was
done, they detect the cells at the tail of the animal.
Such method
can be a next step which will improve efficiency of stem cell
treatment.
Natalia
Landázuri, Sheng Tong, Jin Suo, Giji Joseph, Daiana Weiss, Diane J.
Sutcliffe, Don P. Giddens, Gang Bao, W. Robert Taylor. Magnetic
Targeting of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells with Internalized
Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles. Small,
2013; DOI: 10.1002/smll.201300570
Stem cell therapy is an intervention strategy that introduces new adult stem cells into damaged tissue in order to treat disease or injury.
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