Stem cells used for severe skin disease
The UPI reports: "MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. medical researchers have performed the first systemic therapy to treat a severe genetic skin disease. (A systemic therapy is one that treats the entire body, not a localized area)
"University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital physicians reported performing the first bone marrow and cord blood transplant to treat recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, or RDEB."
The patient suffering from this disease is an 18 month old boy. The article describes RDEB:
"Children with the disease lack a protein that anchors skin to the body, resulting in fragile skin that sloughs off with little movement or friction. The 18-month-old boy who was transplanted has the most severe form of RDEB, which also causes skin to slough off on the inside of the body and is nearly always fatal."
Researchers from the University of Minnesoata and Columbia University have already corrected this disease in a mouse, using bone marrow.
"They then determined which human adult stem cells would give rise to the development of type VII collagen -- the protein RDEB victims lack.The boy received both umbilical cord blood and bone marrow from a perfectly matched sibling. Doctors anticipate being able to judge whether the treatment was successful by early next year."
Pray God the treatment works! and God bless our wonderful doctors/scientists who are doing so much in an ethically and morally sound way.
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