Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A Step Closer To Correcting Sickle Cell Disease With Stem Cells

A Step Closer To Correcting Sickle Cell Disease With Stem Cells: Using a patient's own stem cells, researchers at Johns Hopkins have corrected the genetic alteration that causes sickle cell disease, a painful, disabling inherited blood disorder that affects mostly African-Americans. The corrected stem cells were coaxed into immature red blood cells in a test tube that then turned on a normal version of the gene.

The research team cautions that the work, done only in the laboratory, is years away from clinical use in patients, but should provide tools for developing gene therapies for SCD and a variety of other blood disorders.

'via Blog this'

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