Blood Booster: Growth signal shifts cord stem cells into high gear
By Nathan Seppa
Once considered a waste product of birth, umbilical cord blood is now prized as a source of stem cells that can replace the diseased bone marrow of people with leukemia and other illnesses. Unfortunately, umbilical cords often don’t contain enough blood for a viable transplant of stem cells that, like marrow cells, can produce new blood cells of various types.
Scientists now report that cord-blood stem cells proliferate rapidly when the blood is cultured with a protein called Delta-1 and a combination of growth enhancers.