BC researchers discover new kind of stem cell

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – UBC researchers are hoping to one day rebuild a spinal cord.  They claim they have discovered a type of cell that could regenerate spinal cords damaged by either injury or disease.

Dr. Jane Roskams worked with researchers in Canada and the US and found stem cells with similar genes along the edge of spinal cords of mice.

“Potentially very accessible if we want to try and use very specific drugs to wake them up a little more.  We already know what some of the signals potentially are and we’re already starting to work on those by literally taking these cells out and putting them in a culture dish, seeing how well they respond to some of these instructions.  If they do it in a culture dish, we can likely make some of that happen in an animal.”

The next step is to figure what instructions to send to the cells to get them to rebuild small areas of the spinal cord.  “It would be certain kinds of spinal cord injury or ongoing disease states that just need, essentially, a renovation, as opposed to a complete rebuild.”

Roskams adds how fast they can apply this to people depends on research funding.

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