For the First Time Lab Grown Blood Transfused in Patient

The dependance on donor blood used for all kinds of medical purpose may be decreased now finally thanks to RED blood cells generated in a lab that have been successfully injected into a human volunteer for the first time. Luc Douay, of Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris, extracted hematopoietic stem cells from a volunteer's bone marrow, and encouraged these cells to grow into red blood cells with a cocktail of growth factors. Douay's team labeled these cultured cells for tracing, and injected 10 billion of them (equalling 2 milliliters of blood) back into the marrow donor's body.

After five days, 94 to 100 per cent of the cells remained in circulation, while after 26 days, 41 to 63 per cent remained - a survival rate comparable to normal red blood cells. The cultured blood cells also gave every indication of being safe to use: they didn't transform into a malignant cell type, for example. Instead, they behaved like normal red blood cells, binding to oxygen and releasing it

This is great news for international health care. "The results show promise that an unlimited blood reserve is within reach," says Douay. The world is in dire need of a blood reserve, even with the rising donor numbers in the developed world. This need is even higher in parts of the world with high HIV infection rates, which have even lower reserves of donor-worthy blood.

Previously a type of synthetic blood was used to save a life but that was derived from cow's blood. The advantage it has that it doesn't require matching and can be stored without refrigeration for upto three years.

The stem cell method has its own pros, though. "The advantage of stem cell technology is that the product will much more closely resemble a red cell transfusion, alleviating some of the safety concerns that continue around the use of the current generations of artificial products," says Cooper.

Douay's next challenge is to scale up production to a point where the cultured blood cells can be made quickly and cheaply in sufficient quantities for blood transfusions. The 10 billion cells his team made wouldn't go very far - a transfusion typically requires 200 times that number. With his existing technology, Douay estimates that a single transfusion would require 400 litres of culture fluid, which is clearly impractical. "We are still a long way from the vision of dropping a couple of stem cells into the broth and making endless units of blood," says John Hess of the University of Maryland in Baltimore.

Douay believes that it may take several years to scale up the technology. Another possibility is to use embryonic stem cells instead, as Lanza did in 2008. "We can generate up to 100 billion red blood cells from a single six-well plate of stem cells," Lanza says.

Signal that Triggers Hair Growth Found By Yale Researchers

In news that offers hope to millions of males everywhere worrying about baldness. Yale researchers have made a discovery that could lead to new treatments for baldness by triggering hair growth naturally. While men with male pattern baldness still have stem cells in follicle roots, they need signals from within the skin to grow hair. Until now, the source of those signals that trigger hair growth has been unclear, but the Yale researchers claim to have now discovered it.

When hair dies, the researcher team led by Valerie Horsley, assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, observed that the layer of fat in the scalp that comprises most of the skin's thickness shrinks. When hair growth begins, the fat layer expands in a process called adipogenesis. They identified a type of stem cell - adipose precursor cells - within the skin's fatty layer that is involved in the creation of new fat cells. They showed that these cells' production of molecules called PGDF (platelet derived growth factors), was necessary to spur hair regrowth in mice.

Horsley's team is trying to identify other signals produced by adipose precursor stem cells that may play a role in regulating hair growth. She also wants to know whether these same signals are required for human hair growth.

"If we can get these fat cells in the skin to talk to the dormant stem cells at the base of hair follicles, we might be able to get hair to grow again," said Horsley.

The Yale team's research is published in the September 2 issue of the journal Cell.