Canadian researchers have made a scientific breakthrough in the field of stem cell and cancer research by discovering how to make human blood from human skin.
The research team, based in McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, believe the breakthrough could benefit cancer treatments or treatments of blood conditions like anemia as the discovery generates blood of a genetic match.
Potentially, a patch of a person’s skin could be enough to provide blood transfusions, reducing the chance of people needing blood for surgeries.
Clinical trials by 2012?
Published in science journal Nature under the title ‘Direct conversion of human fibroblasts to multilineage blood progenitors’, the findings estimate that clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012.
The pioneering discovery was tested several times on persons of varying ages and negates the need for controversial embryonic stem-cell research.
