2008 Woodie Awards
Stem-cell research in animals still hopeful
Risa Pedzewick
Issue date: 11/30/06 Section: Health
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An Italian team of scientists and doctors tested a stem-cell treatment on dogs with the debilitating disease Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. After administering the treatment, the dogs that had been limping around for months, were suddenly bounding around like normal, healthy dogs.
Muscular dystrophy affects mostly boys and young men. There are at least twenty different forms of muscular dystrophy, which cause muscle wasting, progressive paralysis and eventually death.
Stem cell research has been under heightened political controversy for some time, because of how embryonic stem cells are derived. However, the point of the research is to understand the development and cell division of an organism from a single cell and how healthy cells replace damaged cells in adult organisms. Stem cell research can be beneficial in finding treatments for diabetes, traumatic spinal cord injury, Purkinje cell degeneration, heart disease, Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, and vision and hearing loss.
Diseases like Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, all arise out of the breakdown of the motor neurons, which do not continue cell division after birth. There are no known cures for any of these diseases. The breakdown of the axon in the motor neuron causes the electrical impulses being sent from the brain to the muscle to misfire. Through this gradual breakdown of axons comes the breakdown of muscles within the body, causing the patient to slowly wither away. Many scientists feel that by studying mice with these diseases and by experimenting with stem cells, a cure can be found one day.
Stem cells are different from other kinds of cells in that they are unspecialized cells that renew themselves through long periods of cell division. Under certain conditions, they can be induced to become cells with special functions that could take the place of diseased cells in humans that cannot heal on their own. Their job in the body is to give rise to specialized cells such as heart muscle cells, blood cells or nerve cells. After these cells become specialized, they do not normally continue to divide.
Muscular dystrophy affects mostly boys and young men. There are at least twenty different forms of muscular dystrophy, which cause muscle wasting, progressive paralysis and eventually death.
Stem cell research has been under heightened political controversy for some time, because of how embryonic stem cells are derived. However, the point of the research is to understand the development and cell division of an organism from a single cell and how healthy cells replace damaged cells in adult organisms. Stem cell research can be beneficial in finding treatments for diabetes, traumatic spinal cord injury, Purkinje cell degeneration, heart disease, Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, and vision and hearing loss.
Diseases like Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, all arise out of the breakdown of the motor neurons, which do not continue cell division after birth. There are no known cures for any of these diseases. The breakdown of the axon in the motor neuron causes the electrical impulses being sent from the brain to the muscle to misfire. Through this gradual breakdown of axons comes the breakdown of muscles within the body, causing the patient to slowly wither away. Many scientists feel that by studying mice with these diseases and by experimenting with stem cells, a cure can be found one day.
Stem cells are different from other kinds of cells in that they are unspecialized cells that renew themselves through long periods of cell division. Under certain conditions, they can be induced to become cells with special functions that could take the place of diseased cells in humans that cannot heal on their own. Their job in the body is to give rise to specialized cells such as heart muscle cells, blood cells or nerve cells. After these cells become specialized, they do not normally continue to divide.
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