WASHINGTON (AFP) ? US doctors have begun treating the first patient with embryonic stem cells as part of the first human study of the controversial treatment authorized by the government, the Geron Corporation said Monday.
The patient was enrolled at the Shepherd Center spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where Geron began clinical trials of their GRNOPC1 human embryonic stem cells in treating patients with devastating spinal cord injuries.
The trial comes just 11 years after Geron began working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999, when ?many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials,? said Thomas Okarma, Geron?s president and CEO.
Full Article Here.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells. This means that they can become any type of fetal or adult cell. These cells extracted from human embryos four or five days after fertilization. Those embryos that do not have stem cells extracted from them can continue to develop and may be used for in vitro fertilization to aid families in having children. They are to be distinguished from adult stem cells which do not destroy a life in the process of extraction.
as always... the blog has pretty pictures to boot
The patient was enrolled at the Shepherd Center spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where Geron began clinical trials of their GRNOPC1 human embryonic stem cells in treating patients with devastating spinal cord injuries.
The trial comes just 11 years after Geron began working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999, when ?many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials,? said Thomas Okarma, Geron?s president and CEO.
Full Article Here.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells. This means that they can become any type of fetal or adult cell. These cells extracted from human embryos four or five days after fertilization. Those embryos that do not have stem cells extracted from them can continue to develop and may be used for in vitro fertilization to aid families in having children. They are to be distinguished from adult stem cells which do not destroy a life in the process of extraction.
as always... the blog has pretty pictures to boot
