Advances in adult stem cell research could repair body parts

The debate surrounding embryonic stem cell research has been ongoing for about ten years, so in the meantime, scientists have focused their energy on adult stem cells.

The results of all their research show that a wide range of potential treatments may be developed from adult stem cells, including treatments for multiple sclerosis, heart attacks and diabetes, according to the Associated Press.

Adult stem cells have long been the basis for bone marrow transplants, and they have already saved perhaps hundreds of thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases -- but scientists have even more goals in mind.

The New York Daily News says that in the lab, scientists have actually managed to fashion beating hearts and bladders from the cells.

According to Harvard University's Dr. David Scaden, the promising new tests give scientists hope that one day, they will be able to use stem cells to cure other diseases.

"If we can recreate that success in other tissues, what can we possibly imagine for other people?" he said.

At Boston University Medical center, Dr. Thomas Einhorn was treating a patient with a broken ankle that wouldn't heal, even after he underwent multiple surgeries to fix it. The doctor decided to try drawing bone marrow from the man's pelvic bone and injecting it into the ankle. After four months, the ankle had healed completely.

Einhorn's patient is just one isolated case, but it shows the kind of progress that has taken place in the field. Optimistic reports on adult stem cell research have even boosted bioscience stocks, according to Sumfolio.com.

What makes adult stem cell research even more promising is the fact that they seem to stimulate tissue repair without the body rejecting the new tissue, because the cells come directly from the patient.

Dr. Rocky Tuan at the University of Pittsburgh said that quality "gives adult stem cells really a very interesting and potent quality that embryonic stem cells don't have."