A third looks at efforts to grow nerve cells from rat skin and human scalp cells. Stem cells are valued because they can turn into different types of brain and nerve cells, a phenomenon that has many scientists hoping they might someday be able to grow cells to replace diseased cells. The new developments were reported this past weekend in New Orleans, at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The research findings, says Ronald D.G. McKay of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, are not yet clinical solutions. He notes that there are big differences among stem cells from embryos, from fetuses and from adult tissue, and scientists don't really know much yet about any of them.
Different people have different ideas.
The main definitions, said Ira Black of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, are that stem cells are immature cells which can duplicate themselves and grow into different kinds of mature cells. Gage's research used bits of tissue taken soon after death from children and young adults who had died of various neurological diseases. His lab got the tissue 10 hours to three days after death. Black's research has instead focused on bone marrow cells. In a previous study, he and his colleagues were able to turn 80 percent of the bone marrow cells taken from rats and humans into nerve cells.