Nearly 90 percent of the mouse embryonic stem cells evolved into bone nodules when allowed to grow in a lab dish for 21 days, Lee Buttery, a British scientist, told a symposium on stem cell research in London on Wednesday. Buttery's work is to be published in the January issue of the journal Tissue Engineering . Embryonic stem cells, the predecessors of all tissue in the body, have become a hot area of medical research because scientists believe they may eventually be able to treat scores of diseases by renewing sick body parts with injections of replacement cells. This would dramatically improve the methods of bone grafting and bone prosthesis in patients with severe traumatic bone injuries or suffering with diseases like osteoporosis. Embryonic stem cells have already been converted into nerve and muscle cells in previous research.
Stem cells form when an embryo is four days old, and go on to make up every part of the body.
Some types of stem cells are also found in adults. They do not appear to be as flexible as those blank cells found in embryos, but some studies suggest it might be possible to make them regress to a relatively unspecialized state and to redirect them into desired cell types. Opponents of embryo research argue that scientists should focus on investigating the potential of adult stem cells. Brigid Hogan, a stem cell researcher from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, said that while the British research adds bone to the list of cell types that have successfully been derived from embryo stem cells, using cells from adults might be a more simple and practical approach for bone disorders. She said scientists have demonstrated that skin taken from adults can be turned into bone and that most of the excitement over embryo stem cell research centers on the hope for producing transplantable cells that are desperately needed, such as brain cells for Parkinson's disease patients and insulin-producing pancreatic cells for diabetics.