Imagine a bank of cells in a research laboratory. The rows go on and on, covering virtually every human disease and disorder. Yes, but such a bank is under construction by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. A group of cells called 'stem cells' is the focus of study, said Mary Pat Moyer, PhD, professor of surgery at the Health Science Center, who heads a research team looking at neural stem cells in collaboration with scientists from the UT Medical Branch at Galveston and UT Austin. Neural stem cells are the immature, or precursor, form of brain cells and nervous system cells.
Stem cells are so fascinating.
They can be bred for specific purposes. Neural stem cells are the beginning cells from which all functional neural cells in the body develop. It is a similar concept to blood banking. Dr. Moyer will give an invited presentation on this exciting research Sept. 22 at the Cell and Tissue Bioprocessing Conference in Kansas City. The work is funded by InCell Corp. of San Antonio and the Center for Human Cell Biotechnology at the Health Science Center.