With moral issues hounding stem cell research, especially with the use of stem cells from embryos, researchers are finding other ways to develop stem cell technologies that will have the same results as that of the use of embryonic stem cells.
Recent research showed that a polymer found in brown seaweeds can support the growth and release of stem cells in the body as disease or injury is detected.
“We have developed a scaffold for stem cell culture that can degrade in the body at a controlled rate,” said lead researcher Ravi Kane, professor of chemical and biological engineering. “With this level of control we can foster the growth of stem cells in the scaffold and direct how, when, and where we want them to be released in the body.”
Engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute spearheaded this study. They used alginate, a complex carbohydrate found in the seaweed, which when mixed with calcium, becomes a rigid three dimensional mesh. They envision that this can be used in regenerative medicine, and release stem cells directly to injured body parts. For example, healthy bone stem cells can be released directly to the injured bone, or neuron stem cells can be released to the brain to replace cells destroyed by Alzheimer’s disease.
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