Aug. 13, 2010 Isolating cells from a patient's blood or bone
marrow that nourish blood vessels may be a safer and less
arduous route to treatment of cardiovascular disease than
obtaining rare stem cells, according to research from Emory
University School of Medicine. In recent clinical trials,
doctors in several countries have tested the ability of a
patient's bone marrow cells to repair damage, such as heart
attacks and peripheral artery disease, created by problems of
blood flow. "The focus has been on stem cells, but it looks like
the main beneficial effects come from transplanted cells'
ability to support the growth of nearby blood vessels," says
senior author Young-sup Yoon, MD, PhD, associate professor of
medicine (cardiology) at Emory University School of Medicine.
"Based on this idea, we wanted to identify a population of cells
enriched with the capacity to regenerate blood vessels." The
blood vessel-repairing properties of selected cells from human
blood were described in the Aug. 10 issue of the Jou