(PhysOrg.com) -- A research team led by Nancy Speck, PhD,
Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has identified the location and
developmental timeline in which a majority of bone marrow stem
cells form in the mouse embryo. The findings, appearing online
this week in the journal Nature, highlight critical steps in the
origin of hematopoietic (or blood) stem cells (HSCs), says
senior author Speck, who is also an Investigator with the
Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at Penn. Because HSCs,
found in the bone marrow of adult mammals, generate all of the
blood cell types of the body, unlocking the secrets of their
origin may help researchers to better manipulate embryonic stem
cells to generate new blood cells for therapy. “The ultimate
goal for stem cell therapies is to take embryonic stem cells and
push them down a particular lineage to replace diseased or dead
cells in human adults or children,” says Speck. For instance, in
theory embryonic ste