The groundbreaking science behind adult stem cells

Not too long ago, the concept that adult bone marrow stem cells (ASCs) are actually the body’s natural renewal system was simply a fanciful idea. Researchers were reluctant to get involved in something resembling science fiction, however, in recent years there has been a sea change.

One of the earliest studies was conducted by a team led by Dr. Diane Krauss. The goal of the study was simply to prove something: can a single stem cell reconstitute the entire blood system?

In theory it was easy, but in reality it was much more difficult. The team persevered and came up with something ingenious. They knew that the only cells that will house the bone marrow are stem cells, so by injecting bone marrow cells into the blood, a few hours later they will end up in the bone marrow.

Dr. Krauss irradiated female mice and injected male bone marrow cells. After a few days, the team collected SCs from the bone marrow of recipient mice and injected a single SC into another irradiated female. This gave them the condition of a female mouse with radiation-damaged blood cells containing a single stem cell in her bodies.

Within a few weeks, Dr. Krauss and her team had the answer. The entire blood system of the female mouse was back, and they had definitively shown that a single bone marrow-derived SC can reconstitute the entire blood system.

There was also something else in this experiment. Since the SC came from a male and XY DNA, they were able to identify the Y chromosome in the female mouse. It appeared in various tissues such as the intestine, liver, lung and skin. This revealed that bone marrow stem cells can, in fact, travel to the various tissues and organs of the body and develop into new cells.

In this case, the SC used to regenerate the entire blood system came from a male donor, so the question posed, would the same migration and renewal occur if the stem cells were the animal’s own?

While Dr. Krauss was doing her study, in 2001, Dr. Orlic and his team and the National Institutes of Health set out to answer that question. They stimulated the release of SC in animals that had suffered infarctions. Dr. Orlic found that by significantly increasing the number of stem cells for a few days, the scarring of heart tissue was eliminated and near-normal heart function was restored in as little as 27 days.

This release of SC from the bone marrow was enough for them to travel to the heart, migrate to heart tissue, and develop into new healthy cells from that tissue. When you look at these amazing results, you really wonder why it took so long for the scientific community to catch on to the fact that the release of stem cells from the bone marrow is a natural process and this natural process is actually the body’s renewal system.