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Stem Cells Offer Promise for Region
The Journal
31 May 2006
Stem cell research, like everything to do with bioscience, is so very complicated that many find it difficult to understand.
But the latest development, which flows out of a new partnership between scientists in the North-East and a North American company, is easy to comprehend.
It centres on blood from umbilical cords and placentas, and the stem cells it contains.
They're described by a team of scientists at Newcastle University and the city's Centre for Life as having an "amazing capacity" to develop into a range of human tissues.
It's a development that opens the path to research into disease and possible cures, while making tests on new drugs easier too.
First, though, a supply must be secured, which is why the scientists plan to employ a nurse who'll seek to persuade parents-to-be to donate their baby's cord blood.
As team leader Professor Colin McGuckin explains, that will give them a chance to contribute to their own child's future as well as that of other people.
But there's another aspect of this exciting new development that's worth noting: people and facilities here in the North-East are among the world leaders in this technology.
When it is refined and built upon through research and invention, it is the region and its people who will reap the benefits.
It's not the heavy industry of coal mining, shipbuilding or steel making, but it is the serious industry of the future.
And it's a future that belongs to us.
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