Sickle cell anaemia is a chronic, usually fatal anemia marked by sickle-shaped red blood cells, occurring almost exclusively in Black people of Africa or of African descent, and characterized by episodic pain in the joints, fever, leg ulcers, and jaundice. The disease occurs in individuals who are homozygous for a mutant hemoglobin gene. Also called sickle cell disease.
Induced pluripotent stem cells repair heart, Mayo Clinic study shows — New iPS therapy pioneered for heart attacks. – Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be used to treat heart disease, revealed by researchers at Mayo Clinic, USA. iPS cells are stem cells converted from adult cells.
Embryo’s heartbeat drives blood stem cell formation – Clues about how blood forms could yield new strategies for treating blood diseases. – Biologists have long wondered why the embryonic heart begins beating so early, before the tissues actually need to be infused with blood. Two groups of researchers from Children’s Hospital Boston, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) -? presenting multiple lines of evidence from zebrafish, mice and mouse embryonic stem cells -? provide an intriguing answer: A beating heart and blood flow are necessary for development of the blood system, which relies on mechanical stresses to cue its formation.
Using a new type of stem cells made from ordinary skin cells, US researchers said they treated mice with sickle cell anemia.
– MIT researchers have successfully treated mice with sickle-cell anemia in a process that begins by directly reprogramming the mice’s own cells to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the use of eggs.
