Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have isolated a human blood cell that represents the great-grandparent of all the cells of the blood, a finding that could lead to new treatments for blood cancers and other blood diseases.
This cell, called the multipotent progenitor, is the first offspring of the much-studied blood-forming stem cell that resides in the bone marrow and gives rise to all cells of the blood. It’s also the cell that’s thought to give rise to acute myelogenous leukemia when mutated.
Isolating this cell, which is well known in mice but had yet to be isolated in human blood, fills in an important gap in the human blood cell family tree. The work is published in the Dec. 13 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Release date: December 12, 2006
Source: Stanford University
Filed Under: Drug Discovery
