According to Mick Bhatia, a researcher at McMaster University in Canada and co-author of the study, there is a huge demand to find a process for generating red blood cells.
He took an initiative to start testing methods that might produce red blood cells and began harvesting skin cells from human volunteers and exposing the cells to a virus. The virus injected gene OCT4 into the cells, which encodes a protein to activate other genes into making other kids of cells. When placed in a cytokine solution, with molecules that stimulate the immune system, the skin cells turned in blood cells.
The new blood cells contained all three classes: white, red and platelets. They all seemed to function like normal adult blood cells.
These results will be very helpful in cancer research, especially for blood-related cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. The technique used by the scientists can also be beneficial for chemotherapy patients. The chemotherapy process is very hard on the patient’s blood, and presents a time during which the cancer can fight back even stronger.
This technique gives hope to blood cell replenishment. If the technique keeps proving to be successful, doctors will be able to help revive blood cells at a rate faster than ever before.
The scientists hope to begin clinical trials within the next three or four years.
According to research from the Mayo Clinic, the major component in green tea-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) reduced the number of leukemia cells in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
CLL is the second most common type of leukemia in adults. It is a disease of the blood and bone marrow, caused by an excess of certain white blood cells called lymphocytes, are made. Leukemia can sometimes progress slowly, with minimal symptoms.
Mayo clinic tested EGCG, and ran a phase I clinical trial to conclude that the survival of CLL cells was reduced with EGCG. Using the highest dose tested in phase I, they launched a phase II trial with 36 additional patients, making the total of patients 42. Out of the 41 patients who completed the study, 31 percent experienced a 20 percent or greater reduction in blood leukemia count, and 69 percent of the patients who had enlarged lymph dudes saw a reduction of 50 percent or greater.
Doctors Shanafelt and Kay, who were involved in the study, warn patients that the extract is not a substitute for chemotherapy. However, the research sheds light on EGCG used as a means to slow down CLL, as well as researching other nutraceuticals and their impacts on cancer.
Leukemia is a cancer of the body’s blood-forming tissues, such as bone marrow and the lymphatic system. The cancer usually begins in the white blood cells, which normally grow and divide in an orderly way, as your body needs them to fight off infection. In a patient of leukemia, the bone marrow produces white blood cells abnormally and in large amounts, which causes them to not function properly. Some falsely assume that Leukemia is a children’s disease. In fact, leukemia is diagnosed 10 times more often in adults than children.
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