Spray-on skin gun: fill up your wounds with stem cells

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skin-gun.jpgJust opened up a gash in your arm the size of the Grand Canyon? No bother, simply fill it up with stem cells, sprayed on with this skin gun, and you’ll feel right as rain in the morning.

Well, actually, you won’t but this undifferentiated human bio-matter is perfect for molding itself into whatever kind of body cell needed and will give mother nature, and your repair system, one hell of a boost in recovery time. Of course, the only downside is that essentially, you’ll be spraying aborted foetus directly into your arm, which could be a bit of issue if you happen to be a pro-lifer.

However, apparently the US army are completely cool with harnessing the power of dead babies and their Institute for Regenerative Medicine has just invested $250 million in this research that could help glue GIs back together for many years to come. That’s a nice spray job, soldier.

(via Dvice)

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Daniel Sung
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9 comments

  • Immunosuppression only part of the problem. Also need reliable production of correct cell type (only done so far with adult stem cells, not embryonic), in enough quantities ahead of time, and without risk of the cells starting to grow a tumor or extra arm. For battlefield no time to get patient’s bone marrow. Use pre-stocked adult stem cells, which can be grown & stored ahead of time & don’t cause immune response. Example would be Prochymal by Osiris:
    http://www.osiristx.com/ars-defense.php

    • With immuno-suppressants it wouldn’t make any difference what kind of stem cells you use. Although it’s more complicated, one only has so much bone marrow at any one time.

  • They use ADULT stem cells, e.g., from bone marrow, which are the only stem cells that show any positive results with patients (not fetal or embryonic stem cells, which form tumors.)

    “Proponents complain that medicine involving adult stem cells is underfunded because it is often confused with controversial embryonic stem cell research. But the stem cells Einhorn uses don’t come from embryos; they come from the patients themselves.”
    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4666895&page=1

    • Seems a bit of a waste not to use both? After all, they’re both perfectly valid.

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