Australian scientists said today they may have found a way to successfully treat brain, nerve and spinal injuries by harvesting adult neural stem cells.
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Conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's could also be reversed after researchers at the prestigious Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne claimed an international breakthrough.
They isolated large volumes of neural stem cells capable of regenerating into new tissue, nerves and muscle, according to research published in the international journal Nature Today.
The discovery could also end the ethical controversy surrounding stem-cell research on cloned human embryos, which are destroyed when the cells are extracted.
Research team head Mr Perry Bartlett said the work had proved the versatility of adult stem cells beyond a doubt.
"It's really taken us this last nine or 10 years to be able to find what the cell looks like, and having found it, we can now look at ways of being able to stimulate it into making new nerve cells with the possibility of replacing damaged or lost nerve cells in the adult brain," he said.
"It's important in the sense that there's been a debate about whether stem cells from adult tissues, whether that be brain or blood or elsewhere, do have the potential of embryonic stem cells to give rise to various tissues".
The Australian researchers said they were the first in the world to extract mouse neural stem cells pure enough for scientists to be able to experiment with their versatility.
If adult stem cells could be used to restore nerve function lost through diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, it would also get around the likely problem of cloned embryonic stem cells being rejected by the body's immune system, Mr Bartlett said.
AFP