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medpundit |
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Tuesday, September 07, 2004An Italian boy has been cured of a potentially lethal form of anaemia by a new type of stem-cell therapy, using cells from the placenta of both of his recently born twin brothers, the health ministry said on Monday. ....The innovation of this operation was that it used two different batches of placenta blood from each of the brothers. One batch of blood was rich in stem cells -- basic cells that can grow into a variety of different cells. The other had been altered in vitro to combat the disease. His condition, thalassemia, is caused by defective gene that codes for hemoglobin structure. In severe forms, the hemoglobin molecule is so deformed that it can't bind with oxygen, rendering the red blood cell useless. It also deforms the shape of the red blood cell enough that it's destroyed by the body, thus the anemia. posted by Sydney on 9/07/2004 07:57:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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