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Sunday, October 22, 2006Emmanuel Baetge, the chief scientific officer at Novocell and the senior author of the paper, said the cells were “not fully mature” but rather seemed similar to the beta cells in a human fetus. Those cells also do not respond to glucose, a capability gained after the baby is born. He said the insulin-producing cells had been derived by taking the embryonic stem cells and adding and subtracting various growth factors in a series of stages that mimicked the process that cells in an embryo go through to become a pancreatic cell. The process takes 16 to 20 days, he said. Dr. Baetge said that the company hoped to begin testing its cells in animals in 2008 and that if all went well to begin clinical trials in human patients in 2009. Such timeline projections by companies often prove overly optimistic. It remains to be seen how they will react in and with the body. They're only several years behind adult stem cells in this department, though. See also. posted by Sydney on 10/22/2006 11:01:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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