Blood Cell Development Reimagined

Since 1961, when biologists James Till and Ernest McCulloch discovered the first blood stem cell, researchers have thought that the various mature blood cell types developed from hematopoietic stem cells after a long process of several intermediate steps. But a new study, published last week (November 5) in Science, suggests that the process is much less involved.

A new study is rewriting 50 years of biological dogma by suggesting that mature blood cells develop much more rapidly from stem cells than previously thought.

This group studied about 3,000 human blood cells derived from people of different ages, including umbilical cord blood from infants. They noted that most of the progenitor cells were unipotent and not multipotent as previous models held. The new findings could be a significant boon to the treatment of blood-related maladies as well as regenerative strategies that aim to use stem cells from patients to develop mature cell populations to introduce back into ailing systems.

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Blood Cell Development Reimagined


Source: The Scientist Magazine®