Stem cell research centre to be opened
Wednesday, May 03, 2006 - Stem Cell Guru
How many times have you seen headlines like the one above? And how many times have they been related to embryonic stem cell research? I'd guess your answer to the first question would be "Too many to count." and the answer to the second "Just about all of them."
And that's why it's good to read that the Australian government are bucking recent trends and pushing forward with federal funding for an adult stem cell research centre.
The funding for a new adult stem cell research centre in Brisbane was announced recently and the research centre at Queensland's Griffith University is believed to the first in the world dedicated to adult stem cell research. It will focus on diseases of the brain and spine, including Parkinson's, schizophrenia and motor neurone disease, but will not conduct research using embryonic stem cells.
Last year Australian scientists showed that stem cells from the olfactory mucosa - the organ of smell in the nose - could be grown in the laboratory into different types of cells, including heart, liver, muscle, kidney and blood cells. The researchers would not be drawn on the effectiveness of adult stem cells compared with embryonic stem cells, but said that their studies had shown that using adult cells was an efficient process.
Why push forward with adult stem cell therapies when elsewhere in the world funding for embryonic cell research is grabbing all the headlines? This quote from Professor Mackay-Sim, who is in charge of the centre, provides the answer "The main aim here is clinical outcomes."
Read the full article from Australia's Sydney Morning Herald.
And that's why it's good to read that the Australian government are bucking recent trends and pushing forward with federal funding for an adult stem cell research centre.
The funding for a new adult stem cell research centre in Brisbane was announced recently and the research centre at Queensland's Griffith University is believed to the first in the world dedicated to adult stem cell research. It will focus on diseases of the brain and spine, including Parkinson's, schizophrenia and motor neurone disease, but will not conduct research using embryonic stem cells.
Last year Australian scientists showed that stem cells from the olfactory mucosa - the organ of smell in the nose - could be grown in the laboratory into different types of cells, including heart, liver, muscle, kidney and blood cells. The researchers would not be drawn on the effectiveness of adult stem cells compared with embryonic stem cells, but said that their studies had shown that using adult cells was an efficient process.
Why push forward with adult stem cell therapies when elsewhere in the world funding for embryonic cell research is grabbing all the headlines? This quote from Professor Mackay-Sim, who is in charge of the centre, provides the answer "The main aim here is clinical outcomes."
Read the full article from Australia's Sydney Morning Herald.
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