幹細胞論壇

       根據加拿大7日刊出的一項研究指出，研究幹細胞的人員發現將人類皮膚轉成血液的方法，這個方式可用於治療癌症或其他疾病。

　　「自然」期刊(Nature)刊登的這項研究指出，這個方式是利用取自人類一小片皮膚細胞，這意味以後無需由陌生人捐血。

      研究人員將名為OCT4的基因，植入人類皮膚細胞內來製血，由於製造的是成人血液，比由胚胎幹細胞製造的血易品質更高，過程亦較簡單，亦可避開利用人類胚胎幹細胞製血引致的爭議。

　　這篇研究的作者、狄格羅特醫學院(Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine)麥馬斯特幹細究及癌症研究中心(McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute)學者巴提亞(Mick Bhatia)指出，未來將能以更有效率方式製血。

　　這項先進的技術讓人類可以從自身的皮膚造血輸血，代表未來病患手術需要用血或治療貧血症，可以繞過血液銀行而從自身取得所需血液供應。

　　未來也可見到，這項突破可以應用在讓化療病患接受較長的治療，而不會像現在需要多次暫停治療以等待身體恢復。

Adult human skin cells converted directly to blood cells, skipping intermediate stem cell step

In line with developments on cancer treatments, researchers make the revolutionary discovery of transforming human skin into blood cells. Patients with anemia, leukemia or kidney failure might from now on receive blood for their treatment that stems from their own skin and matches their genetic set-up.

Research at McMaster University in Ontario transformed human skin cells into human blood cells with a mixture of certain chemicals. The result of the transformation could be identified as healthy blood cells containing red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets, depending on the chemical combination.

The transformation was completed without first rewinding the skin cells into the flexible pluripotent stem cells that have most frequently been used to grow needed tissues. By skipping the pluripotent step, the researchers believe they have skirted the risk that the replacement cells might form dangerous tumors.

The researchers collected skin fibroblasts from many volunteers to develop the blood progenitor cells. The cells were later contaminated by a virus, which helped in the development of gene OCT4 in the system

The scientific director at the university's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in Canada, Mickie Bhatia, explains proudly: "If the patient has anemia, they only need red blood cells, so we can change the recipe and make those. If we wanted to treat someone with a blood coagulation disorder, we change the recipe again and make platelets".

The study represents the first successful attempt to directly convert cells from human test subjects. Although researchers assign high importance to this groundbreaking discovery, they now need to research on ways to artificially produce large amounts of human blood from skin and test how the human organism finally adopts the artificially produced cells.