A bright experiment has just given humanity a greater hope for a better quality of life. A team of scientists at Karolinska Institute in Sweden has paved the way for another milestone in stem cell technology when it conducted a pre-natal stem cell procedure on two fetuses that have since been born and showed positive responses.
The Karolinska team related to BuzzFeed News that they want to prove the value of using fetal cells in research and treating severe brittle bone disease. As publicized earlier this week, the Boost Brittle Bones Before Birth or BOOSTB4 project, the very first formal clinical assessment of a prenatal stem cell therapy, will commence in Europe next January.
The trial will involve transplantation of fetal stem cells from women (who have already opted to have an abortion) into unborn babies diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI). OI is a genetic disorder that causes bones to break easily from little or no evident accident. Babies born with this illness is found to be unable to form enough collagen for body development. Victims of OI may be appropriate recipients of stem cell therapy since the treatment has been proven to aid in protein and collagen production and bone building. The oldest child who has received the treatment is now 13 and is still growing better than expected.
Dr. Cecila Gotherstrom, a member of Karolinska Institutet's Department of Clinical Sciences, Intervention and Technology will lead the said study that will be conducted to thirty babies, fifteen of whom will be given stem cells before birth, and the other half after delivery. Treatments will go on every six months over a period of two years to augment the results. The research will then monitor the effects by observing bone development of the babies and counting the number of bone fractures in both groups, and then compare them with the condition of the children who will not undergo the treatment.
However, despite this momentous effort in the field of stem cell, Gotherstrom makes it clear that the study is just an attempt to advance in the field of stem cell. "This is not a cure," she simply explains to BuzzFeed News.