(Press-News.org) In a discovery that may help speed use of "cell therapy" — with normal cells or stem cells infused into the body to treat disease — scientists are reporting development of a way to deliver therapeutic human cells to diseased areas within the body using a simple magnetic effect. Their report appears in ACS' journal Langmuir.
Rawil Fakhrullin and colleagues explain that cell therapy aims to replace damaged or diseased cells in the human body with normal cells or stem cells. To do so, medical personnel need a way to target these cells to diseased organs or tissues. So-called superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), attached to therapeutic cells, show promise. Magnetic devices could be used to move such cells to diseased areas of the body. But current ways of attaching SPIONs to therapeutic cells are difficult to use and may damage the therapeutic cells. So the researchers set out to develop a better process for attaching SPIONs to human cells.
They describe a new process for making "stabilized" SPIONs in the laboratory and successful attachment of these magnetic nanoparticles to the outside of human cells. They found that the SPIONs were not toxic to cells, and they moved in response to a magnet. "Our current results, as we believe, will inspire scientists to apply the simple and direct technique reported here in tissue engineering and cell-based therapies," say the researchers.
###The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society contact newsroom@acs.org.
New process could advance use of healthy cells or stem cells to treat disease
2011-12-22
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