For the first time, researchers have found a way to generate stem cells from ordinary human blood. The work being done by scientists at Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) of Madison, Wisconsin is the first to involve stem cells made from something readily available, in this case human blood samples. “From my knowledge of the market, there are companies out there that may be supplying a particular or specific cell type and offering it to industry, but CDI is doing it with a large suite of cells," says Andy DeTienne, licensing manager for stem cells at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The Foundation holds patents on stem cell work being conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and owns part of Cellular Dynamics.

In the near term, the discovery will enable Cellular Dynamics to more easily provide its researchers a diverse mix of stem cells to help them better understand diseases and various treatments. In the longer term, the work opens up the emerging field of personalized medicine. The hope is that ultimately, an individual could supply a vial of blood from which stem cells could be made and then deployed in the event of a spinal cord injury or the onset of a debilitating disease like Parkinson's.

"This stuff sounds like science fiction, but it's science fact - and we're doing it in a lab in Madison," says Bob Palay, the Madison biotech company's chairman and chief executive. “It opens up all human tissue cells, in all human diversity, to pharmaceutical and academic researchers. It's so huge, and so few people understand it," he adds and notes that the stem cells, which are referred to as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, have all the characteristics of embryonic stem cells. The goal, says Palay, is to ultimately mass-produce human cell types for research and to create a “bio-bank in which people could store stem cells engineered from their DNA for use in personalized therapies or in testing reactions to drugs."

News Release: Madison company generates stem cells from blood  www.jsonline.com  July 8, 2009