Experts grow blood cells to help in fight against cancer

SCIENTISTS have grown blood stem cells in a laboratory dish for the first time, raising hope for cancer patients.

After more than 20 years of trying, scientists can now create master cells which can turn into white and red blood cells.

In the long-term they could replace blood banks which rely on people giving blood.

But researchers’ main hope is that people could grow their own blood cells, used instead of bone marrow transplants to fight cancer and leukaemia.

Scientists have been able to grow brain and heart cells from adult skin cells for years, but blood cells have proven trickier. Skin cells, reprogrammed to become embryonic stem cells, seek to become the type

of blood stem cells found in unborn babies – which cannot fight adult illnesses.

A US team solved this using ‘Trojan horse’ viruses carrying genes which create adult blood stem cells in mice. For the first time, it could help people produce their own blood able to fight off illness. Dr George Daley, the study’s senior investigator from Boston Children’s Hospital, said: ‘We’re tantalisingly close to generating bona fide human blood stem cells in a dish. This is the culmination of over 20 years of striving.’

A British team led by the University of Cambridge have created red blood cells and platelets. But this is the first time stem cells capable of being all four types including lymphocytes and myeloid or white blood cells have been grown. The study is in the journal Nature.

‘This is culmination of 20 years’ work’