Treating Baldness, Missing Teeth and Deafness with Stem Cells

Baldness

Hair follicles also contain stem cells, and some researchers predict research on these follicle stem cells may lead to successes in treating baldness through "hair multiplication," also known as "hair cloning," as early as 2008.

This treatment is expected to work through taking stem cells from existing follicles, multiplying them in cultures, and implanting the new follicles into the scalp.

Later treatments may be able to simply signal follicle stem cells to give off chemical signals to nearby follicle cells which have shrunk during the aging process, which in turn respond to these signals by regenerating and once again making healthy hair. Hair Cloning Nears Reality as Baldness Cure (WebMD Nov. 2004)

Missing teeth

In 2004, scientists at King's College London discovered a way to cultivate a complete tooth in mice and were able to grow them stand-alone in the laboratory. Researchers are confident that this technology can be used to grow live teeth in human patients.

In theory, stem cells taken from the patient could be coaxed in the lab into turning into a tooth bud which, when implanted in the gums, will give rise to a new tooth, which would be expected to take two months to grow.

It will fuse with the jawbone and release chemicals that encourage nerves and blood vessels to connect with it. The process is similar to what happens when humans grow their original adult teeth.

It is estimated that it may take until 2009 before the technology is widely available to the general public, but the genetic research scientist behind the technique, Professor Paul Sharpe of King's College, estimates the method could be ready to test on patients by 2007.

His startup company, Odontis, fully expects to offer tooth replacement therapy by the end of the decade.

Deafness

There has been success in regrowing cochlea hair cells with the use of stem cells.

Blindness and Vision Impairment

Since 2003, researchers have successfully transplanted retinal stem cells into damaged eyes to restore vision. Using embryonic stem cells, scientists are able to grow a thin sheet of totipotent stem cells in the laboratory.

When these sheets are transplanted over the damaged retina, the stem cells stimulate renewed repair, eventually restoring vision.

The latest such development was in June of 2005, when researchers at the Queen Victoria Hospital of Sussex, England were able to restore the sight of forty patients using the same technique.

The group, led by Dr. Sheraz Daya, was able to successfully use adult stem cells obtained from the patient, a relative, or even a cadaver. Further rounds of trials are ongoing.

In April 2005, doctors in the UK transplanted corneal stem cells from an organ donor to the cornea of Deborah Catlyn, a woman who was blinded in one eye when an acid was thrown in her eye at a nightclub. The cornea, which is the transparent window of the eye, is a particularly suitable site for transplants.

In fact, the first successful human transplant. The transplant carried out in 1905 by Dr. Eduard Zirm. The recipient was Alois Gloger, a labourer who had been blinded in an accident.

The cornea has the remarkable property that it does not contain any blood vessels, making it relatively easy to transplant. The majority of corneal transplants carried out today are due to a degenerative disease called keratoconus which causes vision imapairment and has no known cure even after corneal transplant.

It is hoped that stem cell research will one day provide a cure to such debilitating corneal disorders.

As more research yields increasingly precise techniques, stem cell transplantation to restore vision may become viable on a large. The success rate of the procedure is currently from 20 to 70 percent, and further stem cell research is required.

The content of this page is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Stem Cell Treatments ".