Harvard University researchers have expressed their hope that the muscle stem cell can be used as a solution to the conditions such as muscular dystrophy. Dr Amy Wagers and her team successfully transplanted muscle stem cells from healthy mice into the muscles of mice that show symptoms similar to Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, Director of Research at the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, commented:

“Increasingly more research is being carried out to further the understanding of stem cell biology. The results reported by Dr Amy J Wagers and her team show that it is possible in an animal model to isolate muscle stem cells from a healthy adult mouse and transplant them successfully into a mouse with muscular dystrophy. Although stem cell technology is still in it’s infancy this is another step towards developing this technology into a viable treatment for people with muscle disease.”

However, the researches also said that even though the tests on the mice have shown successful results, there are some practical problems in the use of the same procedure in human. In humans, avoiding immune rejection of transplanted cells and distributing the cells evenly throughout the muscles of the body would be a major challenge. The researchers have suggested for more study before come to any decision on the subject.

Source: Medical News Today