Word: ucla
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When their 11-month-old son Layne died abruptly of liver failure after an infection with Epstein-Barr virus in 1994, Theresa and Scott LaRue were devastated. Layne, it turned out, had a rare inherited disorder that severely compromised his immune system. And when doctors at the UCLA Medical Center tested the three other LaRue children, two were found to be similarly afflicted...
...from a newborn's umbilical cord and placenta. Unlike their more controversial cousins, embryonic stem cells, which are harvested from aborted fetuses and can develop into almost any cell, cord blood cells are used to rebuild blood and immune systems--exactly what the LaRue boys needed. In effect, says UCLA's Dr. E. Richard Stiehm, "we transplant another baby's immune system into the sick child's body...
...early 1995 the LaRues let the UCLA doctors proceed with their son Blayke, then eight months old. "It was a horrible decision," Theresa says, and for a while they regretted it. Blayke languished in the hospital for two years. First, his new immune system began attacking his spleen. Surgery solved that problem, but he was still so sick he had to be fed intravenously for many more months...
...just an aging starlet's daydream - it's true. UCLA scientists have figured out a way to harvest stem cells, those celebrated and controversial medical miracles, from fat removed during cosmetic surgery. It's a discovery that could, in the very long term, both bolster scientists' quest for elusive cures and, perhaps more important to the denizens of La-La Land, remove the stigma of selfishness from the process of attaining preternaturally thin thighs...
...Science has been touting stem cells for years now. But, as the UCLA team is quick to point out, stem cell research is currently hampered by the controversy surrounding the cells, which are generally culled from aborted fetuses or from embryos left behind after fertility treatments. If scientists can perfect a method of extracting stem cells from discarded (and decidedly uncontroversial) fat, they could skirt the ethical conundrum altogether...