Boosting the body's natural defences

This article talks of new technique being developed to increase the production of Adult Stem Cells.

"Using a combination of drugs the team has stimulated bone marrow into releasing a flood of adult stem cells into the bloodstream. These then hurry to the site of an injury in the body to begin the process of repair and regenerate tissue."

This could advance stem cell therapy by leaps and bouinds as it would circumvent the current highly invasive procedure of harvesting ASC's from the blood and trying to get them to differentiate in a lab. If this highly complex differentiation is accomplished, then the cells must be reimplanted at the site of injury. This new procedure is completely non-invasive and allows for differentiation to be controlled by the body. This seems conducive to a higher success rate as wells as an effective alternative to the controversial embryonic stem cell treatments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/today/tomfeilden/2009/01/boosting_the_bodys_natural_def.html