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A new way to produce stem cells has been found
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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At the University of Copenhagen, scientists have been able to use stem cells obtained from a layer of human connective tissue in numerous experiments. This process allows stem cells to be successfully used in plastic surgery or to restore damaged organs.
As the head of the study said, the results obtained are of great importance, since they allow the creation of implants that will replace artificial ones, which have many disadvantages (for example, implant rejection is quite common). This is especially important in the restoration of women's breasts after the removal of oncological tumors. An implant created from one's own fat will make the breast more attractive and natural, and this type of surgery will have much fewer side effects.
During the research, scientists improved one of the common methods used for breast reconstruction – transplantation of one’s own fat. The disadvantage of this type of operation was the death of most of the transplanted cells after a few weeks.
The experimenters decided to increase the "survivability" of the cells by introducing adult stem cells. A special property of stem cells (which are in the fatty layer in a special layer of connective tissue) is that they are able to turn into vessels or other parts of fatty tissue, and this contributes to the survival of the transplanted cells. This method was tested on twenty volunteers who had part of their own fat transplanted from the abdomen to the upper part of the arm. Moreover, during the experiment, the volunteers were divided into two groups, in which one group received implants containing the person's own stem cells. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the therapy were carried out several months after the start of the experiment.
As the scientists themselves said, the experiment was extremely successful, about 90% of the transplanted cells along with the stem cells in the hands of the experimental volunteers remained viable. While in the second group, the cell survival rate was only about 19%. This result was observed four months after the start of the experiment. The scientists assume that this discovery will allow for operations to restore women's breasts, and the effectiveness of such an operation will be an order of magnitude higher than those currently being performed.
The Japanese authorities have given permission to conduct experiments on treating people using stem cells that are of non-embryonic origin. This type of experiment will be conducted for the first time in the world (permission was received in July of this year).
Two Japanese research institutes have submitted projects to the health minister for approval that propose using non-embryonic stem cells to treat retinal diseases that lead to complete blindness. Such stem cells (called induced pluripotent cells in the scientific world) are obtained from the patient's skin cells.
Before scientists were able to invent this technology for obtaining stem cells, human embryonic stem cells were used, which caused moral and ethical controversies.
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