Comment Re:How much blood can "a patch of skin" provide? (Score 1) 229
thanks CWDog,
now I am way more inclined to believe this, 'McMaster' university sounds a bit fishy.
For those looking for a summary:
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To make blood progenitor cells they infected skin fibroblasts with a virus inserting the OCT4 gene, then grew them in a soup of immune-stimulating cytokines.
OCT4 is one of a handful of Yamanaka factors used to transform fibroblasts into iPS cells, but Bhatia's team found no evidence that the blood progenitor cells that they had made went through an embryonic state. The cells' gene-expression patterns never resembled those of embryonic stem cells. The blood progenitor cells didn't cause mice to develop tumours.
The progenitors produce all three classes of blood cells — white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets."
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Mighty impressive!