Stem cell therapy: Good fun, unless you become a zombie

Stripped and re-seeded heart

In the film, Resident Evil, corporate scientists create a “t-virus” that reanimates dead people. These “zombies” eventually escape (in the sequel) from their vast underground caverns to wander around a desert landscape not unlike New Mexico. For the rest of the film, zombies scuttle about, eyeballs dangling by cords, drooling ooze, and searching for healthy people to bite with their slimy mouths. It is a horrifying proposal, indeed, but it is a possibility.

It might seem like a nightmare, but according to the journal, Nature, real world scientists have figured out how to strip a mouse’s heart of all tissue and “re-seed” it with stem cells. These special cells have the ability to multiply, specialize, and organize into a beating heart. Up until now, when cells or organs become diseased or damaged to the point of no return, the only option has been to get a transplant. In order for this to proceed, we have to find a willing donor whose blood type matches our own. An organ transplant only extends life; it does not cure the problem. Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before the body will reject the donated tissue.

Now there is a new technology called cell-based therapy. One type of cell-based therapy is stem cell reseeding. A stem cell has the ability to become any cell in the body. People generally associate stem cell research with embryos because in their earliest stages (from 5 to 7 days) blastocysts are essentially made of stem cells. When the human egg joins with the human sperm, two cells have the ability to grow an entire body. Stem cells at this stage can become eyeballs, fingers, hair, brains, or lungs. However, stem cells also exist in every tissue in the body.

This type, called adult stem cells, is one of the most promising developments in science. Just like embryonic stem cells, these reprogrammed cells seem capable of becoming any of the 200-plus cell types in the human body, an ability called “pluripotency” (SN: 11/24/07, p. 323).

The University of Louisiana recently announced the world's first cardiac adult stem cell trial. People who have already undergone open-heart surgery will have the chance to have some of their heart tissue transformed into stem cells. The study invites the possibility that damaged heart tissues can be regenerated.

If successful, these treatments can stave off cell death that causes diseases like Alzheimer's, diabetes, paralysis, organ failure, and aging. While there may be the danger of creating new, scary cancerous cell lines, most everyone seems rather chipper about the idea of regeneration. Who would not want to regenerate a new liver? Some of us might really need to. Cheers!

On the other hand, an overenthusiastic cell line might be robust enough to bring us back from the dead. Oops. In that case, I know a cute girl named Alice (red dress, cool boots) who carries oodles of firearms we might want to call.