Growing new tissue with umbilical cord novel cells...

A press release issued by the people at ViaCell argues that researchers can grow bone and heart tissue using novel cells found in umbilical cord blood.

Obviously, readers should take the claim with a grain of salt. The statement is issued by ViaCell, who has a strong interest in increasing the use and popularity of cord blood banking and storage. However, the publicity material does site refereed medical research on the topic and stops short of making exaggerated claims regarding the technique's efficacy.

Excerpt:

For the first time, using novel cells found in human umbilical cord blood, researchers have shown the ability to grow bone, cartilage, hematopoietic (blood), neural, liver and heart tissue in in vivo studies. The article is entitled, "A new human somatic stem cell from placental cord blood with intrinsic pluripotent differentiation potential" and is available in the July 19, 2004 issue, vol.200, no. 2, of JEM. Dr. Peter Wernet, the President of NETCORD, commented, "To our knowledge, we are the first group to demonstrate that neonatal somatic stem cells can be robustly expanded in vitro under pharmaceutical conditions to very large

The full release is available here. numbers and can differentiate, in vivo, into a number of tissue types and take on the properties and specific functions of the cells in those tissues." This discovery was made by Dr. Wernet, Dr. G. Koegler and scientists at ViaCell.