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Man in remission from blood cancer and HIV after remarkable treatment

theguardian.com

1–10 of 61 posts

Re: Man in remission from blood cancer and HIV after remarkable treatment

#3
post #2

Here's a dumb question: is it possible to culture stem cells? Or make more of them? Or does every stem cell have to be donated?

The process is commonly known as stem cell culture or stem cell expansion. Stem cells have the unique ability to self-renew, meaning they can divide and produce more stem cells while maintaining their undifferentiated state.

Re: Man in remission from blood cancer and HIV after remarkable treatment

#4
post #2

Here's a dumb question: is it possible to culture stem cells? Or make more of them? Or does every stem cell have to be donated?

You can build stem cell lines that reproduce stem cells.

You can also "go backwards" from skin stem cells to fully featured stem cells.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584308/

>Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, are a type of pluripotent stem cell derived from adult somatic cells. They have been reprogrammed through inducing genes and factors to be pluripotent. iPS cells are similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells in many aspects.

Re: Man in remission from blood cancer and HIV after remarkable treatment

#5
Edmonds, of Desert Hot Springs, California, underwent a treatment in which he received stem cells with a rare genetic mutation that makes people who have it resistant to acquiring HIV. The stem cell transplant came from a donor with the rare homozygous CCR5 delta mutation.

Re: Man in remission from blood cancer and HIV after remarkable treatment

#7
post #2

Here's a dumb question: is it possible to culture stem cells? Or make more of them? Or does every stem cell have to be donated?

Not a dumb question at all. The difficulty with cells from multicellular organisms is that they are used to be part of a larger organism. Isolating individual cells and keeping them alive is very difficult.

The oldest cultured human cell line are HeLa cells[1] which are derived from cervical cancer cells and they are therefore not normal human cells. Cancer evolves to be resilient and is therefore easier to cultivate than regular well-behaving cells.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

Re: Man in remission from blood cancer and HIV after remarkable treatment

#8

[flagged]

I salute him for going through a treatment that causes great personal pain and discomfort that probably only has marginal benefit for him but has huge benefits for those who come later.

Would that we had many more people with that kind of selflessness.

Re: Man in remission from blood cancer and HIV after remarkable treatment

#10

[flagged]

The article says: > Edmonds received bone marrow and blood stem cells from the donor in 2019.

The extra five years of life may be a nothing-burger to you, but to Edmonds and his family and friends, I'm sure it has slightly more meaning. Also, most people at 72 don't look entirely healthy and many have multiple health issues.

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