A team of research scientists from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine have found that stem cells in the amniotic fluid and placenta can be captured and used for stem cell research. Amniotic fluid, which surrounds and protects the baby during pregnancy (the “water” that breaks shortly before birth), is commonly withdrawn from expectant mothers to test for Down Syndrome and other conditions. Although regularly discarded, the amniotic fluid and the placenta may be a new line of stem cells to help people with a variety of injuries and illnesses including spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s Disease, and Alzheimer’s.
Spinal cord injuries, which can lead to paraplegia or quadriplegia, do not naturally heal themselves as other injuries to the body do. A cut on the finger, for example, triggers the body to produce more cells to close the wound. Scientists believe that in theory, stem cells injected and activated at the injury site could similarly trigger healing and reconnect the nerves in spinal cord injury.
Embryonic stem cells offer the best hope for this. These cells, formed in the first few days after conception, have the ability to turn into any type of cell in the body. However ethical issues and the presidential ban on developing new lines of embryonic stem cells has severely hindered any real research into how this might work, and how it could help conditions like spinal cord injury.
Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are free from ethical debates but do not have the same abilities to change, which would limit their uses and/or usefulness. Amniotic stem cells fall somewhere in between these two types and present the best of both worlds: no ethical issues and a great ability to change.
“It’s still in its early stages, but long-term our goal would be to develop these cells to provide therapy for patients,” said Dr. Anthony Atala, lead scientist of the study. The researchers found that nerve cells could be produced from these “amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells,” which is crucial for treating spinal cord injury.