Skin -> blood conversion

[Dr Mordrid]

Could make bone marrow transplant HLA matching obsolete, among other things. A-freaking-mazing.

Link....

(PhysOrg.com) -- In an important breakthrough, scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to make human blood from adult human skin.

The discovery, published in the prestigious science journal Nature today, could mean that in the foreseeable future people needing blood for surgery, cancer treatment or treatment of other blood conditions like anemia will be able to have blood created from a patch of their own skin to provide transfusions. Clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012.

Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and his team of researchers have also shown that the conversion is direct. Making blood from skin does not require the middle step of changing a skin stem cell into a pluripotent stem cell that could make many other types of human cells, then turning it into a blood stem cell.

"We have shown this works using human skin. We know how it works and believe we can even improve on the process," said Bhatia. "We'll now go on to work on developing other types of human cell types from skin, as we already have encouraging evidence."
The discovery was replicated several times over two years using human skin from both young and old people to prove it works for any age of person.
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[Brian Ellis]

Clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012...
The discovery was replicated several times over two years

If thry already have 2 years experience, why do they need another 2 before starting trials, which may take 5 years to complete? Until 2017, this is pie in the sky for Joe Bloggs, even assuming all tests go swimmingly. Call me back in 7 years!

[VJ]

Brian: I wonder if legislation may not be a delaying factor. The requirements before being able to perform trials on humans are difficult...

Great development though!

[Brian Ellis]

No doubt, but bureaucracy can stifle developments, as well as delay them, sometimes to no purpose (cf. number of drugs prohibited after being declared safe). This means there is always a risk, so why unnecessary delays? I take 17 pills/day (24 on Wednesdays). I grant you about half of them are non-therapeutic but are prophylactic to reduce side-effects of therapeutic ones. However, this cocktail of drugs has almost certainly never been clinically tested as an ensemble and I have no idea the degree of risk I'm subjected to, nor even any interactions between 5 medications for cardiac regulation, 7 for auto-immune diseases and 1 for urogenital purposes (not blue!), not to mention the odd painkiller or the drops I had for 4 weeks after cataract operations. It is a Russian roulette. So why not some synthetic blood, if it became necessary, even if testing was somewhat more rapid than usual???

[Dr Mordrid]

2 years would be if the application were being handled at warp 9

They have done this in the lab, but starting clinical trials takes time.

First they have to do more biological tests, then come animal trials of any proposed treatments using the tech - a sepate one for each treatment. After that they have to draw up a proposal for human trials that includes volunteer patient type criteria, copies of the consent forms and potential side effects. A host institution also has to be found if the researchers home one doesn't or can't host it.

After all that a proposal goes to the FDA as an "Investigational New Drug Application," and that application requires approval (months, at the least) and the assignment of an "Independent Review Board," who oversees the trial. Just finding reviewers can also take time. Volunteers for the trial are also reviewed.

And so on.....

There are provisions for accelerated human trials, but those criteria are very tight.