Beyond any doubt, last Tuesday Ukrainian scientists had their day. Not so successful with clowning or deciphering the human genome, the rage of our day, they did well in experimenting with embryonic marrow cells, another fashionable trend in medical science.
Such cells have worried the stars of medicine and biology for over four years, notably due to their so-called free affiliation. Reproducing themselves without limit, these cells can generate any tissue. Scientists found out that blood-creating marrow stem cells can be used to grow muscular, neural, and even liver cells. The discovery based on a multitude of laboratory tests has shown that this is where a cure for many diseases that afflict people might well reside. While their Western colleagues were still stuck at the hypothetical stage, the Ukrainian scientists managed to get the project in motion.
On Tuesday they patented their invention based on the Kukharchuk-Radchenko- Sirman effect. However, the discovery, predicted by experts for 2018, came sixteen years ahead of schedule. The mechanism is as follows: the introduction of a certain number of embryonic marrow cells in a body resuscitates the existing immune system, replacing it with a new one. The new cells attack the old ones, and given their increased productivity and larger quantity, the body will not reject them, something the medical profession has long tried to attain. Strangely, a body would not protest against, say, shifting the spleen from one place to another, rejecting at the same time the donor organ it needs. It is a truism that patients with transplanted organs and tissue have to use costly medication, immunodepressants, for the rest of their lives.
According to the researchers, specifically portioned and timed intravenous injections of embryonic marrow cells can bring the body’s immune system to the pre-natal stage. The old and diseased cells of the recipient die away, and the new, young, and healthy ones are treated by the body as its own. As stressed by one of the inventors, Professor and Doctor of Medical Sciences Oleksandr Kukharchuk, in this way doctors can remove the causes of diseases, not their effects. For instance, the method can be used to treat acute leucosis, disseminated sclerosis, myocardial infarction, Parkinson disease, anemia, and diabetes.
At the presentation the heroes showed truly mind-boggling photographs of test rats. A black rat had a part of skin of a white one transplanted, and vice versa. Scientists say that practically all the 550 rats involved in the experiments feel quite well after transplant operations. However, on their way to a positive result not everything was smooth. Following the skin transplants, within a single day two series of rats developed cell mutation resulting in malignancies. The scientists emphasize that they can deal with this problem. But there is less hope with another problem: blood type, with the latter transfused as if from within, without knowing the likely anti-genetic properties of newly-created erythrocytes.
Journalists, quite understandably, focused on the ethical aspect. Since only embryonic cells show these stunning properties, this could lead to a situation when, to get a sufficient supply of such cells for patients, doctors might openly encourage women to have abortions. Although researchers are still at the crossroads studying how to generate such quantities of cells, they have already proposed some ways, one of them being active cooperation with reproductive medicine clinics. Under in vitro artificial insemination, at least seven or eight ovules are involved, with only some selected for the final insemination. The discarded ovules, scientists argue, can be used to cure patients. Assessing the healing properties of embryonic marrow cells, the scientists say, “Between life and death there is immortality.”
