Stem Cells Shown To Regenerate Damaged Lung Tissue For First Time

"Many of the body's tissues once thought to be only locally regenerative may, in fact, be actively replaced by circulating stem cells after hematopoietic or blood-forming stem cell transplantation," says lead author Benjamin Suratt, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and Vermont Lung Center researcher at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. "This finding is of note not only for its novelty as a regenerative mechanism of the lung, but also for its vast therapeutic implications for any number of lung diseases."

According to Suratt, the study's findings indicate that circulating stem cells are going into organ tissue and repairing damage, which could have a huge impact on the treatment of such devastating lung diseases as emphysema or cystic fibrosis.

Supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health and a National Center for Research Resources Centers for Biomedical Research Excellence grant, Suratt and his colleagues are currently looking further into what types of cells have the capacity to differentiate and generate a different type of cell, and whether these cells might be used to treat cystic fibrosis.

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For more information on research taking place at the Vermont Lung Center at the University of Vermont, go to http://www.vermontlung.org

To link to the article abstract, go to: ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/168/3/318