This is the kind of story I like:
Surgeons in Germany say they used stem cells from a 7-year-old girl's fat to help repair severe damage to her skull. It's apparently the first time that researchers have generated bone in a person by using the fat-derived cells.
The new work is an example of using so-called ''adult'' stem cells, as opposed to the more controversial ''embryonic'' stem cells that are recovered from early embryos. Adult stem cells are found in bone marrow and elsewhere in the body, and scientists hope to use their transforming ability to create replacement tissues for treating disease.
The girl in the new report had been injured in a fall two years before the surgery. She was missing several areas of skull totaling nearly 19 square inches, the German researchers reported.
Other surgeons had failed to correct the defects, and the girl wore a protective helmet. Her brain could sometimes be seen pulsating through the missing areas of her skull.
But several weeks after the stem-cell surgery, she was able to leave her helmet behind, the researchers report in the December issue of the Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery. The skull is now smooth to the touch, the missing parts replaced by thin but solid bone, said Dr. Hans-Peter Howaldt of the Justus-Liebig-University Medical School in Giessen, Germany. The child was not identified.
Though the doctors in the article were unable to prove beyond doubt that the stem-cells fixed the problem, they had no better explanation. At any rate, the procedure succeeded. Keep in mind that embryonic stem-cells weren't involved. I've read several stories of this type, involving adult stem-cells, or stem-cells taken from living people without harming the patient. Where are all the embryonic stem-cell success stories?
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