Cancer
At the present time, bone marrow stem cells,
representing a more committed stem cell, are used to rescue patients following
high dose chemotherapy. Unfortunately,
these recovered cells are limited in their capacity to restore immune function
completely in this setting. It is hoped that injections of
properly-differentiated stem cells would return the complete repertoire of
immune response to patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation. Complete
and functional restoration will be required if, for example, immune/vaccine
anticancer therapy is to work. More importantly, success would permit use of
very toxic (and effective) chemotherapeutic regimens that could not currently
be utilized for lack of an ability to restore marrow and immune function.
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| Contributed by: AAAS DoSER and the Institute for
Civil Society
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