Researchers at the Ontario Cancer Institute, led by John Dick, have found a way to hunt down and isolate the stem cells from which your entire blood supply is derived. Until now, these hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) have been remarkably hard to track and isolate – they represent just one in every 100,000 blood cells. Yet these HSC are remarkably potent – a single cell placed in a mouse was able to differentiate itself into every type of human blood cell – from just one cell essentially came an entire blood supply! John Dick’s team was able to identify the protein code on their surface which marks the HSC as different from other blood cells. With the knowledge of how to find HSC, scientists may be able to create huge quantities of blood stem cells for research, rocketing their work ahead. Doctors may one day be able to use similar techniques to produce vast supplies of blood for patients. After fifty years of stem cell experiments, and twenty three long years of Dr. Dick working with blood stem cells, we’ve finally isolated where they all come from. It’s an exciting time in science.
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