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Reviewed By: Laura Martin,
SOURCES: 2008 Medical Reference from Medstar Television. Tim Townes, PhD, Researcher, University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.
© 1999-2011 Medstar Television
You're probably here today to learn more about sickle cell anemia.
Since childhood, Tahira Givhan has raised awareness about sickle cell, a disease that causes pain and organ damage from abnormally-shaped red blood cells.
Always in my speeches when I was younger, I'd always say at the end, um, all the doctors and scientists are working around the clock trying to find a cure.
Now 16, she's getting a glimpse at a promising breakthrough.
In about three weeks we can detect the stem cell.
Tim Townes, a researcher at The University of Alabama Birmingham, helped cure sickle cell in mice with a new technique to create stem cells, not from embryos, but from skin.
We grow those skin cells in a Petri dish and then we introduce these three genes into those cells and those three genes over a period of about three weeks, then convert skin cells to stem cells. And it still amazes me.
The new stem cells, called IPS cells, are converted into healthy red blood cells and transplanted back into the mice, curing the animals. If the experiment proves safe, Doctor Townes says human trials using the same technique could start in a few years.
We're incredibly optimistic about the potential.
Just to know that we are getting so close makes me so happy.
Happy, because the research could lead to a cure for the disease before Tahira is out of college. For WebMD, I'm Damon Meharg.
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