Stem Cells Enhance Immunity

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Because of the large debates generated by any talk of stem cell research, many people aren't aware of many of the benefits of stem cells harvested from bone marrow. Recently, scientists and researchers have studied and discovered that such blood stem cells can enhance our immune response to various bacteria and diseases.
In the past, blood stem cells have been believed to propagate mainly in the bone marrow. Such cells, known as hematopoietic stem cells, or HSCs, are rather rare and usually found in bone marrow, though recent research has revealed that blood stem cells such as these are able to travel from bone marrow through the blood system and enter body organs, where they look for bacterial or pathogenic invaders. As such, because they synthesize, divide and mature, they offer welcome help to leukocytes in helping help ward off infection.

Says one Harvard Medical School professor of pathology, Dr. Ulrich von Andrian, "This process changes the way we look at blood stem cells."

Since most common immune response defenses can drastically weaken overall immune cell production and ability to fight off any long-term infection are bacteria, such stem cells, which help to replenish the body's defense system, is of huge importance. The idea that stem cells are an active part of the immune system leads researchers along new paths of discovery when it comes to human defense against a variety of invasions.

""This opens up a number of new avenues for us to explore ways that our bodies fight pathogens," says Andrian.

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