Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

meanderingsquid t1_iumjgc9 wrote

This is very cool research that can impact so many lives! Thanks for the work that you do.

My question is: Is it possible to also differentiate stem cells to other types of blood cells like platelets and white blood cells?

6

UniversityofBath OP t1_iumq9p8 wrote

Thank you so much for your kind words and the great question! If we use the right starting cell type, we can theoretically produce any target cell type of interest. For instance, we use red blood progenitor cells, which are what we refer to as 'lineage-committed' - so they can only mature into red blood cells and not other cell types in the blood tissue. However, the technology we are developing could use any starting cell type from the blood tissue - so if we were to use haematopoietic stem cells (not lineage-committed), we could potentially produce other cell types in the blood tissue such as white blood cells and platelets.

6