ONE paediatrician’s trash is another’s treasure. When amniotic fluid is tested to see if a fetus has any chromosomal abnormalities, the sample is usually disposed of immediately afterwards.
But Dario Fauza of Boston Children’s Hospital has found a way of coaxing cells in the fluid to grow into sections of cartilage tube, which he used to patch holes in the defective tracheae of lambs before birth.
He extracted mesenchymal cells from the amniotic fluid of sheep – these cells are similar to the stem cells found in adult bone marrow and are shed naturally during a fetal development. The cells…
