THE “monthly curse” may be anything but: menstrual blood appears to be a rich and accessible source of adult stem cells.
The uterine lining is already known to contain adult stem cells, but harvesting them would be as invasive as getting them from other adult sources, such as bone marrow.
Now two separate groups led by Xiaolong Meng of the Bio-Communications Research Institute in Witchita, Kansas, and Julie Allickson at Cryo-Cell International in Oldsmar, Florida, say they have found these cells in menstrual blood. Both groups say the cells show all the hallmarks of stem cells: they replicate without differentiating,…
