Nobel nominees were the founders of stem cell science
Speculation abounded earlier this week that the founders of
stem cell science – James
Till and Ernest McCulloch – would be honoured for their achievement with a prestigious Nobel Prize.
While it turned out that the Prize was awarded to a deserving
trio of researchers for their work on chromosomes, the buzz of anticipation and
conjecture over just who would win has once again thrown two very laudable
Canadians into the spotlight.
Till and McCulloch proved the
existence of stem cells nearly 50 years ago with their groundbreaking work that
studied the effects of radiation on the body’s ability to form blood. In
testing irradiated mice that were injected with bone marrow cells, Till and
McCulloch discovered bumps on the surface of the spleen in numbers that were
directly proportional to the number of injected cells (Radiation Research 1961).Though
they were not the first to have seen such nodules, they were the first to
postulate that these nodules were the result of stem cells.
Till and McCulloch subsequently performed very elegant tests
to prove the existence of stem cells. First, they created bone marrow cells,
each with a unique genetic identifier (or marker) in order to show that each
spleen bump was in fact a colony of cells derived from a single cell (Nature 1963). The second test
demonstrated that cells within the spleen colony were capable of forming
another colony – in other words, the cells were capable of self-renewal. It was
the beginning of stem cell science.
Watch the video of Jim Till talking about stem cell
science:
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See related article in October 11 Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/708640
Posted by: Stem Cell Network admin | October 15, 2009 at 07:57 AM