Researchers have developed an artificial tissue in which human blood stem cells remain functional for a prolonged period of time.
For years researchers have been trying to reproduce bone marrow in the lab to better understand the mechanisms of blood formation and to develop new therapies.
However, this has proven extremely difficult as in conventional in vitro models, blood stem cells lose their ability to multiply and differentiate into different types of blood cells.
Now, researchers have engineered artificial bone marrow niche in which the stem and progenitor cells are able to multiply for a period of several days. It combines human mesenchymal stromal cells with a porous, bone-like 3-D scaffold and mimics the complex biological properties of natural bone marrow niches.
