A new report says that leftover fat from liposuction procedures produces very efficient stem cells that could be used to save lives. The stem cells made from fat grow much faster than stem cells created using other methods.
In the study, which will be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers describe how Stanford plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Longaker's liposuction patients donated one to three liters of their fat, which he called "liquid gold" [San Jose Mercury News]. The researchers separated out the globular fat and prepared the fat tissue cells for reprogramming–a process that took only two days, instead of the three to four weeks required for skin cells. The reprogramming procedure was also faster, taking only two weeks. Finally, it was 20 times more efficient than the skin cell conversion.
In a similar study, published in the Journal of Cell Science, researchers found that reprogramming melanocytes, the pigment-producing skin cells that give rise to moles, was also faster and more efficient than reprogramming regular skin cells. While much more work needs to be done to prove that both kinds of altered cells are safe, the researchers say that making stem cells out of waste products could be a boon for medical research. Says Longaker: "There's a lot of fat in America, unfortunately, and it's a renewable source of cells" [Nature News].
