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In the fall of 2010, a team of scientists in California injected human stem cells into the spinal cords of mice with a condition similar to multiple sclerosis, expecting the mice to reject the cells like they might an organ transplant.
That was the point of the research — to better understand the common problem of stem cell rejection, explained Tom Lane, a University of California, Irvine pathologist now working at the University of Utah.
About two weeks after the injections, however, Lane received an unexpected call from his postdoctoral fellow, Lu Chen.
"She said, ‘These mice are walking,’ and I thought, ‘I don’t believe you,’" recalled Lane, who went down to the lab to see for himself. "Sure enough, there were groups of mice that had gone from being paralyzed to walking around the cage."
Repeated experiments had the same results, which were published Thursday in the journal Stem Cell Reports. The study was funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
What works in mice doesn’t always work in humans...