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Leveraging human genetic variation in regenerative medicine

November 19, 2015 8:00 AM UTC

A team from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard is taking cues from individuals with very high red blood cell (RBC) levels to enhance the efficiency of producing replacement blood in vitro. The strategy, published in Cell Stem Celllast month, highlights how regenerative medicine can look to natural human genetic variations and gene editing technologies for ways to safely enhance harvests of differentiated cells.

"Red blood cells that have been produced from different stem cell sources have actually been transfused into recipients in clinical trials, so we know that this works. The problem is really one of scale and quality," said Vijay Sankaran, the principal investigator on the study. ...