The menstrual blood is a rich source of life saving stems cells, proves the study conducted by the city's eminent infertility expert Dr Indira Hinduja.
The menstrual blood is a rich source of life saving stems cells, proves the study conducted by the city's eminent infertility expert Dr Indira Hinduja. The research that took the doctor a year's time is now on its way to get published in an international journal.
Hinduja, said, "Embryonic stem cells are distinguished by two distinctive properties of being pluripotency and ability to replicate indefinitely. However, getting embryonic stem cells is not easy as it will mean donating embryos. In our study we proved that the menstrual blood too has stems cells that are similar to embryonic stem cells."
Hinduja further added, "During menstruation, the uterine lining or endometrium sheds and a new one is formed. We wanted to know that since it forms a new lining every month, if there is a presence of stem cells and what kind of stems they are."
“Collecting the cells from the uterine lining would have been invasive so we decided to check on menstrual blood instead and collected blood and tissue on the first day of the cycle," said Hinduja.
According to Hinduja, the menstrual stem cells could offer several advantages. "They come from a source that's easy to obtain from women, they could be used to treat patients without the fear of tissue rejection, and they avoid the ethical questions associated with embryonic stem cells," she said.
Compared with the stem cells from other sources, such as bone marrow and cord blood, the menstrual stem cells are easier to collect and do not cause any harm or pain to the donor and can be collected for more than 35 years, from the age of 12 years old to 47 years.
"During our experiments we found that the menstrual stem cells could turn into different tissue types including bone, blood vessel, brain, lung, liver, pancreas and heart," said Hinduja.
The study shows that the new stem cells also grow readily and rapidly, which is an important advantage because it is difficult to get some types of adult stem cells to give rise to enough cells to be of any medical value.
Along with Hinduja, Dr Kusum Zaveri and Manish Chaudhary were also involved in the study.
The research is being done at Inkus IVF centre in collaboration with Jaslok hospital. The tests were carried out at NIRRH, Parel and Advance Centre for treatment and Research in Cancer.
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