Till today the menstrual blood that is released by females every month is being discarded as the unhygienic waste. But, does anyone know that the menstrual blood is the bank of self-renewing stem cells that multiply in haste. Yes this is true that this discarded unhygienic waste contains a large amount of self-renewing cells that can make a distinction into various other body cells which reveals a great prospective for the cell therapy.
A menstrual blood stem cell banking service is being setup in India at Chennai the capital of Tamil Nadu. According to the scientists here, the menstrual blood stem cells can be collected, processed and harvested in an affordable and non-invasive manner. This is a monthly phenomenon that during a woman’s menstrual period the uterine lining sheds along with the blood and the tissues. This uterus lining surrounds a vast number of mesenchymal stem cells. Mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs, are multipotent stem cells that can make a distinction into a variety of cell types, including: osteoblasts (bone cells), chondrocytes (cartilage cells) and adipocytes (fat cells). The cells from the inner membrane of the uterus of the mammal also known as endometrium, are unique for the reason that they hold numerous features that are similar to the bone marrow as well as to the embryonic stem cells.
The menstrual blood stem cell technology is not yet been used in human therapies, but the committee of ongoing research may bring a change in the types of therapies that are being used to make a diagnosis of the various significant medical conditions in the mere future. This would help in the treatment of the numerous people worldwide that are suffering from various diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and many others.
As said by Dr Ajit Kumar, the scientific officer of a blood bank says, the menstrual blood stem cell technology is the bright future of medicine. Kieo University School of medicine where the various experiments were undertaken, have tasted the fruit of success by growing the sheets of heart muscle from connective tissue cells that are harvested from the menstrual blood. The tissue cells in the menstrual blood are 100 times successful than the 0.2-0.3 percent of the stem cells being taken from the bone marrow of human being.
Once the menstrual blood stem cells are being collected, they are sent out to blood bank’s state of art laboratory at Chennai for further processing. These cells are further harvested and frozen in liquid nitrogen storage container. This process of preservation enables the stem cells to regain their effectiveness and feasibility for an indefinite period of time.