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CANADA: London Lab Joins U.K. Research Effort The Lawson institute seeks to expand the use of stems cells in curing diseases. TEVIAH MORO, Free Press Reporter 2004-05-29 02:28:11 A London scientist will share a $1-million British grant for stem cell research seeking treatments for stroke, Parkinson's disease and diabetes. David Hill, scientific director at Lawson Health Research Institute, said the three- year grant will be shared with labs at University of Birmingham and King's College in London, England. "This is a new block of money created specially by the British government to advance stem-cell research," Hill said. Stem cells repair and maintain organs and tissues. Hill's work at Lawson investigates how adult stem cells can be used to reverse diabetes in animals and grow insulin- producing cells in the lab. "Up till now, the belief of the usefulness of these cells was that if we could isolate them and grow them up in the laboratory and put them back into the tissue they came from, they might be very useful in repair processes," Hill said. "What we're exploring in this grant is whether . . . we can swap between tissues. So could we take a stem cell from one tissue and put it into another tissue and still get repair?" That would allow doctors to use stem cells from one part of the body to cure illnesses in other parts, Hill said. "We can't go to the pancreas to get stem cells because we can't go out and chop somebody's pancreas out." This swapping ability could potentially allow doctors to take a small skin biopsy to treat ailments in other parts of the body, Hill said. "That would be an important step in understanding the potential we have in using adult stem cells in future repair." Hill said securing some of the multimillion-dollar research money from the British government was a significant Lawson accomplishment. "It's very important for Canadian science that we are able not only to utilize Canadian taxpayers dollars, but that we can get into these funds that are in other countries as well," Hill said. "We'll operate it as if it's a a single laboratory, although we're operating, in fact, on two continents." Staff at the three laboratories will spend six months in Canada and six months in England each year, he said. SOURCE: London Free Press, Canada http://tinyurl.com/2aem3 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn