Can you take stem cels from blood ?

Question

From the mouth of an elderly person

I was told that they are taking blood in what looks like a dialisis machine and extracting stem cels which are then sorted out of the blood

And put back into the patient -


To the best of my limited knowledge this is impossible

The woman who described what was going on wit her daughter in law - may just be confused or misunderstood or a million other things -

I chose not to argue as I don't know that much on the topic


Is it possible - have you heard of this - Is she just confused etc

Answer 1

As far as I know, there are indeed some somatic (body) stem cells floating around in blood. But they are too rare to be found easily, and are not pluripotent - meaning they can't become any kind of cell in the body.

Answer 2

Stem cells are not harvested from the blood. It sounds like she may have been donating platelets. The person is hooked up to a machine that has I.V. lines in both arms. Blood is extracted from one arm and it enters the machine that spins it down so that the platelets can be separated and extracted. The rest of the blood components are then returned to a vein in the other arm. This process may resemble the way a dialysis machine works.

Answer 3

I know what she's talking about. I thought there had to be stemcells because you know when you bleed, the blood congeals and becomes skin, right? But since it can't become anything else, and a stem cell can, it doesn't count.

Could she mean cord blood maybe?

Answer 4

You are right, that probable (to my knowledge) only in Robin Cook's books. It is however possible to harvest stem cells from the bone marrow.