THIS week we report a tale that could have been scripted by Hollywood. Working alone, with no ties to any academic institution, a Saudi immunologist stumbles on a way to make white blood cells regress into the stem cells from which they originated. It鈥檚 a phenomenon that flies in the face of textbook biology, and her claims are met with disbelief. But, finally, she achieves some astonishing results, developing a treatment that appears to have helped four patients to recover from debilitating severe anaemia.
The intriguing story of Ilham Abuljadayel and her company, TriStem, unfolds on page 36. The work was approved and supported by the Indian Council of Medical Research, and the company is looking to test it in clinical trials. If her technique is proved to work, it could, in the words of one stem cell researcher, be 鈥淣obel-prizewinning stuff鈥�.
In claiming to have a way to easily create stem cells from blood, Abuljadayel has potentially removed the need to use stem cells taken from human embryos, an issue that has been given a high profile in the run-up to the US presidential election (see 鈥淭he battle over stem cells鈥�). But Abuljadayel does not believe that research on embryonic stem cells should be restricted. She argues that such cells are so versatile that it would be wrong to curtail any research that may lead to treatments for a host of diseases.
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We agree. Research on embryonic stem cells that holds out hope for alleviating the suffering of millions of people deserves support, even if that hope is eventually dashed. By the same token, establishment science should give Abuljadayel鈥檚 research a fairer hearing than it has had so far. The potential benefits of stem cells created from blood are also too great to ignore.