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Article: Stem cells: the next cure? (Life/Tech Science: Stem Cells * Disease).
- Article from:
- Science World
- Article date:
- November 12, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Scholastic, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Several years ago, brothers Blayke and Garrett LaRue desperately needed a miracle. The boys, ages 6 and 9 years, were born with a rare and lethal disorder of the immune system, the body's disease-fighting machinery. Their genetic (inherited) disease, known as "XLP," afflicts I in every 10,000 babies; the standard treatment--replacing diseased bone marrow, or soft tissue inside bone that produces blood cells, with healthy bone marrow--often fails. The boys' only alternative: a highly experimental-and--controversial treatment using stem cells.
Did the revolutionary treatment save the LaRue brothers? What are stem cells, anyway? And if they're so beneficial, why ...