Placental Stem Cells - The Important Role of the Placenta
To truly appreciate the marvelous work of the placenta during pregnancy consider the following: while the unborn baby’s vital organs are developing and maturing, the organs (with the exception of the heart) are essentially useless. The placenta serves the multiple functions of all of these organs by working in association with the mother. With the help of the mother’s blood, the placenta must function as the baby’s lungs, kidneys, digestive system, liver, and immune system. The placenta does this so well that a baby can actually survive until birth even when one or more of these vital organs sadly fail to develop in its own body.

Another important role of the placenta is to protect the developing baby from an attack by the mother’s immune system, since the baby and the placenta are genetically unique and distinctly different from the mother. It is still a mystery how the placenta prevents the mother from rejecting it and the baby as a foreign graft without shutting down the mother’s immune system. The placenta stem cells do not possess antigenic properties (capable of inducing a specific immune response) making rejection of the stem cells impossible.

Unique Multipotent Stem Cells have been discovered in the Placenta. (See CNN article) These cells offer a renewable source of replacement cells to treat a multitude of diseases, conditions, and disabilities including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, auto-immune disorders, stroke, burn recovery, heart disease, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, lupus, muscular dystrophy,  retinitis pigmentosa, kidney dysfunction, hepatitis C, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and many more.  

The process of Placental Stem Cell extraction is ethical since newborn infants no longer need their placenta and traditionally they have been discarded as a by-product of the birth process. Unlike embryonic or fetal stem cells, the use of Placental Stem Cells in research and therapy eliminate any potential controversy as the “harvesting” of Placental Stem Cells cause no harm to an embryo or unborn fetus. The Placenta is “harvested” after the birth of a healthy baby born through a cesarean section to prevent any potential contamination through the vaginal path.

Researchers Discover Exceptional Numbers of Stem Cells in Placenta
"The number of stem cells [in the placenta] seems to exceed any other place we knew about before," said Orkin, a Howard Hughes investigator and the David G. Nathan professor of pediatrics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's. "We're now trying to discover whether the stem cells are really born in the placenta or whether they come from the circulation and get nurtured there."

Linheng Li, an assistant investigator at Stowers Institute for Medical Research, who wrote a review of the findings, said that the work settles a longstanding debate about the origins of the hematopoietic system. The placenta seems to be a unique environment for rapidly expanding stem cell populations, unlike the liver, where cells are also differentiating. Li said that even bone marrow is more limiting than the placenta, because it supports stem cells but does not encourage them to proliferate. "By comparing these two niches, maybe you could identify some important factors to support the rapid expansion of hematopoietic stem cells," he said.

  

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