Scientists Say They have Made Blood From Skin

Canadian scientists say, they have discovered how to make blood from human skin.  The achievement means that patients may be able to use their own skin as a resource of blood for surgery, cancer therapy, or treatment of blood disorders such as anemia, said the researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
They simulated this discovery several times over two years using skin from young and old people. The study was published Nov. 7 in the journal Nature. Clinical trials using skin-derived blood could begin by 2012.
The translation from skin to blood is direct. This means it does not need the middle step of changing skin stem cells into pluripotent stem cells that can be turned into blood cells, explained Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute.
"We have exposed this works using human skin. We know how it works and consider we can even improve on the process," he said in a university news release. "We will now go on to work on developing other types of human cell types from skin, as we already have encouraging evidence."

8 cancer symbols highlighted

There are eight signs, symptoms or test consequences that could improve early diagnosis of some cancers, British doctors said,
The researchers focused on changes that gave a one in 20 or higher chance of rotating out to be cancer.
The symptoms contain:

• Coughing up blood.

• Rectal blood.

• Breast lump or mass.

• Difficulty swallowing.

• Post-menopausal bleeding.

• Abnormal prostate tests.

• Anemia.

• Blood in urine.

In certain age and sex groups, the eight symptoms or findings point to the require for urgent examination by family doctors, Dr. Mark Shapley and colleagues from Keele University (halfway between Manchester and Birmingham) said in Friday's online issue of the British Journal of General Practice.
The conclusion was based on an study of 25 studies from the U.K., U.S., Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, Denmark and Germany.
The age of the patient is significant, said Dr. Kevin Barraclough, a GP from Stroud.
"Iron deficiency anemia in a 21-year old female is really unlikely to be due to colorectal cancer, whereas in a 60-year old male, cancer is likely," Barraclough wrote in a journal editorial accompanying the study.
The red flags support the importance of encouraging patients to discuss worrying symptoms early with their GP, said Prof. Amanda Howe, honorary secretary of the Royal College of General Practitioners, which publishes the magazine.