September 13, 2006
Dr. Esmail Zanjani
University of Nevada
Dr. Zanjani is a leader in devising strategies for treating patients with genetic disorders, before birth, using stem cells. His research focuses on inserting human stem cells into sheep fetuses before the unborn lambs' immune system develops enough to reject the human cells. Dr. Zanjani's group has discovered that these transplanted human stem cells produce not only human blood cells but also robust levels of a variety of functional human tissues and organs such as liver, pancreas, heart, and lung. He and his research team hopes the animal-human chimeras they are creating will one day yield new cells genetically identical to a patient's own that can be used to repair damaged organs. Perhaps the new cells could also eventually be injected into human fetuses to treat genetic diseases in vitro. Dr. Zanjani discusses the chimeras, what they are, and how animal-human chimeras generated by the use of human stem cells can serve to facilitate scientific advances in human stem cell biology and in the development of donor-recipient specific humanized organs.

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