The FINANCIAL -- Research at The University of Auckland has shed light on an area of medicine which has intrigued the international scientific community for decades.

According to The University of Auckland, scientists at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences have identified a molecular mechanism which links infection to an increase in rare blood stem cells in an animal.

Their paper was published today in the prestigious Boston-based journal Cell Stem Cell. This high impact journal publishes novel results of unusual significance in the field of stem cell research.

The findings show blood stem and progenitor cells can directly react to inflammatory stress by proliferating and differentiating into the required mature blood cells.

The discovery opens up a field of study into stem cells and how the blood system is “fine-tuned” in response to stressors. This new understanding of exactly how microbes signal to the stem cells has important implications for the treatment of infections and many diseases that have an inflammatory component, including cancer.

The next step in the research process will be to validate the findings in mammals before scientists begin developing drugs which are able to mimic the signal pathways that take place between the infection microbes and the stem cells.

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