The researchers say the transplanted cells regenerated nerve fibres across the damaged region of the spinal cord.
Taking donor cells from a close relation reduces the risk of rejection of the transplanted cells by the recipient.
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First, Dr Zhu tried it out on mice (the mice in question had had their immune systems turned off, so that they would not reject the transplanted cells).
In theory, the immune systems of the recipients should have rejected the transplanted cells, and among mice that were not treated with the antibodies this was indeed exactly what happened.
However, the injected cells remained healthy in animals that were treated with the antibodies, and three months after drug treatment had ended these transplanted cells were even found to be replicating in some of the animals.
Nor is it clear how the transplanted immune cells stop the existing ones from attacking the new organ.
You would think that a chimeric immune system would be more active, not less, and would therefore attack the recipient's other organs, since they look foreign to the transplanted immune cells.
It has already been shown that small pellets of the right type of cells transplanted into the jaw can develop into functional teeth.
Of 34 pet dogs on the proof of concept trial, 23 had the cells transplanted into the injury site - the rest were injected with a neutral fluid.
The scientists transplanted pig bone marrow cells into the mice.
The transplanted bone marrow contains stem cells that can turn into skin cells.
He found that when he transplanted a million human leukemia cells, full-scale tumors would almost always take hold in the mice.
When transplanted into Hannah, the stem cells automatically picked up the body's signals and got transformed into epithelial cells, the kind found in any trachea.
Antigen-presenting cells collect fragments of proteins from foreign bodies (normally pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, but also transplanted organs) and show these to T cells, in order to tell them what to attack.
The biggest is why the new technique is able to make T cells unresponsive to just the specific tissues that are initially transplanted.
Exactly what happens to the windpipe after it is transplanted isn't clear, but researchers believe that placing stem cells, which are capable of developing into different types of body cells, can pick up signals from their environment and integrate with existing tissues.
In order to track the movements of the cells, his team attached tiny magnetic particles to them before they transplanted them, and also injected them with a dye.
Another possibility is a bone marrow transplant - the existing bone marrow cells are destroyed using chemotherapy, then new, healthy ones are transplanted in to take over their job.
Autologous cells -- or cells that come from a patient's own body -- allow organs to be transplanted without rejection.
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