Plastic Surgery Prof. Adam Katz may bring love handles back in style.
Katz has found that discarded fat tissue may be an excellent source of stem cells, which potentially can develop into any of the 220 cell types that make up the human body.
"A patient could in the future use their own fat cells to heal themselves," Katz said.
Stem cells often are called pluripotent because of their unique ability to transform into other kinds of cells. Katz's research team has been able to manipulate the pluripotent capabilities of the fat cell.
Many scientists believe they can use these custom-made cells in new therapies.
Katz began isolating and culturing liposuctioned fat cells during his residency at the University of Pittsburgh.
He started studying fat cells hoping to use them in surgical procedures such as skin grafts or breast reconstruction, and he has found that fat cells are pluripotent like stem cells.
One of Katz's latest projects is regenerating the bones, nerve cells and portions of the heart in animals from stem cells.
"My objective is to characterize the important cell types and understand their regenerative potential" in the body, Katz said.
"It is exciting for the therapeutic world and for muscular skeletal medicine," Orthopedic Research Prof. Gray Balian said of Katz's research.
Katz has found several advantages of using fat cells as alternative sources of stem cells.
Fat cells might be removed from a patient, manipulated into new tissues and then inserted into the patient without the body rejecting it, Katz said.
Just as in whole organ transplants, the patient's body may reject the new tissue if it comes from a source other than the patient.
Fat cells still contain the information needed to develop into other cell types, said Mary Hendrex, a University of Iowa anatomy and cell biology professor.
"It has been found that these cells still exist in adult fat tissue," Hendrix added.
Fat cells also are a good stem cell source because fat tissue is abundant in the human body, Katz said.
This development may come as a relief to those who say human embryos should not be used in stem cell research.
Human embryo protectionists see fat cells as a refreshing alternative to harvesting stem cells from frozen embryos stored in fertility clinics.
But Katz cautioned that fat cells may not be as versatile and may not grow into usable tissues. The cells also could form a tumor within the patient's body if the cells' internal programming goes haywire.
Yet Katz said he could see fat cells becoming the basic building blocks of plastic reconstructive surgery.
Surgeons may one day be able to perform a reconstructive breast surgery using the women's own fat tissue-derived stem cells. But these promising prospects come with a caveat.
"It is hard to say how soon in the future this will happen," Katz said.
Fat cells also may play a key role in reconstructing portions of patients' heart following heart attack.
They also could be used to reconstruct dead areas in the brains of stroke victims or to treat degenerative nerve disease like Alzheimer's.
Stem cell research even may allow doctors to reconstruct a damaged ear or synthesize a new one in the laboratory.
Katz's findings not only figure prominently into the ongoing stem cell debate, but provide a use for another of America's excesses: fat.
Read More
PBS NewsHour correspondent speaks on bringing humanity to international conflict
By Grace Little | YesterdaySchifrin's work exploring Putin’s Russia, his coverage of COVID-19 and his reporting in Afghanistan and Ukraine have earned him various accolades.
Spring meal swipe drive aims to tackle food insecurity at the University
By Nicolas Biernacki | YesterdayU.Va. Dine facilitated the drive by converting each meal swipe donated by a student into one pound of food that is then donated to the CFP.
Winsome Earle-Sears talks higher education in first U.Va. event of the campaign
By Ford McCracken | 3 days agoA Jamaican immigrant and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Earle-Sears is the first female lieutenant governor of Virginia,
