Thyroid Gland Cells

Hypo or hyperthyroidism, goiter or cancer are among the thyroid conditions that afflict about 10% of the US adult population. Surgery often is the course of action, followed by life-long synthetic drug therapy. Researchers at Boston University’s Center for Regenerative Medicine, however, have shown how it’s possible to grow new thyroid tissue in laboratory mice: “. . . . engineered mouse embryonic stem cells [were] cultured in the lab to express a genetic switch for a specific gene, Nkx2-1, that is important for thyroid development. Then they guided the embryonic stem cells through various stages while switching Nkx2-1 on and off for short periods of time and found there was one narrow timeframe where turning on this gene converted the majority of cells to thyroid cells.” MORE

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