Far left: embryonic stem cells grown under normal conditions
Left: embryonic stem cells that received some mild shaking while growing

Science Daily reports on the following from Georgia Institute of Technology:

Science Daily, Sept. 10, 2007 — Embryos spend much of their time in the womb bobbing along with a mother’s movement, and, surprisingly enough, new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University suggests that embryonic stem cells may develop much better under similarly shaky conditions.

Georgia Tech and Emory researchers discovered that moderate and controlled physical movement of embryonic stem cells in fluid environments, similar to shaking that occurs in the womb, improves their development and suggests that different types of movement could some day be used to control what type of cell they become.

“Embryonic stem cells develop under unique conditions in the womb, and no one has ever been able to study the effect that movement has on that development process,” said Todd McDevitt, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and head of the project. “While labs typically add all sorts of things to their cultures to influence cell direction, we were able to control the levels of differentiation and size of cell clusters by simply providing some fluid motion.”

Continue reading.

Labels: embryonic stem cell