Zebrafish help researchers explore alternatives to bone marrow donation
(PHYSorg.com Biology)

Blood diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma are currently treated with bone marrow transplants-a transfer of blood stem cells from a healthy person to a patient in need. But the demand for patient-matched blood stem cells far exceeds their availability, and many patients go without. To bypass the need for donations, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers are using zebrafish and human cells to determine how to grow blood stem cells in a laboratory dish.