Liposuction and Plastic Surgery Information - New Stem Cell Bank launched for liposuction fat cells

New Stem Cell Bank launched for liposuction fat cells

Tuesday, 22 May 2007

A new facility is to be launched in San Diego that will allow stem cells extracted through liposuction to be stored for future use in medical procedures.

The stem cell bank facility, owned by Bio-Matrix Scientific Group, will be the first of its kind in the country, providing processing and storage of adult stem cells harvested from adipose, or fat tissue removed trough liposuction. Stem cells harvested through liposuction can be used for regenerative medical procedures such as heart surgery. Because they are harvested from fat tissue, they do not suffer from the same difficulties as stem cells harvested from cord blood, since these can only be collected at the time of birth.

Currently, the tissue removed in a liposuction procedure is treated as clinical waste and is normally incinerated. The stem banking facility will allow liposuction patients to use the same tissue to extract stem cells and store these for future use, should they be required for any medical procedure requiring the regeneration of tissue.

“There were approximately 12 million body sculpting or liposuction procedures done last year by plastic and cosmetic surgeons. The material is already there as residual material from procedures which have already been performed,” said David R. Koos, Chairman of Bio-Matrix.

The move to allow patients to bank liposuction fat for stem cells to be used in medical procedure is a more conventional use of the extracted fat. Other uses of fat extracted through liposuction have included their use in a recipe for meatballs and the purchase of fat from a hospital by a bio-fuel production company.

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