SINGAPORE: A team of experts from Singapore's National University Hospital (NUH) has made a clinical breakthrough in their work on foetal stem cell treatment.

The team is part of an international collaboration comprising researches from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Taiwan.

The treatment involves the injection of stem cells into a foetus while still in the mother's womb to treat various abnormalities and genetic disorders.

The experts announced this after successfully treating two girls with brittle bone disease. One of them is a four year-old who was treated in Singapore.

The team plans to carry out further research on the use of stem cell treatment for other prenatal abnormalities.

Dr Citra Mattar, associate consultant from the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at NUH, said: "Treating a foetus that's only 12 grams or 20 grams in the early part of pregnancy is likely to be much more effective when we give a certain dose of stem cell or gene therapy product; compared to treating a baby -- when it's born it's 2.5 kg, it's much bigger than the foetus. So we can use a smaller amount of product to achieve a greater result."

Original post:
Foetal stem cell treatment sees success in fighting brittle bone disease