Research Indicates Broadened Importance of Placenta
ANDERSON, GAIL C LIBRARY AB 243 B E 4400 R Thursday, August 27, 1998 MEDICAL COLLEGE OF GEORGIA Volume 8, Number 17 Research Indicates Broadened ISD Expects Year 2000 to Arrive with Importance of Placenta Whimper, Not Bang at MCG TON! BAKER CHRISTINE HURLEY DERISO The placenta, known to provide a fetus with essential oxygen Call Dwain Shaw's voice and nutrients, apparently protects it from destruction as well by mail and you'll get the gist of selectively suppressing the mother's immune system which should his preoccupation: "Hi, this is recognize the genetically different life as foreign. Dwain Shaw," his voice Medical College of Georgia researchers have identified the intones. "There are 528 days mechanism that enables a fetus which has genes from bom the left until the year 2000." mother and father to survive in the mother, whose immune sys Why the countdown? Is he tem should eliminate the fetus, much like it would a donated kid planning the ultimate millenni ney or heart without immunosuppressive therapy. um bash? No. Mr. Shaw, "We are transplants for nine months of our lives before we Medical College of Georgia come out into the world," said Dr. Andrew L. Mellor, molecular director of Information Services geneticist and immunologist and co-author on the study published and Year 2000 project director, in the Aug. 21 edition of the journal, Science. "Our discovery will be too busy working to cel addresses the paradox of how mammals, such as human beings, ebrate on Dec. 31, 1999. He's survive in the potentially hostile environment of the womb." in charge of ensuring mat when MCG researchers have found that cells in the placenta, at die MCG employees wrap up then- place where the mother and the developing baby interface, express New Year's holiday, they can Dale Chernich (left) and Dwain Shaw an enzyme, indokamine 2.3-dioxygenase or IDO, which locally return to business as usual.
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