(ANSA) - Rome, November 27 - A pregnant woman carries stem cells that could be used in critical medical treatments for her baby, either in the womb or later in life, a team of Italian scientists has announced. These cells, found in the womb during pregnancy, can be removed during a simple antenatal test and stored for future use, concluded the study, which appears in next week's edition of the Cloning and Stem Cells journal.

They could then be used to generate tailor-made organs and tissues or even to treat the woman's baby while still in the womb, said Giuseppe Novelli and Federica Sangiuolo of Rome's Tor Vergata University, and leading embryologist Massimo De Felici.

''We took these cells from women whose fetuses were affected with spinal muscular atrophy and we were able to correct the genetic defect using genetic therapy,'' said Novelli. Although the technique is not yet sophisticated enough to cure the disease, the team says the day could come when corrected cells could be injected back into the fetus to treat genetic disorders before birth.

The earlier the fetuses could be treated, the greater the chance of success, the team believes. Tests on mice have shown that when injected back into the fetus, the cells are quickly reincorporated and helped form new organs, including the brain, the spine and the liver. ''Furthermore, because the cells are easy to remove and store, 'antenatal banks' might one day become a real possibility,'' continued Novelli.

''These would allow parents to store the cells of their baby, much like some parents currently save the cord blood of their newborns''. These could be used to grow replacement organs if the child needed them later in life, he explained. Novelli, who heads Tor Vergata University's medicine and surgery faculty, pointed out these stem cells would have the benefits of embryonic stem cells without the associated ethical issues. Like embryonic stem cells, they are pluripotent, meaning they can develop into any of the 220 cell types found in adult bodies.

They also have the ability to self-renew themselves indefinitely. In human patients, the team simply worked on cells that are already removed from the placenta during a routine test known as chorionic villus sampling (CVS). CVS, which looks for genetic defects, is usually carried out between weeks 10 to 13 of pregnancy among women at greater risk of a baby with a genetic disorder, either due to their family history or because they are over the age of 35.