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Importance of stem cell research
Embryonic and adult stem cells
Importance of stem cell research
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Daniel Long My Favorite Cell: The Stem Cell Stem cells are amazing cells that all humans possess throughout their bodies. In today’s world of science, stem cells have become important factors in scientific research. Research with stem cells has been increasing exponentially over the last decade. Around the world, stem cells have been studied to help treat various health problems. The extent to what stem cell research can do is very wide reaching. The existence of stem cells was theorized by Alexander Maximow in the late 1800s. He believed that cells originated from a one type of cell. He was not far off with this theory. One of the facts that make stem cells so important and such a great asset to healthcare research is that stem cells are not differentiated. Within our bodies, the cells that make up our bodies are programmed to become all of the specific structures in our body such as blood cells or muscle cells. Stem cells do not have this intrinsic programming. They can therefore become any type of cell. When a sperm and egg combine to create a zygote, the zygote rapidly divides which will eventually develop into an embryo and, of course, eventually a human being. The cells that the zygote divides into are the first of these stem cells and develop into the cells that make up the body. When a baby is born, these excess stem cells are in the amniotic fluid and umbilical cord of the baby. However, stem cells still exist within adults, but are usually dormant for the rest of a person’s life. Stem cells remain spread around the tissues, muscles, bones, and blood. Although there is a lot that scientists do not know about stem cells, these stem cells can be activated by various factors like disease and can serve to repl... ... middle of paper ... ...cells to help solve numerous medical problems. In conclusion, there are infinite possibilities with stem cells. Stem cells are an exciting new field in science and can help cure illnesses that have been thought to be incurable. It is an interesting field to be involved in. Who knows what is possible for stem cell therapy in the future. Hodgson D, A. Behfar, L.V. Zingman, etc. 2004: Stable benefit of embryonic stem cell therapy in myocardial infarction. American journal of physiology. Vol. 287. p. 471-479 Hiyama E and K. Hiyama. 2007: Telomere and telomerase in stem cells. British Journal of Cancer. 96.p.1020- 1024 Lindvall L, Z. Kokaia, and A. Martinez. 2004: Stem cell therapy for human neurodegenerative disorders–how to make it work. Nature Medicine. 10. P. 42-50 Potten C.S. 1997: Stem Cells. Paterson’s institute of cancer research, Manchester, UK. p.275
Huang, Y., Enzmann, V., and Iidstad, S."Stem cell-based therapeutic applications in retinal degenerative diseases." Stem Cell Rev. 7.2 (2011): 434-445.
Stem cells are the building blocks of the human body. Embryos consist of unspecialized stem cells that transform into the various specialized cells in the body such as cardiac, muscle or bone cells. Fetuses also have stem cells. However, the stem cells are divided into types like muscle, bone or nerves and don't perform a specialized function. Surprisingly, adult bodies also contain stem cells. In adults, stem cells are undifferentiated but limited to specific tissue type. When needed, the stem cells transform into the cells needed for repair and maintenance. The most common source of adult stem cells is bone marrow. Researchers also acquire stem cells from umbilical cords. Without stem cells, embryos could not develop into fetuses and adult
The wide range of prospective uses for stem cells could greatly improve the health and wellbeing of many people. In stem cell treatments, undifferentiated cells are programmed to form specific cells, which can then be transplanted to the afflicted area. Stems cells can possibly treat afflictions including “Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis” (“Stem Cell Basics”). Another important use is in drug testing. Drugs can be tested on stem cells that develop into the target tissue before using it on human test subjects, which improves safety. Finally, transplantation of organs created from stem cells could eliminate the need for human...
Stem cells are pluripotent cells of the body which are “undifferentiated.” This means that stem cells can ultimately give rise to any type of body tissue. Thus stem cells have the potential to cure a vast number of diseases and physical ailments including Parkinson’s, diabetes, spinal cord injury, and heart disease. Consequently, stem cell research and the development of associated medical applications are of great interest to the scientific and medical community. The area of stem cell research involving human embryonic stem cells is of particular interest in that embryonic stem cells are derived from week-old blastocysts developed from in vitro fertilized eggs. As opposed to adult stem cells, which must undergo a complicated process of de-differen...
Because stem cells are essentially a blank slate, scientists are theoretically capable of growing any human tissue cell. There is enormous medical potential in this. Stem cell research is the next step in advancing the medical field. It is comparable to the discovery of penicillin or the inoculation for smallpox.
Stem cell research began in 1956 when Dr. E Donnall Thomas performed the first bone marrow transplant (“Adult stem cells are not more promising,” 2007). Since that time, research has evolved into obtaining cells from a variety of tissues. According to stem cell research professors, Ariff Bongso and Eng Hin Lee (2005), “Stem cells are unspecialized cells in the human body that are capable of becoming cells, each with new specialized functions” (p. 2). Stem cells are in various adult tissues, such as bone marrow, the liver, the epidermis layer of skin, the central nervous system, and eyes. They are also in other sources, such as fetuses, umbilical cords, placentas, embryos, and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are cells from adult tissues that have been reprogrammed to pluripotency. Most stem cells offer multipotent cells, which are sparse...
This approach can be very helpful for doctors and clinicians to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but this disease varies a lot in each patient and they all might have a different cause of the disease (Begley et al., 2001). Many companies have started to offer stem cell treatment for this disease, however there is no evidence that it is an effective and safe treatment. A lot of scientists are considering the fact that one day stem cells will help cure and treat Alzheimer’s disease in another way, sooner than the advancement of potential stem cell transplant therapy. Using stem cells taken from Alzheimer’s patients, new treatments can be developed and it is a growing field of research.
This report does a fairly comprehensive job on educating the public to the definition of stem cells, describing them as “a diverse group of remarkable multipotent cells that are relatively undifferentiated and unspecialized cells of the body.” Stem cells have the capacity for unlimited self-renewal and the possibility to produce differentiated descendant cell types. The main in...
Embryonic stem cells are derived from a four or five day old human embryo that is in the blastocyst phase of development (see figure 5). The embryo’s that are used for stem cell research, are extra’s that have been created in IVF clinics (in vitro fertilization), that are no longer needed. Embryonic stem cells are totipotent (cells with the potential to develop into any cells in the body). Scientists have discovered an alternative to embryonic stem cells, these cells ...
Special cells that are taken from human embryos, called embryonic stem cells (ES cells), actually possess the power to save your life. These cells can serve many medical purposes and have the ability to benefit people in infinite ways.
Stem cell research has been around for some time, and many people have been cured from certain diseases because of it. Many scientists observe that embryonic stem cells are easier and flexible to use than adult stem cells Adult cells are diseased curable cells as well to a certain extent because they are taken from certain tissues that are already established in an area of the body. Stem cell research has long ways to go for scientists to be able to use them to cure all cancers, infectious diseases, and other health problems however stem cells are on the path of changing the world.
Stem cells are an ongoing research project in which new discoveries are being made about them, and researchers are learning how to use them in new ways. The three current kinds of stem cells all prove to have their own challenges when it comes to using them. The important thing is finding out which stem cell is right for the patient and how much of an ethical concern there is when it comes to using the stem cell. As we learn the best way to use them and they become more popular in the medical field, stem cells will become a new weapon in the fight against certain diseases.
Those who favour stem cell research are optimistic about the continued developments in stem cell research will open doors to many breakthrough discoveries in biomedical science. The scientific and ethical questions arise as rapidly as the reaching of milestones in stem cell research. There are two main types of stem cells, namely embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells in our body. But they have restricted-range of cells that they can further differentiate. On the contrary, embryonic stem cells have the ability to differentiate into nearly two hundred cell types in the human body, called pluripotency. The process of harvesting embryonic stem cells involves destruction of embryos (Mooney, 2009).
Tümpel, S., & Rudolph, K. (2012). The role of telomere shortening in somatic stem cells and tissue aging: lessons from telomerase model systems. Annals Of The New York Academy Of Sciences,1266(1), 28-39. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06547.x
In order to discover the ways for the remedy of diseases, studies in therapeutic approaches have been doing widely and kept increasing at accelerated pace. A lot of research areas had emerged for that purpose including one of the most fascinating and highly active areas at present, stem cells therapies. Due to self-renewal property and differentiation capability of stem cell, it becomes a new hope in modern treatment.