There are several types of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are the most versatile, as they can become all the cells of the developing fetus. Stem cells hold promise for new medical treatments. Learn about stem cell types, current and potential uses, and the state of research and practice. You've heard about stem cells in the news and you may have wondered if they could help you or a loved one with a serious illness.
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about stem cells. Stem cells are the body's master cells. All other cells come from stem cells, including blood cells, nerve cells, and other cells. Stem cells are a special type of cell that have two important properties. They can produce more cells like yours.
And they can turn into other cells that do different things in a process known as differentiation. Stem cells are found in nearly every tissue in the body. And they are necessary for tissue maintenance, as well as for repair after injury. Depending on where the stem cells are located, they can develop into different tissues. For example, hematopoietic stem cells reside in the bone marrow and can produce all the cells that work in the blood.
Stem cells can also become brain cells, heart muscle cells, bone cells, or other types of cells. Most stem cells in the body are less able to generate cells and may only help maintain and repair the tissues and organs in which they reside. No other cell in the body has the natural capacity to generate new types of cells. People who may benefit from stem cell therapy include those with leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and some types of solid tumor cancer.
Stem cell therapies may also benefit people who have aplastic anemia, immunodeficiencies, and inherited metabolic conditions. Stem cells are being studied to treat type 1 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, heart failure, osteoarthritis and other conditions. Stem cells may grow into new tissue for use in transplants and regenerative medicine. Researchers continue to advance knowledge about stem cells and their applications in regenerative and transplant medicine.
Try new medications to check their safety and effectiveness. Before administering developing drugs to people, researchers can use certain types of stem cells to evaluate the safety and quality of drugs. This type of test can help evaluate the heart toxicity of drugs under development. New areas of study include the efficacy of using human stem cells that have been programmed to form specific tissue cells to test new drugs.
For tests of new drugs to be accurate, cells must be programmed to acquire the properties of the type of cells to which the drug. Techniques are being studied to program cells into specific cells. These stem cells come from embryos that are 3 to 5 days old. At this stage, an embryo is called a blastocyst and has about 150 cells.
These are pluripotent stem cells (ploo-rip-uh-tunt), meaning they can divide into more stem cells or become any type of body cells. This allows embryonic stem cells to be used to regenerate or repair diseased tissues and organs. Adult cells are altered to have the properties of embryonic stem cells. Scientists have transformed normal adult cells into stem cells through genetic reprogramming.
By altering the genes in adult cells, researchers can make the cells act similar to embryonic stem cells. These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This new technique may allow the use of reprogrammed cells instead of embryonic stem cells and prevent the immune system from rejecting new stem cells. However, scientists do not yet know if the use of altered adult cells will cause adverse effects in humans.
Researchers have been able to take normal connective tissue cells and reprogram them to become functional heart cells. In the studies, animals with heart failure that were injected with new heart cells had better heart function and a better survival time. Researchers discovered stem cells in amniotic fluid and umbilical cord blood. These stem cells can be transformed into specialized cells.
Amniotic fluid fills the sac that surrounds and protects the developing fetus in the womb. Researchers have identified stem cells in samples of amniotic fluid taken from pregnant women for testing or treatment using a procedure called amniocentesis. Embryonic stem cells are extracted from early-stage embryos, a group of cells that form when eggs are fertilized with sperm in an in vitro fertilization clinic. Since human embryonic stem cells are extracted from human embryos, several questions have been raised about the ethics of embryonic stem cell research. The embryos used in embryonic stem cell research come from eggs that were fertilized in in vitro fertilization clinics, but were never implanted in women's uteruses.
Stem cells are donated with the informed consent of the donors. Stem cells can live and grow in special solutions in test tubes or petri dishes in laboratories. Advances in cell reprogramming and iPSC cell formation have considerably improved research in this field. However, reprogramming is an inefficient process.
When possible, iPSCs are used instead of embryonic stem cells, as this avoids ethical problems related to the use of embryonic stem cells that may be morally reprehensible for some people. Adult stem cells are also more likely to contain irregularities due to environmental hazards, such as toxins, or to errors acquired by cells during replication. However, researchers have discovered that adult stem cells are more adaptable than originally thought. A stem cell line is a group of cells that are all descended from a single original stem cell and are cultured in a laboratory.
The cells in a stem cell line continue to grow, but they don't become specialized cells. Ideally, they should remain free of genetic defects and continue to create more stem cells. Groups of cells can be removed from a stem cell line and frozen for storage or sharing with other researchers. Stem cell therapy, also known as regenerative medicine, promotes the repair response of diseased, dysfunctional, or injured tissue through the use of stem cells or its derivatives.
It's the next chapter in organ transplantation and uses cells instead of donor organs, whose supply is limited. Researchers grow stem cells in a laboratory. These stem cells are manipulated to specialize in specific types of cells, such as heart muscle cells, blood cells, or nerve cells. Specialized cells can then be implanted into a person.
For example, if the person has heart disease, the cells could be injected into the heart muscle. The transplanted healthy heart muscle cells could then help repair the injured heart muscle. Doctors have performed stem cell transplants, also known as bone marrow transplants, for many decades. In hematopoietic stem cell transplants, stem cells replace cells damaged by chemotherapy or disease, or serve to help the donor's immune system fight certain types of cancer and diseases related to the blood.
Leukemia, lymphoma, neuroblastoma, and multiple myeloma are often treated this way. These transplants use adult stem cells or umbilical cord blood. Researchers are testing adult stem cells to treat other conditions, including some degenerative diseases, such as heart failure. For embryonic stem cells to be useful, researchers must be sure that the stem cells will differentiate into the desired specific cell types.
Embryonic stem cells can also grow irregularly or specialize in different cell types spontaneously. Researchers are studying how to control the growth and development of embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can also trigger an immune response in which the recipient's body attacks stem cells as foreign invaders or, simply, the stem cells may stop working as expected, with unknown consequences. Researchers are still studying how to avoid these possible complications.
Therapeutic cloning, also called somatic cell nuclear transfer, is a way to create versatile stem cells independent of fertilized eggs. In this technique, the nucleus of an unfertilized egg is removed. This nucleus contains genetic material. The nucleus is also extracted from a donor cell. This donor nucleus is then injected into the egg, replacing the nucleus that was extracted, in a process called nuclear transfer.
The egg is allowed to divide and soon forms a blastocyst. This process creates a stem cell line that is genetically identical to the donor's cells—essentially, a clone. Some researchers believe that stem cells derived from therapeutic cloning may offer benefits compared to those from fertilized eggs, since cloned cells are less likely to be rejected once transplanted back to the donor. And it can allow researchers to see exactly how a disease develops.
Researchers have not been able to successfully perform therapeutic cloning in humans, despite the success achieved in other species. Researchers are still studying the potential of therapeutic cloning in people. Soon you'll begin to receive the most recent Mayo Clinic health information you requested in your inbox. Stem cells are the only cells in the body that produce different types of cells, such as blood, bone, and muscle cells.
Stem cells are now essential treatments for blood cancer and blood disorders. Medical researchers believe that stem cells also have the potential to treat many other diseases. These are the strongest stem cells available. They have the ability to differentiate into embryonic and extraembryonic tissues, such as the chorion, yolk sac, amnion and allantoid. These tissues form the placenta in humans and other placental animals.
Totipotent stem cells are the most versatile and powerful stem cells, capable of differentiating into any type of cell necessary for the development of a complete organism. These cells are present only in the early stages of embryonic development, laying the foundation for the formation of the whole organism. Scientists are currently studying three types of stem cells, embryonic, adult and induced pluripotent. The presidency of Barack Obama has opened the door to stem cell research by revoking statements and orders issued during the administration of former President Bush. This interim period will allow the National Institute of Health to rewrite the policies that govern the way federal funding for stem cell research is distributed.
These new regulations will grant more freedom to researchers who wish to use stem cells in their research and will challenge them to determine the most appropriate stem cell treatment for a given disorder. Most of our adult stem cells are found in bone marrow and adipose tissue. If you've heard that adipose tissue stem cells are better or vice versa, know that research shows that there is no preference for one to be superior to the other. A stem cell is a stem cell when it comes to these two tissues and any attempt to push that agenda is nothing more than a marketing ploy.
The specific factors and conditions that allow pluripotent stem cells to remain undifferentiated are of great interest to scientists. Today, healthcare providers use stem cell treatments to control and sometimes cure blood cancers and blood disorders. Stem cell therapies represent an unprecedented breakthrough in the fight against a variety of age-related diseases and conditions. Myeloid cells include basophils, dendritic cells, eosinophils, erythrocytes, macrophages, megakaryocytes, monocytes, neutrophils, and platelets, while lymphoid cells include B cells, T cells, and natural killer cells.
A better understanding of the genetic and molecular signals that regulate cell division, specialization and differentiation in stem cells can provide information about how diseases arise and suggest new treatment strategies. Stem cells stand out from the cellular crowd because they are the only type of cell that replicates indefinitely and creates specialized cells that can repair damaged cells. While stem cells hold promise for future therapies, there are still significant technical obstacles that are likely to be overcome only after years of intensive research. Pluripotent stem cells stand out for their remarkable ability to differentiate into almost any type of cell in the human body, except those necessary for fetal development. DVC Stem in the Cayman Islands offers advanced stem cell treatments, which may have the potential to control a variety of conditions, including diabetes.
Induced pluripotent stem cells are cells that have been produced in the laboratory by converting tissue-specific cells, such as skin cells, into cells with the same properties as embryonic stem cells. The NIH awards fall into several categories of stem cell research based on NIH estimates of funding for various categories of research, conditions and diseases (RCDC). As long as pluripotent stem cells are cultured under appropriate conditions, they can remain undifferentiated.
