What Are Stem Cells

What Are Stem Cells?

Stem cells are found in all multi-cellular organisms. Stem cells are a type of undifferentiated cell known for the ability to renew themselves in myopic division. What are stem cells used for? Stem cells have the potential to differentiate into specific, specialized cells. What this means is that a stem cell can “become” a number of other specific cells including skin, bone or muscle; a quality that enables researchers to repair or replace tissue that has been damaged or diseased. Stem cells commonly originate from either embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells.

Here is a video that helps to answer the question, “what are stem cells?”

Stem cells in mammals are commonly either adult stem cells, or embryonic stem cells. Here is a brief description of both types of stem cells:

Adult Stem Cells:
What are adult stem cells? Adult stem cells (or, “somatic” stem cells) are found throughout the body in different types of tissue. Adult stem cells are commonly found in areas including the blood, brain, skin, skeletal muscles, bone marrow, intestinal tissue, and liver.

An interesting fact about adult stem cells is that they exist in a non dividing (quiescent) state for years until they are activated by a tissue injury or disease. These adult stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body. Upon activation, adult stem cells can divide infinitely, allowing them to generate a myriad of specific cell types of the organ from which they originated, even having the ability to regenerate the whole original organ.

In contrast to embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells are thought to be limited in their capacity to differentiate, (limited by their tissue of origin) and are known as “multipotent” because of the limit of cell types that they can produce. (Although there is new evidence to support the idea that they can also become more cell types than previously suspected)

Embryonic Stem Cells:
What are embryonic stem cells? Embryonic stem cells are known for 2 distinctive properties; they are pluripotent, (meaning they are able to become any one of more than 200 types of cells found in the human body) and they can replicate indefinitely.

This allows embryonic stem cells to be  useful tools for both research and regenerative medicine, because they can produce limitless numbers of themselves for continued research or clinical use. Because of their plasticity and potentially unlimited capacity for self-renewal, ES cell therapies have been proposed for regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after injury or disease. Diseases that could potentially be treated by embryonic stem cells include:  blood and immune system related genetic diseases & disorders, many types of cancer,  juvenile diabetes; blindness, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord injuries.

Embryonic stem cells are taken from a 4-5 day old human embryo (known as the “blastocyst” stage) at which time they consist of about 100 cells.

Usually these extra embryos are from in vitro fertilization procedures in which multiple eggs are fertilized. (Only one of these fertilized is ultimately implanted within a woman during IVF, so the extras are often used for stem cell research) Isolating these stem cells results in the destruction of the fertilized human embryo, which is the focus of most controversial and ethical issues involved in stem cell research.

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