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Stem Cells What is a stem cell? Stem cells have the ability to divide for indefinite periods in culture and to give rise to specialized cells. They are best described
Stem Cells Abstract 1. The object of this Paper is to provide an independent assessment of the Donaldson Committee's Recommendations in light of the most recent
business Stem Cells and Therapeutic Cloning Embryonic stem cells were grown in a laboratory successfully in 1998. At that time researchers were able to have the
How stem cells can be a possible cure for multiple sclerosis Multiple Sclerosis (MS), is a chronic disease of the central nervous system (CNS) mediated by the immune
Stem Cells: The Building Blocks of our Future Blake Icabone Ms. Pechek Honors English 10 15 January 2007 Stem Cells: The Building Blocks of our Future The issue
Submitted by frankiebabeh on January 3, 2007
Category: Social Issues
Words: 682 | Pages: 3
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Research on stem cells is advancing knowledge about how an organism develops from a single cell and how healthy cells replace damaged cells in adult organisms. Stem cells are also researched because scientists want to investigate the possibility of cell-based therapies to treat diseases like Parkinson's disease. Stem cells have two important characteristics that distinguish them from other types of cells. First, they are unspecialized cells that renew themselves for long periods through cell division. The second characteristic is that under certain physiologic or experimental conditions, they can become cells with special functions such as the beating cells of the heart muscle or the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. Scientists work with two kinds of stem cells, embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. They both have different functions and characteristics. Embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated cells from the embryo that have the potential to become a wide variety of specialized cell types. Adult stem cell is an undifferentiated cell found in a differentiated tissue that can renew itself and (with certain limitations) differentiate to yield all the specialized cell types of the tissue from which it originated. Many years of detailed study of the biology of mouse stem cells led to the discovery, in 1998, of how to isolate stem cells from human embryos and grow the cells in the laboratory. These are human embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) are stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst. A blastocyst is an early stage embryo- approximately 4 to 5 days old in humans and consisting of 50-150 cells. ES cells are pluripotent (meaning to have more than one potential outcome), and give rise during development of all derivatives of the three primary germ layers: ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm. In other words, they can develop into each of the more than 200 cell types of the adult body when given sufficient and necessary...
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