Stem cell therapy is an exciting area of medicine that is both enthusiastically researched and hotly debated. It allows for the possible treatment of conditions that were previously thought to be untreatable. Imagine being one of the many individuals debilitated by injury or disease who have resigned themselves to the fact that it is a permanent affliction. Now, imagine being given hope that the condition could be cured, or at least, greatly improved. It has been suggested that stem cell therapy is the answer to treating many patients greatly improving their quality of life. In order to determine if stem cell therapy does, in fact, work to repair damage to the human body, one must first understand the basics. What stem cells are, how they work, and, whether or not they been proven effective in clinical trials. This paper attempts to answer those questions in order to determine whether stem cells repair or replace damaged cells and if stem cell therapy is a viable treatment for bodily injury. Stem cells are the basic building block of every multicellular organism. All other cells are generated from stem cells. They are unique in that they have to ability to reproduce into an exact replica of itself indefinitely. They also have the ability to develop into other types of cells through a process called differentiation. During differentiation, a generic cell becomes specialized in order to perform a specific function. Stem cells work within the body to repair and replace damaged or worn out cells. Differentiation is controlled by many factors including the cell’s genes, the cell’s proximity to surrounding cells, and molecules in the cell’s environment (NIH). Scientists have been working to replicate this process, o... ... middle of paper ... ...nally or intrathecally. Intralesional application involves the placement of stem cells directly into the location of damage while inrathecal application administers the stem cells into the spinal column. The results of the study show that intralesional administration was more effective because it allowed for a higher concentration of stem cells treating the damaged area. Intrathecal administration resulted in some of the stem cells being distributed to areas that were not damaged. The human subjects experienced both sensory improvement and improvement in motor power. The death of one canine subject was unrelated to the treatment and a second experienced a complete recovery of hind limb function (Dedeepiya). Until recently, stem cell research studies have involved using adult stem cells on human subjects or, embryonic stem cells on animal subjects.
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...
“Through the isolation and manipulation of cells, scientists are finding ways to identify young, regenerating ones that can be used to replace damaged of dead cells in diseased organs. This therapy is similar to the process of organ transplant, only the treatment consists of the transplantation of cells rather than organs. The cells that have shown by far the most promise of supplying diseased organs with healthy cells are called stem cells.” (Chapter Preface)
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.
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...
Stem cells are mother cells that have potential to develop into a new different cell in the body. It can self-renew or multiply while developing into other types of cells, for example they can become cells of the blood, heart, bones, skin, muscles and brain. Stem cells were discovered in human cord blood in 1978, and in 1998, Thompson, from the University of Wisconsin, isolated cells from the inner cell mass of early embryos (early stage of an animal or person before it is born) and developed t...
The importance of embryonic stem cells rests in their lack of specialization. These basic cells are present in the earliest stages of developing embryos and are able to develop into virtually any type of cell and tissue in the body. Being self-renewing, they offer a potentially limitless source of cells and tissue. (Tucker)
Stem cells can help cure diseases, repair damaged organs, and replace the need for organ donors. Stem cells may play a major role in cancer research, treatment, and maybe even a cure. Using stem cells in better treatments for diseases can give economic gains for society. According to the Mayo Clinic, over 100 million suffer from diseases that eventually may be treated more effectively or even cured with embryonic stem cell research (“Stem Cell Transplant”). This may be the greatest opportunity to alleviate the suffering of humans. Stem cell research has a lot of potential; there is a long list of diseases and other conditions that stem cells may be able to treat and possibly one day
There are many different types of stem cells that are being looked at for research. These include embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and induced pluripotent cells. Embryonic stem cells are cells that have the potential to produce many different cells in the body. They are cells that are tak...
As stated on the Neostem website, “Stem cells have remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth.” They are used for cell therapeutics and the advantages are many. They offer a source of renewable cells to replace the damaged or dead cells that can be cause disabilitating ...
According to Courtney Farrell’s overview of stem cell research, stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can be used to fix and replace other kinds of cells that are missing or damaged, and they can be derived from several different sources. The first of these sources, “embryonic” stem cells have been the source of many ethical debates because the process to gain embryonic stem cells involves the destruction of a human embryo in its early stages. Many people find this unethical and think it’s equal to human murder. According to the article by John Pearson, other types of stem cells include adult stem cells, which can be derived from bone marrow in grown adults, and umbilical blood stem cells; these are found in the blood of the umbilical cord after the birth of a baby and are becoming a great replacement for embryonic stem cells.
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. This promising area of science is also leading scientists to investigate the possibility of cell-based therapies to treat disease, which is often referred to as regenerative or reparative medicine. There is genuine scientific excitement over the concept of using the body's own cellular building blocks to regenerate damaged or ageing organs. Stem cells are one of the most fascinating areas of biology today. But like ...
Stem cells offer the capability to develop into many different cell types in the body in the time of early life and growth. Furthermore, in many cell tissues they serve as an internal repair system, dividing almost without
Stem cells are becoming a powerful new tool for replacing damaged or destroyed tissue in different parts of the body. There are two basic types, embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Stem cells, found in the body, can engender exact facsimiles of themselves. They have the capacity to construct a number of specially designed cells such as heart muscle cells, liver tissue cells, brain tissue cells, etc. Embryonic stem cells are extracted from aborted fetuses or embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. Adult stem cells are found in both children and adults. Adult stem cells can be utilized for a circumscribed number of other kinds of cells while embryonic stem cells are able to individualize into over two hundred types of cells. Embryonic stem cell research is so controversial because society is judging whether or not taking stem cells from days old embryos is immoral, or if doctors should look past the cons and do what is necessary to eventually preserve many lives.
“Top Ten Things to Know About Stem Cell Treatments.” Www.closerlookatstemcells.org ISSCR. Web 1 November 2013
...there are some risk factors in using stem cell for therapeutic approaches, hematopoietic stem cell therapy by bone marrow transplantation has already been proofed to be safe if donors’ background and screening, cell contamination, HLA matching and opportunistic or nosocomial infections during immunocompromised period were carefully monitored and controlled. Still, other types of stem cell therapies, despite of their good therapeutic efficacy, are remain in experimental stage and need more data to support and demonstrate the safety in clinical trials. More understanding of stem cell biology is also required in order to keep stem cell under controlled and avoid some complications that they might cause. So, to pave the way for successful stem cell therapy, research in this extent is needed to pursue to maximized therapeutic efficiency with highest safety in patients.