Stem Cells-Research Paper

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Stem Cells- Research Paper What are Stem Cells? Stem cells are undifferentiated biological cells that can differentiate into specialized cells and can divide through the process of mitosis to produce more stem cells. Mitosis being the a type of cell division that results in two daughter cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus, typical of ordinary tissue growth. Stem cells are found in multicellular organisms (Crosta, 2008). Stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of interior repair system, dividing basically without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function. These would be things such as a muscle cell, or a brain cell. Stem cells are notable from other cell types by two important characteristics. First, they are unspecialized cells capable of renewing themselves through cell division even after long periods of inactivity. Second, under certain experimental conditions, they can be induced to become tissue, or organ-specific cells with special functions. Stem cells are either extracted from adult tissue or from a dividing zygote in a culture dish; this process is also called in-vitro fertilization. Once removed, scientists place the cells in a controlled place that forbids them from further differentiating but usually allows the cells to divide and replicate. Once stem cells have been allowed to divide and spread in a controlled place, the collection of healthy, dividing, an... ... middle of paper ... ...rocedure overall. Future Use I think that in the future they will be able to do a lot more with stem cells then what they already can, perhaps testing new medical treatments including things such as human liver cells. Stem cells can be used to make many specialized liver cells that can be used to screen and test new drugs instead of the cells derived from dead or donor tissues. Next, stem cells are already used in the treatment of extensive burns, and to restore the blood system of some patients with cancers such as leukaemia and several other blood disorders. Scientists hope that stem cells can be used to replace cells lost in many other devastating diseases for which there are currently no viable cures, for example: liver failure, Parkinson’s and diabetes (Garbutt, 2007). To conclude, this is what I think that the future holds in the hands of stem cell research.

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