What Are Stem Cells
What Are Stem Cells?
What Are Stem Cells, you might be asking yourself. No doubt you have heard the term thrown around, but if you are like most people you never learned about pluripotent stem cells in those science classes you once took.
Scientific literature and current research is just starting to turn up this information and when you discover how important a nih stem cell unit is to brain and nerve health, you will wonder what took us so long to figure it out.
What are adult stem cells?
Stem cells are the building blocks of life and they are what replenishes us on a daily basis. They are at the center of our existence and yet remain cloaked as the fundamental mystery of life. Without them we would never heal, but in the beginning it took only a few to create our complex existence.
So, exactly what are stem cells? Do you wonder why they are important? Maybe you have never even heard of stem cells. Human beings rely on them for this regeneration-this ability of the body to renew and to heal. Without adult stem cells we would get sick and die prematurely. We need the body’s own mechanism for health as we would never recover from life’s accidents and tragedies without natures complex way of recovery. Medicine and antibiotics are only part of the equation to healing.
The pathways of adult stem cells are still being explored, but when called upon, cells in a living mammal can become almost anything the body needs them to become. This is how we mend a broken arm or recover from running a marathon. Medicine may help fight off infection and sports drinks may pave the way for a smooth recovery, but without a good supply of adult stem cells, we would never rebound.
Cord Blood Stem Cells
There are parents today who can se into the future. Are you one of them? If so, you may be interested in banking cord blood stem cells. This will involve preserving umbilical cord stem cells for future use. Many companies offer this opportunity as the world of science and medicine uncover more uses to heal through stem cells research.
Teeth are another opportunity to save stem cells for your children. recently science has discovered through stem cells research that stem cells are found in teeth. Maybe those quarters under the pillow will really turn into something more productive in future experiments.
Types of stem cells
What are stem cells? The two main types of stem cells are:
- Embryonic Stem Cells
- Adult Stem Cells
Embryonic stem cells come from the blastula, which is the newly formed creation found about day five after human fertilization. During this early embryo period there are about 100 cells present. These forerunners are especially valuable stem cells because they can become anything the body needs them to be.They are essentially the little soldiers that will soon be busy with creation and with instructions from DNA strands, they will go to work building your body.
Need an ear? How about a nose? Ring up the colony of stem cells, because they somehow know each human being gets two ears and only one nose. Who tells them this information? We don’t know but the next time you ask what are stem cells, you must remember that they are the beginning cells that give life. Stem cells are also the life preserver, called upon when we get hurt.
I’m not kidding. Think about how 100 cells in a living environment split, divide, prevail, all the time becoming so many different parts that finally comprise the body.
This development is part of the mystery just being discovered after constantly being studied. These specialized cells will eventually change and assume the role of adult stem cells. Then, they will become specialized and not the highly versatile embryonic cells they once were.
Stem Cells Research
Of course, scientists wonder how valuable these creators could be if they could be managed or at least isolated from the millions of other cells in the body. Perhaps they could be used to fight modern disease instead of simply building the human body.
It’s the ability they once had to become anything the body required that has prompted intense research and much political and moral debate in the field of adult stem cell research. If these stem cells could create, why do they suddenly stop creating and settle into specific type cells? What if they were harvested at 5 days? Could they be inserted into the body of very sick people in order to create or repair the failing body parts?
Can Stem Cells Research Discover How To Cure Diseases?
At 5 days and just fertilized, think of this situation as a young baseball team. One just starting out and without any history or veterans to help them win the championship. A human embryonic stem cell is kind of like the star baseball player who can play more than one position. If you need him in the outfield, he can run down a long fly ball. On the other hand, if you need a closer in the bottom of the ninth inning, he can help you shut down the offense with a slicing curve ball. He/she can do it all and science wants these players on their team.
Differentiation Pathways of Adult Stem Cells
The party always stops somewhere and birth is the magic time when stem cells have to grow up. The role of adult stem cells is to heal. Produced by undifferentiated cells, they are found in adult tissue and organs and they become vital for repairing the body. The differentiation of embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells is now apparent as the creators have done their work and have now divided to prolong their life, but for the most part they have become specific to the tissue and organs they occupy. We have no idea why this happens.
This means that a stem cell from the ear can no longer be called upon to heal the liver. This division of duties takes place right after birth. We know that infants, teens, adults and seniors all have adult stem cells working overtime to keep them healthy. It doesn’t matter what age you are. If you have been born, you no longer have human embryonic stem cells, because their job is complete. You now have adult stem cells and they are crucial for replenishing the body.
What Are Stem Cells? Here are stem cell basics…
The study of stem cells is not new though we may have just heard about them. Television and the press has made us aware of the controversy involving stem cells, but a hematopoietic stem cell found it’s way into science about 50 years ago. Hematopoietic stem cells are found in the bone marrow and are regularly transplanted to treat certain cancer and blood disorder patients. Typically a leukemia patient might undergo a bone marrow transplant. A small percentage of these cells are found in the blood, but doctors know the chances are much better to reach deep in dense area of the hip for best results.
As doctors harvest cells from bone marrow, they’ve discovered that some of these cells act like their embryonic cousins. Currently, they can’t yet separate these particular stem cells from the other type of cells, like white blood cells, normally found throughout the body. Because they are too elusive at this point, this makes hematopoietic stem cells an unlikely candidate for more advanced use such as neurological disorders, but still ideal for blood renewal.
The inability to successfully separate these from other cells means they are only being used to treat blood and immune diseases. Recently though, science has made another discovery while checking the hips of mice. Right. Back to the mice.It’s just too hard to experiment on people and drilling into the hip is painful, so mice are back at work in this phase of discovery.
The new evidence shows that these cells found in bone marrow of mice are of two types: short lived or precursor cells and long term cells. Although this discovery will eventually further science and our longevity, there is no capability to separate long and short term cells to date so science cannot successfully conduct experiments as of yet.
We do know that long term cells can renew themselves and provide long term protection to a variety of different tissue types and organs whereas short term cells are immature and mainly do their work on the same tissue types. It is not known how long short term cells last.
Still, both are being used successfully and to the benefit of mankind. Think about the billions of cells undergoing renewal in both the blood and the skin. This is happening around the clock. This challenging and daunting work falls to the responsibility of hematopoietic stem cells and whether they are short term or long, the body benefits.
Applications of Cultured Stem Cells
Cell culture is the science of growing cells outside an organism. This is mainly done in a petri dish where environments can be carefully controlled as cell division is studied. This practice has come a long ways but why is it so important?
Some stem cells, derived from human beings can now be cultured and turned into specialized cells. Used in stem cell therapy, these specific cell types have proven to become cells consistent with cells of various tissue or organ. This means we are making advances in the repair and revitalization of muscles, organs and nerves, but studies are just underway with these experiments.
