Dorothy FarrarStem cells
Stem cells are the basis for all human tissues. Stem cell research has made great strides in recent decades, but medical professionals still do not fully understand this discipline. Only a single stem cell, the fertilized egg in the mother’s womb, produces the later human being.
Definition
By the time the human being is born, the egg cell has come a long way and produces many more stem cells during this phase. Tissues and organs arise from these cells .
Doctors use this stem cell process, sometimes with great success, to cure fatal diseases such as blood cancer . Skin implants are also possible for large burns .
Anatomy
Doctors and researchers ask themselves what all stem cells have in common, because there are different types. A common feature is their development potential. There are normal stem cells, which are referred to as “fully differentiated” in technical jargon, and stem cells that can make differentiations.
Normal stem cells have reached a stage of development where they hardly develop any further until the human dies. Stem cells capable of differentiating, on the other hand, remain capable of further development throughout life. Stem cells are also divided into adult and embryonic stem cells.
Adult stem cells are multipotent and committed to a single tissue, such as skin , heart , or muscle . They are named after their source material. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, they have not yet committed themselves to a tissue. All kinds of human tissue can develop from these stem cells.
Stem cells form daughter cells, which in turn have the properties of stem cells. Therapies based on adult stem cells have been ubiquitous in medicine for forty years. The first stem cell therapy took place in the field of leukemia. Injecting stem cells is now routine. Umbilical cord blood is also used successfully in the therapy of hereditary diseases and blood cancer.
The umbilical cord is one of the human tissues that contains the most stem cells. For this reason, many parents have umbilical cord blood taken immediately after the birth of their child in order to then have it stored by private service providers, so-called umbilical cord banks. The midwife collects the blood from the umbilical cord in a container immediately after the birth, so no painful intervention is necessary.
With the umbilical cord blood and the stem cells it contains, the parents hope to be able to protect their child in the event of illness and thus have an optimal therapy option at their disposal. The stem cells of the umbilical cord blood are young, apparently free of mutagenic factors and other negative environmental influences. It is easily accessible and, in the case of blood cancer, is often the first choice before bone marrow donation. The costs for private storage are moderate and range between 1,500 and 3,000 euros.
Function
Apparently there are only benefits associated with the body’s own cell therapy, and yet medical professionals rarely resort to it. Preferably, stem cells from adult family donors or external stem cells are used. Most of these donors are adults.
If possible, stem cells from children are not donated in order not to unnecessarily burden their own development. Matching stem cells from siblings, for example, are only used if no other suitable adult donor is available if the patients themselves are children.
However, the search for a suitable donor is often more difficult than the procedure itself if there is no suitable donor in the family. The risk of an immune reaction to the transferred stem cells is high.
If a child or an adult develops blood cancer, the triggering precursors of these diseased cancer cells have usually already formed in the body before birth and thus also in the stem cells of the umbilical cord blood. Therapy with one’s own stem cells is also unsuitable in the case of hereditary diseases, since these are also affected by the genetic defects.
Diseases
- macular degeneration
According to the current state of medicine, the donation of foreign stem cells is the only sensible option. However, researchers are already working to advance the development of new stem cell therapies and in this way be able to cure diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, paraplegia and heart disease in the near future.
Studies are pinning high hopes on non-hematopoietic stem cells in the area of Parkinson’s and other signs of paralysis. Stem cell research and stem cell medicine is closely related to genetic engineering, which is highly controversial because, in the not too distant future, physicians may be able to modify the human genetic makeup using stem cells artificially created in the laboratory.
These artificially produced “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPS) are capable of development in a similar way to their “natural” cousins, the embryonic cells, but are highly controversial ethically because it is not yet known how they develop in humans.
Theoretically, however, it is possible to grow a completely new person from these artificial stem cells, but the laws still limit the researchers in this regard. Reproduction on the basis of embryonic stem cells has so far been successful in mice, sheep and horses.
Hello and welcome to my Health Guide & Encyclopedia! My name is Dorothy Farrar, and I'm the founder and main author of this platform.
My passion for health and wellness started at a young age when I became interested in the connection between the food we eat and the way we feel. This fascination led me to study nutrition and dietetics in college, where I learned about the importance of a balanced diet and the impact of various nutrients on the body.