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Stem Cells : What Are They Good For? Absolutely Everything

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Working title: Stem Cells: What are they good for? Absolutely everything.
Introduction (1 page):
Medicine has benefitted for years from advancements in technology and research. Technology combined with research has allowed, once crazy and impractical, ideas to be put into action to treat, heal and even cure many diseases and illnesses to improve or ensure a long quality of life for patients. Continuation of medical technology and research is vital and offers many potential cures, especially through regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine involves tissue engineering and biology to generate human tissues like cells and organs to restore the normal function within those said cells and organs. Stem cells have a huge role in regenerative …show more content…

Defining Types of Stem Cells and where they come from (2 pages): As mentioned a stem cell is an unspecialized cell that is capable of producing specialized or differentiated cell. A differentiated cell is any cell that has a specific function, for example a blood cell, skin cell or a brain cell. Having this ability allows the cell the takeover for dead cells or cells that have been lost. There are different types of stem cells all coming from a different source: Embryonic, Umbilical Cord, Adult, and induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC). Embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent, meaning they are capable of producing all cell types in the body. In the process of in vitro fertilization where embryos are formed and implanted many embryos do not actually get implanted and are frozen. Inside an embryo in the blastocyst stage is a small cluster of embryonic stem cells that would eventually develop. By culturing these frozen embryos to the blastocyst stage we are able to harvest the cluster of embryonic stem cells inside the embryo and in a laboratory they can grow indefinitely. (Lysaught – 1999). Embryonic stem cells are incredibly useful in their potential to produce any cell in the body. However, because of ethical issues embryonic stem cells are not usually used in research and experimentation. Umbilical cord and adult stem cells are classified as multipotent cells. These stem cells, while having the ability to produce multiple

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