Why Are Stem Cells Important?

Stem cells are cells that are found throughout the human body. They reproduce over a long period of time without changing. Stem cells can produce specialized cells, such as brain, muscle or lung cells. Stem cells in the last few years have recently made a big debut because medical professionals have discovered so many unique qualities to stem cells. They are on the cutting edge of medicine because of all their uses and the qualities that make them so unique from any other cell in the body. Stem cells have the power to make so many breakthroughs in the medical world. Medical researchers have all ready found so many ways that stem cells can be used for the better of so many people. Genes play an important role in determining what genetic traits or mutations we receive. Researching stem cells can help determine this. Stem cell research is useful for learning many things about human development and about how the body has the power to repair itself. Researchers are finding new ways each day that stem cells can be used and the possibilities that they find for stem cells could be endless. A few ways they can be used to treat diseases, be used as graphs for burn victims or surgical use, and even to correct birth defects. The pros of stem cells are limitless.

There are many diseases that have the potential to affect every single person in the world. Some are curable and some are not. However, some cells called stem cells may impact and help many people. Stem cells are what are called undifferentiated cells, which means that they are not specialized cells. However, they can develop into all different kinds of cells within the body. So through this, stem cells control the development of the body by evolving into the cells the body needs to survive, or even replacing worn out or destroyed cells (Levine and Miller 294-297). These cells can reproduce to make more of themselves through cell division. In the long run, stem cells enable the body to continue functioning and to stay healthy (Stem Cell).

The stem cells that originate in the inner mass found in embryos a few days old are grown in the laboratory and are referred to as embryonic stem cells. A branch of these cells are embryonic germ cells, and these are derived from egg and sperm cells in a five to ten week old fetus. Both of these types of stem cells are pluripotent. In embryonic stem cells, the blastocyst cells divide and eventually develop into all of the tissues and organs of human beings. Embryonic stem cells are capable of being grown in the laboratory from blastocysts and made to differentiate into nerve, liver, muscle, blood, and other cells. (Morgani, et al.

Stem cells are cells that have the potential to become almost any cell in the human body, during the early developments of life. Stem cells have the possibility to generate all of tissues within a human as well. Each stem cell can either stay a stem cell or become a more specialized cell. The stem cells that are unspecialized are capable of renewing themselves or possibly being induced to become organ specific cells or tissue cells with special functions. Most stem cells have a constant supply to replace other cells that are injured, diseased, or even aged.

Stem cells are what make up the tissues and organs in our bodies. They have the potential to differentiate into different types of cells (Frequent), which make them so exciting to scientists. There are two types of stem cells adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells (Frequent). Although adult stem cells are used in some treatments, they can only differentiate into the same type of tissue they came from, for example an adult stem cell taken from a muscle

These cells could help treat and cure many diseases. This type of medicine could improve cancer treatments and help treat “respiratory disease, diabetes, and neurological disorders.” (NYSTEM) Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease cures have parts in stem cell research. (CIRM) Stroke and heart attack patients can benefit from stem cells treatment and improved motor function has been found. (Goldman) These and many more treatments can be created

Stem cells have been used in the world before to develop vaccines for diseases basically eradicating them. These diseases include small pox, chicken pox, and the MMR vaccine. The development of these vaccines has made it easier to conduct research on synthesizing a cure in diseases that are more complex. The breakthrough research from those cures has furthered our, “...understanding of diabetes, MS, and Parkinson’s disease that offer the potential for new treatments and cures.” (Allum 6) The cures that we have found in the past have helped with research for developing new ones. The more complex diseases would be diseases that affect the brain and the nervous system this could include autism and cerebral palsy. To find new treatments for diseases like this would be a major breakthrough because it would affect more than just the patient, it would also affect the lives off loved ones because the patient finally received the care that they needed. Developing cures for diseases like this could affect millions of lives by themselves, but those three diseases are not the only ones they are trying to treat and they could affect millions more lives. Other diseases that researchers are attempting to find new treatments for are all types of cancer and AIDS. Stem cells have already been used to try to cure cancer and AIDs and it is showing promising results. The cells that they used treated and show promising results to making improved treatments, or even cures for, “...lung diseases; cancers; autoimmune diseases…” (Bishop 4) and many other diseases. If scientists could find cures for diseases like cancer then it would be an incredible breakthrough because it would save millions of lives, and it could prevent people from going through radiation treatments. Since there has already been promising results from tests then scientists may be close to discovering a cure for cancer, and this would change so

Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, which means they are capable of giving rise to several different cell types, that is why they are so much more special than adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are multipotent which means they are more limited than

When performing stem cell research there are some pros and cons that arise in this type of scientific area. Stem cell research could possibly assist the treatment of a variety of medical issues on today’s society. It could potentially bring mankind closer to improved medicines and could help find a cure for multiple diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Heart Disease, Parkinson’s, Diabetes, Birth Defects and countless more that are present in our world today. Stem cell research is also used to replace and restore injured tissue and this could lead to a reduced risk of transplants in the near

Stem cell is a multicellular organism that raises more cells that are the same type, stem cell is considered to be the master cells of the body, and they have the potential to become many different types of cells. Stem cells have the ability to multiply into different cells in order to replace all the damaged cells. Embryonic stem cells are cells delivered for the inner cell mass. (Thiroux, 2012)

Embryonic stem cells, for example, are so potentially beneficial since they are free of genetic diseases, unlike adult cells which may have some genetic disease. In fact, by utilizing these embryonic stem cells, scientists can regenerate damaged tissues or organs, without the need to find a matched donor or have the patient bear through anti-rejection therapy (“Stem Cells” 1). This potential treatment would be able to give organs to those in need, without waiting on the organ donation list. Stem cells would be implanted into the infected organ and regenerate the cells that construct the organ. Furthermore, those who have cancer could undergo stem cell transfusions, which could lead to the disappearance of that cancer. These are just some of the simple problems stem cells could fix, there are even more remarkable possibilities. “A person paralyzed by a traumatic spinal cord injury could possibly walk again with the introduction of new nerve cells generated from human embryonic stem cells” (“Stem Cells” 1). Stem cells cannot only resolve physically debilitating diseases, but complex genetic diseases as well. “A person with diabetes could possibly avoid insulin injections if scientists could create insulin-producing pancreatic cells” (“Stem Cells” 1). Stem cells could also find cures to blindness, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, vision, etc. Vanna Belton, a blind patient from Baltimore, underwent an incredible procedure to regain some of her vision, she had stem cells taken from her bone marrow and injected into her retina and optic nerve (Crew 1). Although all these ideas are valid in the endless possibilities of stem cell research, there counterarguments towards stem cell

Stem cells are unique cells in the body because of several key features. They are unspecialized cells. Unlike the other body cells that have specific structures to enable them to preform certain tasks,

Stem cells are unspecialized cells of a multicellular organism and it has capability changing into any type cell. When stem cells divides, the new cell has the potential of choosing whether to stay a stem cell or turn into any type of specialized such as: skin cells, neurons, muscle cells and many more. Stem cells have no specific function but are special in their own way. In the early stage of the development, stem cells have the extraordinary potential to develop into any type of cell in the human body. Unlike Specialized cells that have a specific function and cannot change into any other type of cells, stem cells have no specific function but are special in their own way. The specialized cells divide the new cells and do not have the choice of changing. They have to stay the same.

Stem cells can come from several places. Embryonic stem cells come from embryos; they are fertilized in labs. It is important to note that the eggs are not fertilized in a woman 's body. At the time of removal, the embryos are at least three days old. The U.S Department of Health & Human Service defines an adult cell as “an undifferentiated cell, found among differentiated cells in a tissue or organ.” Before removal, the role of the adult stem cell is to preserve and mend the tissue of its host.

After reading the study, the most obvious future study in my mind is adjusting the treatment period of the mice. In the future, the mice should be treated for a longer time period with the MSCs. I would like to know specifically if there were negative long-term effects for using this over a longer period of time for this purpose. In class, we learned that injecting stem cells can be dangerous in that although they have the ability to become multiple types of cells in the body, it is hard to control what type of cell they evolve into. With cells that are potentially unregulated in the body dividing, this has the potential, in my opinion, to cause problems if used for extended periods of time. Additionally, another risk of using stem cells