Stem cells have long been in the news as a potential therapy or possible cure for Parkinson's Disease. So what exactly are stem cells? First you should know that there are several different types of stem cells. The two types that are mentioned most often are embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. There are other types, but let's stick to these two.
A stem cell is a cell that has three basic properties:
1. It can "renew" or regenerate itself for a much longer period of time than regular cells in the body,
2. It is unspecialized- meaning that it has not "chosen" a specific tissue type, i.e.- heart muscle, brain tissue, liver cell,
3. It has the ability to specialize- meaning it can become a specific type of tissue and take on that tissue's role in the body.
An embryonic stem cell is an undifferentiated (unspecified) cell from a 5-day old pre-implementation embryo.
An adult stem cell (aka somatic cell) is also an undifferentiated cell but these cells come from many types of tissue, bone marrow, brain tissue, etc. There is no embryo involved in these types of cells.
So what's all the debate about? Well, during the extraction of embryonic stem cells the embryo itself is generally destroyed. This risk raises the ehtical/moral questions about whether or not the procedure is destroying life or advancing science. Adult stem cells can also be used for research and possibly therapies, but it is not well known if adult stem cells can differentiate into all the cell types in the body. Embryonic stem cells are more versatile in that they can become most, if not all, types of cells in the body. However, adult stem cells are not rejected after implantation as they are from the patient's body already.
Until recently it seemed like both embryonic and adult stem cells both had advantages and that the moral and political debate would continue for years. Then something amazing happened back in November 2007, two scientists working separately were able to turn ordinary human skin cells into what could effectively be considered embryonic stem cells. The scientists took regular human skin cells and with the help of some genetically engineered viruses were able to transform the skin cells into embryo-like stem cells. Their method used four genes in a proper sequence to make the skin cells almost indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.
This new finding breaks open the entire stem cell research world. Now there is a way to take regular cells, without hurting anyone or anything, and turn it into essentially embryonic stem cells. With any luck this method will allow for vastly increased ways to study embryonic stem cell, develop new therapies using them and also increase federal funding for these lines of research.
I will of course be watching for further developments in this research as it holds out hope for a cure or at least better therapies for Parkinson's Disease. When I find further research in this area believe me that it will be posted.
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