Chapter 13 - Stem Cells and Cell Differentiation

Is a Blastocyst “Life”?

Alabama says it is equivalent to a personhood or child

Dr. Father Alfred Cioffi

Catholic Priest with 2 PhDs (Molecular Biology)

What are the multiple uses of stem cells?

• Increased understanding of how diseases develop

• Cure diseases

• Test new drugs for safety

• Generate new stem cells to replace or aid diseases or damaged organs

• Research how certain cells (ex: cancer stem cells) develop into cancer

• Regenerative medicine applications

• Fix genetic diseases in the future

• Tissue engineering - Organs on a chip

• Clean Meat industry

Woolly Mammoth Meatball

• Australian start up “Vow” looking for generating meat from stem cells

• Used DNA from Mammoths and inserted it into sheep cells.

What is the research on printing human organs in space about?

• Human organs like capillaries, have proven difficult in Earth’s gravity.

• BioFabrification Factility (BFF) prints human organs and tissues in microgravity using ultrafine layers of bio-ink

• Part of long-term plan to manufacture entire human organs in space using refined biological 3D printing techniques

What is the research about helping the heart?

• Engineered Heart Tissues look at how human heart tissue functions in space

• Uses human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSCs)

Hope BioSciences