Stem Cells

types of cell from fertilised egg process diagram

what do characteristics of stem cells provide us with

-understand early human dev (infertility, birth defects)

-understand control of cell division (cancer)

-cell based therapies

-cell based drug screening platform

example of stem cell based therapies

-replace damaged cells for treatment of diseases

-reduce need for organ/tissue donor/transplants

where do embryonic cells come from

inner cell mass of blastocyst

es cells in lab

-can be grown indefinitely

-potential to grow all cell types in our body (pluripotent)

-differentiation can be controlled to generate specific cell type

blastocyte structure diagram

function of tissue stem cells

-gen from es cells

-gen tissue of body during dev

-can be grown in lab for research

-include stem cells isolated from fetal and cord blood

-retained in adult tissues where they are involved in repair and replacement

haematopoietic stem cells

-isolated from blood or bone marrow

-when some cells remain stem cells after division