STEM CELLS 101 / University of Texas at Houston

Jan

Pioneer Founding member
Stem cells have three qualities. They:

divide and renew themselves for a long time
remain unspecialized (undifferentiated)
can become specialized.

?No other cell in the body has that combination of self-renewal, extensive proliferation and differentiation capacity,? states Paul Simmons, Ph.D., director of Stem Cell Research at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (IMM). ?Understanding how to control the differentiation of stem cells is still a major endeavor that is underway in many labs around the world.?

The stem cells with the most therapeutic promise are the ones at the center of the uproar: embryonic stem cells. These cells have the potential to become any of the 200 or so different cell types that comprise the human body? they are pluripotent. As an embryo develops however, stem cells have a more limited choice about which cell type they can become. These multipotent stem cells play a central role in the formation of tissues and organs and continue to participate in regeneration and repair in the adult.

The step-by-step process of stem cell differentiation is the lineage of that cell, and the endpoint is known as its fate. One main area of research focus is learning to control the fate of embryonic stem cells. ?We have to learn how to train these cells to go down particular lineages that we want,? Simmons says. These cells can be used to replace damaged or diseased cells in a particular organ.

?In addition to their use in cellular therapy, pharmaceutical companies can use stem cells as the basis for discovering and testing drugs,? says Simmons, who also is president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. ?You can screen for a drug that has a specific effect on the liver, for example, and has no effect on bone, skin, or heart cells. This would eliminate some of the drugs that have major side effects in other tissues.?

FOR FULL ARTICLE GO TO:

http://publicaffairs.uth.tmc.edu/hleader/archive/RESEARCH/2007/stemcell-0206.html
 
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