Introduction: What are Stem Cells?
The stem cell is the mother of all cells and has the ability to become all the cells in the body. These cells have the ability to self-renewal and differentiate into different types of cells, including blood, heart, nerve and cartilage cells. They are also effective in regenerating and repairing various tissues of the body following injury and can be transplanted into damaged tissues where most of their cells have been destroyed and replace the damaged cells and repair and repair defects in that tissue. .
Due to the unique ability of stem cells, these cells are an interesting topic in biology and medical science today. Research in this area has also increased our knowledge of how an organ grows from a single cell and, more importantly, has helped to understand the mechanism by which healthy cells are replaced by damaged cells.
Methods: Stem cells are divided into three categories based on their characteristics: embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and umbilical cord blood stem cells.
1.Embryonic stem cells:It is taken from the inner cell mass of a 14-16 day old fetus and is able to make all the cells and tissues of a complete person.
2.Mature stem cells:Cells that separate from the various tissues of an adult after birth are called cells. Hematopoietic stem cells located in the bone marrow, brain, liver and other tissues are the ones that have the power to differentiate into some tissues.
3.Umbilical cord blood stem cells:Extracted from the umbilical cord, they are like bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells
Stem-cell therapy is the use of stem cells to treat or prevent a disease or condition. As of 2016, the only established therapy using stem cells is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. This usually takes the form of a bone-marrow transplantation, but the cells can also be derived from umbilical cord blood. Research is underway to develop various sources for stem cells as well as to apply stem-cell treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
Stem-cell therapy has become controversial following developments such as the ability of scientists to isolate and culture embryonic stem cells, to create stem cells using somatic cell nuclear transfer and their use of techniques to create induced pluripotent stem cells. This controversy is often related to abortion politics and to human cloning. Additionally, efforts to market treatments based on transplant of stored umbilical cord blood have been controversial.
Results: Stem-cell therapy is the use of stem cells to treat or prevent a disease or condition. As of 2016, the only established therapy using stem cells is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. This usually takes the form of a bone-marrow transplantation, but the cells can also be derived from umbilical cord blood. Research is underway to develop various sources for stem cells as well as to apply stem-cell treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
Stem-cell therapy has become controversial following developments such as the ability of scientists to isolate and culture embryonic stem cells, to create stem cells using somatic cell nuclear transfer and their use of techniques to create induced pluripotent stem cells. This controversy is often related to abortion politics and to human cloning. Additionally, efforts to market treatments based on transplant of stored umbilical cord blood have controversial.
Conclusion: For over 30 years, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has been used to treat people with conditions such as leukaemia and lymphoma; this is the only widely practiced form of stem-cell therapy. During chemotherapy, most growing cells are killed by the cytotoxic agents. These agents, however, cannot discriminate between the leukaemia or neoplastic cells, and the hematopoietic stem cells within the bone marrow. This is the side effect of conventional chemotherapy strategies that the stem-cell transplant attempts to reverse; a donor's healthy bone marrow reintroduces functional stem cells to replace the cells lost in the host's body during treatment. The transplanted cells also generate an immune response that helps to kill off the cancer cells; this process can go too far, however, leading to graft vs host disease, the most serious side effect of this treatment.
Another stem-cell therapy, called Prochymal, was conditionally approved in Canada in 2012 for the management of acute graft-vs-host disease in children who are unresponsive to steroids. It is an allogenic stem therapy based on mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from the bone marrow of adult donors. MSCs are purified from the marrow, cultured and packaged, with up to 10,000 doses derived from a single donor. The doses are stored frozen until needed.
The FDA has approved five hematopoietic stem-cell products derived from umbilical-cord blood, for the treatment of blood and immunological diseases.
In 2014, the European Medicines Agency recommended approval of limbal stem cells for people with severe limbal stem cell deficiency due to burns in the eye.