Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
These results raise the possibility that stem cells might provide
treatment for spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis. Several
groups of researchers have been able to produce working heart
muscle cells from mouse and human ES cells. One study with
mouse ES-derived heart cells found that the cells did not substitute
for damaged heart cells but did trigger repair of the damaged
muscle when injected into a mouse with a damaged heart. Mouse ES-
derived insulin-secreting pancreas cells have worked when injected
into mice whose own insulin-producing cells had been destroyed,
though the experimental diabetes was not entirely reversed. These
are just a few of the possibilities currently being studied.
Challenges That Face Stem Cell Research
There are many scientific challenges to the use of either adult or
embryonic stem cells, including establishing conditions that will
allow scientists to produce large numbers of stem cells in the lab.
Scientists must learn what needs to be done to allow stem cells to
increase in number without dying off or changing, and what con-
ditions are required to cause the stem cells to turn into one of the
different types of specialized cells. Finally, researchers need to learn
how to get the specialized cells to go to the part of the body where
they are needed and to function correctly. The safety of laboratory-
derived specialized cells for treating human disease is also
unknown. The long-term safety of these cells has not been tested
in animals. Will it be possible to produce specialized cells free of
other kinds of unwanted or unnecessary cells? Will the specialized
cells—whether liver, heart muscle, or pancreas cells—remain just
that, or will they revert to a more primitive cell? That is, will they
acquire genetic changes that lead them to go through rounds of
cell division, free of the normal signals that restrain and regulate
cell division? The concern is that such a cell might act like a
tumor. Finding the answers to these questions will take a lot more
work and time.
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