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Education

What Are Stem Cells?

Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body (such as a muscle cell, a liver cell, or a brain cell) as well as to divide to make more stem cells. They play a fundamental role in embryo development and later on in development of organs and tissues. Stem cells continue to function throughout a person's life and they can theoretically divide without limit to replenish other cells in the body. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential to either remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function.

There are two categories of mammalian stem cells:

1. embryonic stem cells , that are found in the blastocyst-stage embryos
2. adult stem cells, which are found in adult tissues.

In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate to form all of the specialized embryonic tissues. In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells that arise from stem cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing specialized cells.

Potential uses for stem cells

There are many areas in medicine in which stem cell research could have a tremendous impact. There are a variety of diseases and injuries in which a patient's cells or tissues are damaged and must be replaced by transplants. Stem cells have an ability to generate brand new tissue in these patients and cure diseases for which currently there is no adequate therapy. Some diseases that scientist believe stem cell therapy would help include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injury, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, skin burns and even cancer. New research suggests that causes of at least several cancers are mutated stem cells (cancer stem cells).

Because stem cells can be used to create limitless amounts of specialized tissue, they can be used in the testing and development of new drugs before trying the drugs on animals or human subjects.

Stem cells can also be used to gain a better understanding of how genetics work in the early stages of cell development and how certain abnormalities lead to birth defects and cancer. By understanding the genetic basis for cell development, scientists may learn how to prevent some types of diseases.

Live Cells on Demand!

California Stem Cell is now shipping high purity populations of fully characterized hESC-derived human cells in an ideal format for drug screening and predictive toxicology.
Learn more

Embryonic vs. Adult

All stem cells are characterized by the ability to self-replicate (make themselves) and the ability to turn into other cell types. However, there are two main categories of stem cells, embryonic and adult.

Stem Cell Lines

Embryonic stem cell lines (ES cell lines) are cultures of cells derived from the inner cell mass (ICM) of blastocyst stage embryos.