As President Barack Obama is expected to lift federal restrictions on the field of stem cell research, many universities and labs are preparing to expand their work in stem cell research in the future.

 

One of the most recent discoveries in this field is attributed to scientists at the University of Connecticut, who have managed to develop two new embryonic stem cell lines decided to make them available to a number of labs around the country. The team who made the discovery hope that these new stem cell lines will help researchers in their efforts to find treatments for cognitive diseases.

 

A team of Australian scientists have managed to produce the nation’s first human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell line. iPS cells have the same properties of embryonic stem cells but they are made from an adult skin cell. A major advantage of using these types of stem cells is that doctors could use the patient’s own cells and expand them into different cell types and then reintroduce them into the patient. This strategy prevents the body from rejecting the tissue.

 

As an example, scientists could take cells from a patient with Parkinson’s and induce them to form iPS cells. These cells can be differentiated in the lab to form the nerves that are damaged in the patient.

The technique also allows scientists to continue their work to study and understand cognitive illnesses such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease without the moral problems raised by stem cells taken from human embryos.

 

Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that develop from human eggs that have been fertilized in vitro. In vitro fertilization clinics donate these embryos for research purposes with the informed consent of donors. Human embryonic stem cells are derived from blastocysts – five days embryos that have the structure of a microscopic ball of cells.

 

Stem cells are known for their remarkable potential to develop in many different cell types in the body. Due to this ability, they may serve as a sort of repair system for the body.

Adult stem cells, one of the three main types of stem cells, are found throughout the body after embryonic development and they divide to replace dying cells and regenerate damaged tissue. Adult and embryonic stem cells differ in the number and type of differentiated cell types they can become. Embryonic stem cell can become all cell types of the body, while adult stem cells have the potential to develop into different cell types of their tissue of origin.

 

Induced pluripotent stem cells are derived from an adult stem cell using genes and viruses. Researchers have tried to improve this method by developing a safer way to obtain stem cells from adult cells without using the viruses that can cause cancer. Last year, researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston managed to reprogram adult skin cells into embryonic-like stem cells using adenoviruses which don’t integrate into the genome, preventing the genetic alteration of the cell.