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Showing posts with label embryonic stem cell. Show all posts

07 February 2014

Transforming Skin Cells To Insulin Producing Beta Cells To Treat Type 1 Diabetes

Credit: Catherine Twomey for The National Academies

Scientists have developed a technique that could replenish insulin producing beta cells using stem cell technology. They used skin cells and transformed them into cells that could secrete insulin. The transformed cells called PPLCs, can mimic early pancreas-like cells that can manufacture insulin.

Early testing shows that the technique is successful.

Type 1 diabetes is disease where the immune system of the body attacks and destroys beta cells in the pancreas. This results in the loss of insulin which is needed to control the blood sugar levels. If left untreated, high sugar levels can be fatal.

There is no cure for diabetes yet but it can be managed with regular glucose monitoring and insulin injections.

Because stem cells have the ability to transform into any type of cell in the body, scientists have high hopes that this may be the key to finding a cure for diabetes and other diseases. This latest discovery is a positive step in finding a permanent cure for type 1 diabetes.

Studying the Validity of Stem Cell Therapy on Spinal Cord Injuries

A new study conducted a meta-analysis of previous lab experiments in 156 previously published studies on the effects of stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury.

The paper, "Stem Cell Transplantation in Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Animal Studies", is published in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Ana Antonic, David Howells and colleagues from the Florey Institute and the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Malcolm MacLeod and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, UK. It addresses the validity of stem cell therapy on spinal cord injuries.

The study finds that stem cell treatment results in about a 25% average improvement in both sensory and motor outcomes.

The spinal cord, combined with the brain, makes up the Central Nervous System (CNS). It is about 43 cm (17 in) to 45 cm (18 in) long and around 0.25 to 0.50 inches thick.

The spinal cord transmits the neural signals from the brain to the rest of the body. Neural circuits that can independently control numerous reflexes and central pattern generators also can be found in the spinal cord.

The spinal cord is very delicate, any major damage to the spinal cord may result in death or paralysis. Aside from stem cell therapy, scientists are looking into neuroprosthetics and robotics in treating spinal cord injury.

Cardiac Stem Cell Therapy For Heart Failure Researched

Researchers are looking into a non-invasive treatment of heart failure using cardiac stem cells or heart stem cells.

In late 2011, researchers discovered a source of stem cells located in the heart. These cardiac stem cells can form into different types of heart cells including muscle, bone, neural and heart cells.

Located near the blood vessels, these heart stem cells can be developed into regenerative therapies aimed to enhance tissue repair in the heart. A damaged heart has difficulty repairing itself well because of the incredibly hostile environment and wide-scale loss of cells, including stem cells, after a heart attack.

The use of heart stem cells in treatment has many benefits including less invasive treatments since cardiac stem cells naturally goes to the heart when injected or inserted into the body. It can also be a preventive treatment to patients who are at risk of heart failure.

For the past few years, medical science have been looking into stem cells as treatment for numerous diseases and conditions. Stem cells have the natural ability to transform or differentiate into other types of tissues, cells, and organs.

Researchers Discover Bacteria That Can Transform Regular Cells Into Stem Cells

Stem cells (green) carrying bacteria differentiate into skeletal muscles, passively transmitting the infection to muscles.
Credit: Dr Toshihiro Masaki, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, The University of Edinburgh

Researchers discover that bacteria can transform regular stem cells into stem cells. This discovery can lead to better stem cell treatments in the future.

Pluripotent Stem Cells are being considered the next best miracle cure for most diseases. Its pluripotency is what makes these cells special when it comes to medical science. Pluripotency is the ability to change into any other type of cell or tissue. This process is called differentiation.

There are different kinds of stem cells. There are blood stem cells, cardiac stem cells, brain stem cells and others. These can only differentiate into a specific cell or tissue. Only embryonic stem cells are pluripotent and can differentiate into any other cell except into another embryo.

Stem cell research hit a snag when President Bush vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 allowing the federal funding of embryonic stem cells because of moral reasons. Scientists were permitted to use existing stem cell lines harvested before the bill was vetoed.

In 2007, Shinya Yamanaka and his team at Kyoto University successfully transformed a non-pluripotent cell into a pluripotent stem cell without using embryonic stem cells. This was done by inducing specific genes within the cells to revert back to being pluripotent again. Yamanaka and fellow stem cell researcher John Gurdon were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent."

Currently, there are four types of pluripotent stem cells:

Embryonic Stem Cell
Nuclear Transplant Stem Cell
Parthenote Stem Cell
Induced Stem Cell

The first three types require a fertilized egg cell to form.

Scientists are looking into stem cells as treatment for incurable diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's Disease, and cancer.

Creating New Beta Cells: Stem Cell Advances For Diabetes Treatment

The islets of Langerhans are responsible for the endocrine function of the pancreas. Each islet contains beta, alpha, and delta cells that are responsible for the secretion of pancreatic hormones. Beta cells secrete insulin, a well-characterized hormone that plays an important role in regulating glucose metabolism.

Stem cell treatment for diabetes is slowly progressing as scientists study the process of regenerating insulin producing beta cells from stem cells.

Diabetes is a disease where production of insulin by the, the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels, is either not enough or not even produced.

Insulin is created in the pancreas, as part of the body's endocrine system. Within the pancreas, in a region called the islets of Langerhans are cells called Beta cells. These beta cells are the cells responsible for the actual production and secretion of insulin.

Diabetes occurs when these beta cells stop producing insulin or does not produce enough. The number of beta cells in the body are kept in balance within the pancreas. Studies have shown that obese people who have not contracted diabetes have a higher amount of beta cells than obese diabetics.

Stem Cells

Stem cells are special cells that can differentiate (transform) into a higher or specialized type of cell. The body has different types of stem cells such as blood stem cells, heart stem cells, and even brain stem cells. These cells can only differentiate into cells specific to the organ they are associated with.

There are also pluripotent stem cells that can differentiate into any type of cell. These are embryonic stem cells. But because embryonic stem cells are harvested from living embryos, some sectors consider it a moral issue.

Advances in medical technology and research have allowed scientists to induce other cells to become pluripotent. This allows the production of pluripotent stem cells without using an embryo.

Transforming Human Stem Cells to Cardiomyocytes Promises Efficient and Inexpensive Heart Treatments

A single human cardiomyocyte grown using a method devised by UW-Madison chemical and biological engineering graduate student Xiaojun Lian. Cardiomyocytes, the workhorse muscle cells of the heart, can now be grown cheaply and abundantly in the lab, thanks to the new method devised by Lian and his colleagues.
Image credit: Xiaojun Lian

Stem cells are cells found in the body that have the capability to transform itself into any type of biological cell in the body.

In terms of human stem cells, these cells can be made into various human cells and tissues. This technology has great potential to treat otherwise untreatable diseases and conditions. Stem cells can repair and even replace diseased cells in organs and tissues. It can even assist in organ regeneration.

Stem cells are taken from human embryos about four or five days after fertilization. That stage of the embryo is called the late blastocyst stage.

The blastocyst contains three distinct areas:

Trophoblast - surrounding outer layer that later becomes the placenta
Blastocoel - fluid-filled cavity within the blastocyst
Embryoblast - the inner cell mass which can become the embryo or fetus.

Embryonic stem cells can be created from cells taken from the inner cell mass Because these cells are taken from such an early stage in development, they have the ability to become cells of any tissue type (except for the whole embryo itself), making them pluripotent.

Pluripotent cells are cells that has the potential to differentiate into any of the three cell groupings or germ layers:

Endoderm (interior stomach lining, gastrointestinal tract, the lungs)
Mesoderm (muscle, bone, blood, urogenital)
Ectoderm (epidermal tissues and nervous system).

Because of the manner that stem cells are procured, arguments have been raised on the morality of sacrificing an embryo for disease research and treatment.

New stem cell technique promises abundance of key heart cells

Cardiomyocytes, the workhorse cells that make up the beating heart, can now be made cheaply and abundantly in the laboratory.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Wisconsin scientists describes a way to transform human stem cells -- both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells -- into the critical heart muscle cells by simple manipulation of one key developmental pathway. The technique promises a uniform, inexpensive and far more efficient alternative to the complex bath of serum or growth factors now used to nudge blank slate stem cells to become specialized heart cells.

"Our protocol is more efficient and robust," explains Sean Palecek, the senior author of the new report and a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of chemical and biological engineering. "We have been able to reliably generate greater than 80 percent cardiomyocytes in the final population while other methods produce about 30 percent cardiomyocytes with high batch-to-batch variability."

New Stem Cell Line Offers Safe and Prolific Source for Disease and Transplant Studies

The decade have seen a surge on stem cell research. Stem cells have the ability to transform into any type of human cell under lab conditions. This offers great potential to repair and even replace diseased cells in organs and tissues. It can even assist in organ regeneration.

Much progress has been made in better understanding these cells and their capabilities. Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESC) hold much promise not only for being cellular models of human development and function, but also for use in the field of regenerative medicine. However, due to ethical and application concerns, only recently have these cells made it to clinical trials.

Human Embryonic Stem Cells are taken from embryos about four or five days after fertilization. That stage of the embryo is called the late blastocyst stage. The blastocyst contains three distinct areas:

Trophoblast - surrounding outer layer that later becomes the placenta
Blastocoel - fluid-filled cavity within the blastocyst
Embryoblast - the inner cell mass which can become the embryo or fetus.

Embryonic stem cells can be created from cells taken from the inner cell mass Because these cells are taken from such an early stage in development, they have the ability to become cells of any tissue type (except for the whole embryo itself), making them pluripotent.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia researchers develop potential source for future diabetes, liver treatments

Researchers have generated a new type of human stem cell that can develop into numerous types of specialized cells, including functioning pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin. Called endodermal progenitor (EP) cells, the new cells show two important advantages over embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells: they do not form tumors when transplanted into animals, and they can form functional pancreatic beta cells in the laboratory.

"Our cell line offers a powerful new tool for modeling how many human diseases develop," said study leader Paul J. Gadue, Ph.D., a stem cell biologist in the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Additionally, pancreatic beta cells generated from EP cells display better functional ability in the laboratory than beta cells derived from other stem cell populations."

Cancer Vaccine Based on Cancer Stem Cell Being Developed

Human embryonic stem cells(hESCs) research has been around since its discovery 12 years ago. Since then, it has garnered publicity both good and bad due to the advancement it promises in medical research as well as the ethical concerns of harvesting them.

To date, much progress has been made in better understanding these cells and their capabilities. hESCs hold much promise not only for being cellular models of human development and function, but also for use in the field of regenerative medicine. However, due to ethical and application concerns, only recently have these cells made it to clinical trials.

Trophoblast - surrounding outer layer that later becomes the placenta
Blastocoel - fluid-filled cavity within the blastocyst
Embryoblast - the inner cell mass which can become the embryo or fetus.

Cancer stem cells on the other hand are different from human embryonic stem cells. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are cancer cells that are similar in properties with normal stem cells, specifically the ability to give rise to all cell types found in a particular cancer sample. Because of this, cancer stem cells are tumorigenic (tumor-forming). These cells can be found within tumors or hematological cancers (cancer that affect blood, bone marrow, and lymph nodes).

CSCs may generate tumors through the stem cell processes of self-renewal and differentiation into multiple cell types. Such cells are proposed to persist in tumors as a distinct population and cause relapse and metastasis by giving rise to new tumors. Therefore, development of specific therapies targeted at CSCs holds hope for improvement of survival and quality of life of cancer patients, especially for sufferers of metastatic disease.

Using cancer stem cells as a vaccine against cancer

Scientists may have discovered a new paradigm for immunotherapy against cancer by priming antibodies and T cells with cancer stem cells, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Newly Discovered Cardiac Stem Cells Repair Damaged Heart

Researchers have discovered a new source of stem cells located in the heart. According to the findings, these stem cells have the capacity for long-term expansion and can form a variety of cell types, including muscle, bone, neural and heart cells.

The findings are published in the December issue of Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press publication.

These cardiac stem cells can be found in both developing and adult hearts. These cells can be found near the blood vessels. This discovery may improve much needed regenerative therapies aimed to enhance tissue repair in the heart. The damaged heart often doesn't repair itself well because of the incredibly hostile environment and wide-scale loss of cells, including stem cells, after a heart attack.

Richard Harvey of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Australia says that despite the stem cell's ability to transform into other cell types, he thinks that they have a bias toward forming into heart tissue. "In an evolutionary sense, they've been dedicated to the heart for a long time.", he says. He also suspects that their flexibility is a byproduct of the need to remain responsive to the environment and to many types of injury.

The stem cells harvested from human hearts during surgery are beginning to show promise for reversing heart attack damage, Harvey noted. "If we are serious about organ regeneration, we need to understand the biology," he says.

Video: Report on how cardiac stem cells repair a damaged heart

Igor Slukvin of the University of Wisconsin agrees with Harvey, "Understanding the developmental biology of the heart is instrumental in developing novel technologies for heart regeneration and cellular therapies," he writes. "It is critical to identify the type and origin of cells capable of reconstituting a heart."

While cell-based therapies do have potential for repairing damaged heart tissue, Harvey ultimately favors the notion of regenerative therapies designed to tap into the natural ability of the heart and other organs to repair themselves. And there is more work to do to understand exactly what role these stem cells play in that repair process. His team is now exploring some of the factors that bring those cardiac stem cells out of their dormant state in response to injury and protect their "stemness."

Video: American Heart Association report on Cardiac Stem Cells

Cardiac stem cells are different from embryonic stem cells in that cardiac cells are also present in adult bodies while embryonic stem cells can only be harvested from embryos

13 November 2011

Power of the Mind: Therapy for Parkinson's Disease

Researchers at Cardiff University have discovered a new technique for patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease.

Patients learned to regulate brain activity by just thinking of it. Published in The Journal of Neuroscience, Prof David Linden from Cardiff University, who led the research, described the process as "real-time neural feedback".

It's almost like a Jedi Mind Trick.

It should be noted that this is not a cure for Parkinson's disease. Linden stresses that the technique improved function that could lead to a better quality of life. At this time, Parkinson's is still incurable. Although, scientists are looking into human embryonic stem cell research for a cure for Parkinson's Disease and other degenerative diseases.

Actually, what happens is that the patients with early stages of Parkinson's disease, learned to control areas of the brain associated with movement by the power of thought. They were placed in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner and were asked to do simple exercises like squeezing a hand. The subjects were then shown in real time, the level of activity in the brain as recorded by the MRI.

Afterwards, they were asked to imagine complex movements in order to activate the brain centers which saw a corresponding reading on the instruments. This procedure trained the patients to activate these localized brain centers to increase and decrease the level of activity at will; just by thinking of it.

Video: Panelists debate clinical trials and its gains and pitfalls through a Parkinson's Disease case

As the abstract states,"Self-regulation of brain activity in humans based on real-time feedback of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal is emerging as a potentially powerful, new technique. Here, we assessed whether patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are able to alter local brain activity to improve motor function. Five patients learned to increase activity in the supplementary motor complex over two fMRI sessions using motor imagery. They attained as much activation in this target brain region as during a localizer procedure with overt movements. Concomitantly, they showed an improvement in motor speed (finger tapping) and clinical ratings of motor symptoms (37% improvement of the motor scale of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale). Activation during neurofeedback was also observed in other cortical motor areas and the basal ganglia, including the subthalamic nucleus and globus pallidus, which are connected to the supplementary motor area (SMA) and crucial nodes in the pathophysiology of PD..

An evaluation of the clinical trials show that movement of patients trained in this technique improved by 30%.

Here's a video about Parkinson's Disease: Progress and Promise in Stem Cell Research

07 November 2011

Stem Cell Breakthrough for Parkinson's Disease Treatment

In a major breakthrough, US researchers have grown brain cells from human embryonic stem cells. This discovery is a major step in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Lorenz Studer of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York together with his colleagues published their work in the journal Nature this November.

Grafting the grown brain cells into monkey's brains, tests showed that the cells survived in the animals and reversed the movement problems caused by Parkinson's in the monkeys. This latest medical breakthrough is another sign that embryonic stem cells can very well be the definitive cure for a lot of degenerative diseases. Stem cell research has been mired in controversy on the onset based on moral grounds. Some groups have decried using embryonic stem cells due to its nature and the method on how its procured.

Dr. Studer found the specific chemical signals needed to nudge stem cells into the right kind of dopamine-producing brain cells. Previously, scientists could not pinpoint the right chemical signals needed to tell the stem cells how to form into the right type of cells. "The cells we produced in the past would produce some dopamine but in fact were not quite the right type of cell, so there were limited improvements in the animals. Now we know how to do it right, which is promising for future clinical use." said Dr. Studer.

Video: Embryonic Stem Cells. Very informative and highly recommended

Parkinson's disease happens when brain cells that produce dopamine die off causing tremors, slow movement, and rigidity in people. It usually affects people over the age of 50. Patients with Parkinson's also experience escalating symptoms of tiredness, pain, depression, and constipation as the disease progresses.

This discovery opens the prospect of infusing freshly grown dopamine-producing cells into the patient's brain to treat the disease.

Presently, the main treatments for Parkinson's disease are drugs that control the symptoms by increasing dopamine levels that reach the brain. This stimulates the area of the brain where dopamine works. Some patients have wires surgically implanted into their brains for the electrical pulses to flow freely mitigating movement problems.

Aside from Parkinson's Disease, scientists are also looking at embryonic stem cell treatment for Alzheimer's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). They have been having problems in successfully creating the cells required. As of now, there are still safety concerns regarding this procedure as there is a fear that dopamine neurons developed from human stem cells can trigger the growth of tumours. Human clinical trials have yet to start.

Dr Studer said: "We now have the right cells, but to put them into humans requires them to be produced in a specialised facility rather than a laboratory, for safety reasons. We have removed the main biological bottleneck and now it's an engineering problem."

Last month, scientists have successfully cloned a human embryo which may open up the possibility of harvesting embryonic stem cells for clinical use.

31 October 2011

US$10 Million Contest to Sequence Centenarian Genome

Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) company, Medco Health Solutions Inc, held a contest on which laboratory can accurately and economically sequence 100 genomes. The genome sequence should focus on the DNA of people over 100 years old.

The prize? US$$10 million.

Geneticist Craig Venter says, "All the technology that people are buying now gives slightly different answers. That means by definition they are not good enough for diagnostics."

Difference in standards among medical companies complicate the quality, speed and accuracy of the tests. Achieving a medical standard can address this. Companies involved in this line of business includes Applied Biosystems, Illumina and Complete Genomics. And all of them have their own standards.

The aim is to achieve a "medical grade" standard for gene sequencing that could be used for personalizing medical treatment based on the person's genes.

Craig Venter is known for being one of the first to sequence the human genome. He also created the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. He is now working with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to come up with an agreed upon definition "to take genomics to the next grade".

Video: Sequencing the human genome:

100 centenarians are currently being selected and their genomes will be given to laboratories on Jan 2013. The contest will end on Feb 2013. Laboratory teams will compete on the accuracy, cost, speed and completeness of genome sequencing. The first team to accurately sequence the whole genome of the 100 subjects within the time period of 30 days will get the US$10 million prize. The allowable error rate for the competition should be less than one per million base pairs.

If successful, Venter believes that this will innovate and open up a whole new possibility in treating medical conditions.

Unlike embryonic stem cell research, genome technology would allow scientists and geneticists to create a cell from a synthetic genome structure. That cell can be designed to address a medical condition or biological defect.

25 October 2011

Professor to make US$400,000 Hamburger

Professor Mark Post has been given around US$417,000 (€300,000) to make a hamburger.

But he has to do it without using meat coming from an animal and has one year to do it.

Mark Post is head of the Department of Vascular Physiology at Masstricht University in the Netherlands. He is focusing his research on growing meat in the lab rather than procuring it the natural way. "We want to turn meat production from a farming process to a factory process," he explained.

A philanthropist got in touch with Prof Post and offered to pay him to make the hamburger using his research. "It is likely the most expensive hamburger that we will ever see on this planet," said Post. In the same vein, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA) has also announced a prize of $1 million for the first company or individual to bring synthetic meat to consumer shops in at least 6 US states by 2016.

Instead of using cows and other farm animals for meat, Post will grow the meat using muscle stem cells procured from the animal. Instead of using embryonic stem cells which according to him does not work, Prof Post will be using stem cells called myosatellites. These are stem cells normally used by the body to repair damaged muscle.

Video: In Vitro Meat or Meat grown in a lab:

Myosatellite cells can be extracted from a mature animal without killing it and have numerous advantages. Firstly, they are "one way" cells, in the sense that they can only become muscle cells.

Secondly, as the muscle cells proliferate they have an innate tendency to organise into muscle fibres. All that Prof Post has to do to form a strip of muscle is provide anchor points for the fibres to grow around, and the muscle forms by itself. "It's a bit like magic," he said.
Source: BBC

Professor Post wants a celebrity chef to prepare the hamburger, minced with onions and spices. "It would be great if someone like Jamie Oliver agreed to cook it for us, and a famous actress ate it...We don't really know where the taste of meat comes from," Post said. "We assume it comes from fat, but there may be other components, most of them are unknown so it's a bit of a mystery how the conditions we use during the culturing of the meat will affect the taste."

The only know person known to have tasted the meat was a TV journalist from Russia. "He just grabbed it out of the dish and stuffed it into his mouth before I could say anything," said the professor. "He said it was chewy and tasteless."

24 October 2011

Europe Court Rules Against Stem Cell Patent

"The use of human embryos for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes which are applied to the human embryo and are useful to it is patentable. But their use for purposes of scientific research is not patentable... A process which involves removal of a stem cell from a human embryo at the blastocyst [early embryo] stage, entailing the destruction of that embryo, cannot be patented." This statement was released early last week by The European Court of Justice.

Following a challenge by Greenpeace over a patent for nerve cells from embryonic stem cells, the issue whether a stem cell process can be patented was brought to light. And with this ruling, a number of research facilities and scientist are concerned that the ruling would threaten the future of embryonic stem cell research. Companies in Europe would be less likely to invest in stem cell research they say.

Video: Debate on Stem Cell research:

But Greenpeace and other supporters argued it was unethical to patent cells from a human embryo. They say that they are not opposed to stem cell research itself but to "the idea that patents can be granted for scientific discoveries as opposed to inventions". The European Court also saw it that way and ruled in their favor.

It is too early whether or not this can derail research and advancements in stem cell research. Early this month, Pfizer has already started doing human clinical trials to cure blindness in old people thru stem cell treatment.

Embryonic stem cells can be turned into any tissue in the body and as such, is an important tool in disease treatment.

23 October 2011

Human Embryo Cloned for Stem Cell Production

On October 5, the science journal Nature published a study where scientists have successfully cloned a human embryo.

Although the experiment was a success, the clone had too much DNA material (it had enough material for 2 persons) for it to function properly.

The study states:

It is not the end-all experiment that scientists aiming to create embryonic stem cells have been hoping for — the embryos are not true clones, because the DNA of the stem-cell line does not match that of the patient who donated cells — but it is a step in that direction and addresses some of the problems that have flummoxed experiments.
Source: Nature

What's special about the study is that an embryo can continually produce embryonic stem cells without any complications from existing laws that regulate the procurement of these. As of now, there are no currently approved treatment using embryonic stem cells.

Cloning a human embryo opens up the possibility of cloning personalized stem cells that can help in curing the affected person. As stated in the study, this part of the experiment is still not attainable. On the other hand, this also leads to a scenario where human beings can be cloned.

Video: Human stem cells, embryonic stem cells, and stem cell research

Research into this technology gives hope in the various treatments such as neurological paralysis, diabetes, cancer, and even age rejuvenation. There are even beauty products that claim it is based on stem cell technology.

Embryonic stem cells can be used to transform it to any human cell type under lab conditions. As such, it has great potential to repair and even replace diseased cells in organs and tissues. It may even help in its regeneration.