what is stem cell

can you imagine a world where one day if youneed a new heart you could just order one made just for you? sound like science fiction?well we’re not so far off. hey guys, julia here for dnews dudes, so something pretty cool just happenedin the wonderful world of science. researchers grew beating hearts from human stem cells.okay fine hyperbole, it’s not the whole heart just a few beating cells. but it’sso cool. in a study published in the journal nature,the researchers used human skin cells, turned them into pluripotent cells and used physicaland chemical signals to coax the cells into forming little cardiac microchambers. whichcould be important for studying how the heart

grows in an embryo or how drugs might affecta fetus’s heart. or… looking way into the future, for growing hearts in a dish.it could be a great way to replace organs. no more waiting for a donor and since it wouldbe perfect match to your body, no more terrible drugs to prevent rejection.so far smaller organs like tracheas and bladders have been grown in a lab using a person’sown stem cells, but a heart is a little more complicated. so let’s take a little lookinto how we got here. first off, what are stem cells? stem cellsare pluripotent, meaning they are undifferentiated cells that can develop into any kind of cell.skin, heart, liver etc. so alright, but what’s the big deal? why do researchers love to studystem cells? even from the earliest inklings

of stem cells, there have been big dreams.researchers have hoped that one day they could be able to grow entire new organs from stemcells that would be a perfect match for the recipient. we’ve come a long way from the early daysof stem cell research. human stem cells were first isolated in 1998 by two independentresearch teams led by james a. thomson of the university of wisconsin and another byjohn d. gearhart of johns hopkins university school of medicine. these early stem celllines were derived from early embryos, which are destroyed in the process and thus stirreda little controversy. okay a lot of controversy. because of the debate that raged in the ussurrounding embryonic stem cell research,

scientists looked to find stem cells in otheradult tissues. so a few years later in 2001 adult stem cells were found in fat tissue.now adult stem cells can be found from almost any tissue. but they are tricky, they takea while to coax into growing in a dish. so they’re not ideal. but in 2007, in a paper published in the journalnature biotechnology, dr. anthony alata discovered that amniotic fluid also contains stem cells.which of course added more fuel to the debate. and the same year, two independent teams ofresearchers pioneered a process to turn adult somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells,naturally called induced pluripotent stem cells. the process involves introducing 4different genes into the cells using a virus

as a carrier. the team from japan led shinya yamanaka, publishedtheir work in the journal cell and the team from by james thomson at university of wisconsin–madisonpublished their work in the journal nature. and it was such a huge deal that, yamanakaactually won the 2012 nobel prize for discovering ips cells. which of course this discovery held a lotof promise, it would sidestep some of the controversy with embryonic stem cells. butthere are more than a few issues with their technique, like low efficiency, it’s difficultto do and when done, only a few cells are reprogrammed. plus there’s weird problemswith rejection and also a problem with tumors

developing. but problems aside, tons of studies have beenand are being done with this technology. with lofty goals, like attempting to cure blindnessand diabetes. the federation of american societies for experimental biology says that ips cellswill also “allow scientists to study complex human diseases in petri dishes, a step towardanalyzing the conditions and developing therapies.” some researchers like dr. alata don’t carewhere the cells come from, just that they work well. no matter where stem cells comefrom, it’s clear that we’re on the road to organs grown in a dish. well i certainlyhope so. but it’s also clear that more research is needed.

and really, lab grown organs can’t comesoon enough! if you wanna know the challenges of living with an organ transplant & why theyfail, check out this recent video i did: