Stem Cells

  

Stem cell is a kind of cells that can be differentiated into specialized cells and has indefinitely self-renewable properties. Stem cells are made up of two main groups.

First thing is embryonic stem cell which can be seen during the blastocyst phase of embryological development and second one is adult stem cell. These are characterized in phase of potency to be divided into different cell types.

Adult stem cells have the ability to differentiate into a closely related family of cells. Dividing into red and white blood cells of platelets can be example of this. Embryonic stem cells are totipoten or pluripotent. It means that these cells have ability to differentiate into all or almost all types of cells because embryonic stem cells are formed from zygote which can be structure of adult organism. However, there is controversy because extracting embryonic stem cells from zygote needs the destruction of a human blastocyst which can be a man.

So there is a way to resolve this problem by making embryonic stem cells using adult cells that is not one of stem cells. Inserting appropriate DNA can turn adult cells back as early phase of cell development. This means disease can be cured by replacing damaged tissue with just your skin tissue. This method of making embryonic stem cells is created by John Gurdon and Yamanaka who are professor of Cambridge and Kyoto University and got the Novel Prize for this achievement.



Source of Information :



www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/stem_cell

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/08/us-nobel-medicine-idUSBRE8970AB20121008