Stem Cel Research.
Jacqueline Owens
Mr. Upshaw
English 102-11 (Essay 2)
3 March 2008
Stem Cell Research
Stem cells are cells that can form into any type of cell, they are found in bone marrow, embryos, fetuses, and blood from the umbilical cord. Early in development, a human embryo is made up of a hollow ball of cells called a “blastocyst”. Blastocyst cells divide and eventually develop into all of the tissues and organs of a human being, a process called “differentiation”. Embryonic stem cells can be grown in the laboratory from blastocysts and made to differentiate into nerve, liver, muscle, blood, and other cells. Scientists hope to control the differentiation of the cells to replace cells in diseased organs in human beings. Embryonic stem cells can also be used to test the effects of new drugs without harming animals or people.
Research on the topic of stem cells is advancing the scientific knowledge about how cells develop. Stem cell research is applied to two main characteristics that allow stem cells to be distinguished among most other types of cells. The first major characteristic is that the stem cells are unspecialized and can renew themselves through cell divisions for longer durations of time. Secondly, the cells can be manipulated under certain conditions to become any cell that the scientist encodes them with; liver cell or even a heart cell. Scientists primarily work with two types of stem cells, embryonic and adult. Unlike muscle cells, blood cells, and nerve cells, stem cells may replicate many times. An initial population of stem cells grows for many months and in lab conditions can produce millions of cells. The cells are termed to be long term self renewing if the produced cells are unspecialized like their parent stem cells.
A key topic in stem cell research is called differentiation. Differentiation is described as being when unspecialized cells give rise to new specialized cells. Scientists...
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