Rightslink® by Copyright Clearance Center. Stem-Cell Politics. In Missouri this election season, former Republican Senator John Danforth, an Episcopal priest and abortion opponent, is citing the New Testament in support of a state constitutional amendment protecting the legality of human embryonic stem-cell research. “I find nothing in the Bible that tells me that cells in a lab dish are people,” said Danforth, who lost a brother to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and believes that the research will lead to new treatments for diseases.
“What I do find in the Gospels is an emphasis on healing — relieving people of their suffering.” In Wisconsin, where human embryonic stem cells were first isolated, the reelection campaign of Democratic Governor Jim Doyle has run television advertisements attacking Doyle's opponent, Republican Congressman Mark Green, for voting against a bill that would have increased the number of stem-cell lines eligible for federal funding. Congressman Joe Schwarz, M.D. Polls suggest that most Americans do not share that view. College Edition - Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology : History and perspective of stem cell research. Volume 18, Issue 6, December 2004, Pages 827–842 Stem Cells in Obstetrics and Gynaecology Edited By N. Fisk and J. Itskovitz-Eldor Several types of stem cell have been discovered from germ cells, the embryo, fetus and adult.
Adult stem cell; differentiation; embryonic stem cell; hESC; multipotent; plasticity; pluripotent; reparative medicine; self-renewal; stem cell; totipotent; transdifferentiation Copyright © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. Scientists successfully expand bone marrow-derived stem cells in culture | Stowers Institute for Medical Research. KANSAS CITY, MO—All stem cells—regardless of their source—share the remarkable capability to replenish themselves by undergoing self-renewal. Yet, so far, efforts to grow and expand scarce hematopoietic (or blood-forming) stem cells in culture for therapeutic applications have been met with limited success. Now, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research teased apart the molecular mechanisms enabling stem cell renewal in hematopoietic stem cells isolated from mice and successfully applied their insight to expand cultured hematopoietic stem cells a hundredfold.
Their findings, which will be published in the Sept. 15, 2011, edition of Genes & Development, demonstrate that self-renewal requires three complementary events: proliferation, active suppression of differentiation and programmed cell death during proliferation. Proliferation of stem cells in an undifferentiated state, however, calls tumor suppressor genes into action. About the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. What are the unique properties of all stem cells? Stem cells differ from other kinds of cells in the body. All stem cells—regardless of their source—have three general properties: they are capable of dividing and renewing themselves for long periods; they are unspecialized; and they can give rise to specialized cell types. Stem cells are unspecialized. One of the fundamental properties of a stem cell is that it does not have any tissue-specific structures that allow it to perform specialized functions.
For example, a stem cell cannot work with its neighbors to pump blood through the body (like a heart muscle cell), and it cannot carry oxygen molecules through the bloodstream (like a red blood cell). However, unspecialized stem cells can give rise to specialized cells, including heart muscle cells, blood cells, or nerve cells.