Yes, I agreed that the medical research into stem cells should be a high priority since stem cells are promoted as “the way of future” for the treatment of many illnesses. Stem cells are the cells with variable potency which can self-renew and plays a vital role in the maintenance and regeneration of tissues and organs throughout life. Stem cells can grow indefinitely which different from other cells which can only grow up to a limited number of times. It also supports repair function when the cells are lost due to ageing or injury.  Research about stem cells generates new discovery and the therapeutic uses of stem cells is limitless.  The amazing about stem cells is its ability to give rise to any type of cells and this provides a huge potential for researchers for studying all aspects of human body. For example, stem cells are being used in cell therapies of treatment of some types of cancer however scientists still need to discover more about stem cell theory of cancer.  
      

The use of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is relate to ethic issue due to the use of embryos. Thus, one of the huge advances about stem cells is the induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs). IPSCs are pluripotent stem cells which can develop into all any type of cell. The prominent feature about IPSCs is avoid the use of human embryo from fertility clinics. IPSCs are created from normal somatic cells by the ectopic expression of some genes responsible for pluripotency. 

The basic research using stem cells enable us to understand molecular and cellular processes that occur during human development and the role of signals that aids in differentiation of stem cells into specific cell types. Unlike the conventional drug therapy, there are many advances of stem cells in drug discovery and development. Stem cells can be used for toxicity screening of new drugs on differentiated cell lines to make sure the drugs are safer. Stem cells can provide specific cell types for testing of new drugs. For example, the screening of the anti-tumor drugs from the cancer cell lines. 

Not only that, there are many clinical trials for stem cell-based therapies. The regenerative therapies which can be used to treat many diseases like Parkinson’s disease, ALS, stroke, diabetes and heart disease. The example given is related to motor neurons disease such as ALS. Motor neurons cannot be regenerated so it cannot be taken out easily. A sample of skin cells is obtained by using reprogramming process and stem cells are grown in a dish. The amazing part of stem cells is it can produce motor neurons that required. This enable the researchers to understand the disease and can test the potential new treatments for the diseases. 

 In conclusion, stem cells are promoted as “the way of the future” for the treatment of many illnesses and therefore medical research into these cells should be a high priority. 

Matric No: 133380 

IBG 215 Fundamentals of Stem Cells Technology 

Question: Stem cells are promoted as “the way of future” for the treatment of many illness and therefore medical research into these cells should e high priority. Do you agree with this statement? Justify your decision. 

Yes, I agree with the statement that stem cells are the future way of treatment in illness and should be given high priority in the medical research of these cells. Stem cells having some special characteristics compare to other somatic cells. Stem cells having the ability to self-renewal, where the stem cells can be divided repeatedly and remaining in undifferentiated state. Stem cells are also having the ability to differentiated into many cells type compare to other somatic cells. Thus, stem cells can carry out maintenance and regeneration of tissue and organs in human body. The ability of self-renewal enables stem cells to grow indefinitely compare to other cells that only can grow to limited numbers. Thus, stem cells are having high potential to participate in the regenerative therapy to treat Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, spinal cord injuries, stroke, severe burns by regenerate and repair the damaged cells.

 

Stem cells can be classified into different potency level according to the ability of the stem cells to differentiated into how many type of specialized cells. With present technology, cancer cell lines are used to screen potential anti-tumour drugs. With the present of the pluripotent stem cells, would allow drug testing in wider range of cell types and helps in reduce animal cruelty (animal testing) and ensure the drug is more safety for consumption of human. Other than that, we also can study the disease model in vitro

 

One of the most important properties of stem cells are the potency level of stem cells. The highest ranking of stem cells, totipotent can differentiate into any type of stem cells. This amazing property enable the researcher to study any type of cells and allow unprecedented access to all stages of human tissue. This can help a lot in studying development and function of human tissue. 

 

The other amazing properties of stem cells are the pluripotent stem cells can be artificially generated by deriving the non-pluripotent stem cells which usually is adult somatic cells by inducing a forced expression of certain gene. With this technique, the ethics issue that arise when the Embryonic stem cells is used during the treatments can be solved. IPSCs are pluripotent stem cells which can develop into all any type of cell. The prominent feature about IPSCs is avoid the use of human embryo from fertility clinics. IPSCs are created from normal somatic cells by the ectopic expression of some genes responsible for pluripotency. 

      

As the conclusion, stem cells can be promoted as ‘the way of the future” for the treatment of many illnesses. Thus, the medical research into these cells should be high priority. 

Let’s talk about some general potentials SC offers us:

1.       SC's potential as regenerative medicine. 

SC can self-renew and differentiate to multiple type of cells in our body in right conditions, offering a curing possibility for patients who are suffering degenerative disease (e.g. Retinal degeneration) and physical damages such as severe burns, heart disease and spinal cord injury. Patients in need of organ transplant needn’t suffer the long wait as they can make use of their own cells. The lowering of rejection rate because it was the patients’ own cells is another plus point. In fact, we have been performing stem cell treatment for decades, bone marrow transplant is indeed a type of stem cell treatment which involved the transplanting of healthy bone marrow SC from suitable donors to patients.

 

2.       SC’s role in gene therapy. 

The patients who are suffering from genetic-related diseases (e.g. thalassemia and sickle cell anemia) can have genes studied and the disease-causing gene in their cells corrected through gene modification and the modified  engineered to SC before implanting back into their bodies. 

 

3.       Others: Indirect application of SC.

 

The studying of SC helps us to understand the gene control mechanisms and the roles of signals in gene expression and differentiation of a SC which could help us in expressing or repression of a gene during certain therapies. This information could also help us understand cancer. It will be very helpful if we knew the way of repressing the gene responsible of the uncontrollable multiplying of cancer cells in cancer treatments.

SC can differentiate to many different cell types, we can do safety tests of new drugs on these cells instead of having animal tests. This way is more reliable as the results resemble more realistic reactions on the actual drug recipients. Currently, cancerous cell line is also contributing in the screening for potential anti-tumor drugs. 

A decade ago, many couldn’t accept SC due to ethical issues on source of SC. Today, we have induced pluripotent stem cells that were reprogrammed from somatic cells (e.g, skin cells).  This advancement would’ve been impossible if no one studied anything about SC while facing criticism from the crowd. There are still many uncertainties in SC treatments, some SC turn into cancerous cell and people have every right to be skeptical, but let us not have our doubts holding us back from understanding the causes of failures and advancing. Even if one day we had to conclude SC fails as treatment (which is less likely to happen given all the treatments that are already done, anyways), we’ve at least learned why SC wouldn’t work and never regret missing the chance to gain other information while working on SC.

Thank you.

The differentiation of stem cells into specialized cell types contributes to the drug discovery and development. As an example, the differentiation of stem cells into cancer cells allows the screening of potential anti-tumour drugs. Besides, different types of stem cells include embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSc) with their respective potency level allows the production of different specialized cells. Thus, the availability of pluripotent stem cells enables the drug testing or safety testing in many cell types. Furthermore, the pluripotency of stem cells paves the way for continuous supply of primary human cells include neurons and cardiomyocytes for toxicity test as these primary human cells are very hard to obtain from human body. The development of induced pluripotent stem cells, iPSc enhance the toxicity testing in human diseased tissues as it does not require animals testing, cost-effective, quick, and high-throughput. 

The generation of disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSc) from fibroblast or skin cells in several diseases such as Alzherimer’s disease and sickle cell anaemia are effective in the treatment of the illnesses. For example, the skin cells are isolated from mouse with sickle cell anaemia and reprogrammed into embryonic like-induced pluripotent stem cells with four reprogramming factors (c-Myc, Sox2, Oct4, Klf4). The genetically identical induced pluripotent stem cells produced is corrected through mutation subsequently generate genetically corrected induced pluripotent stem cells which are then differentiated into blood stem cells. The blood stem cells are transplanted into mouse body, thus cure the sickle cell anaemia. The uses of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSc) in the treatment of diseases overcome the problem of transplant rejection and animal testing. 

The stem cells involve in therapeutic treatment include organs or tissues replacement and repairing of damage cells to cure Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, severe burn, heart diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and many more. Stem cells also involve in genetic therapy, therapeutic cloning and cancer treatment through delivery of chemotherapeutic agents.  Hence, medical research into stem cells should be a high priority.

Yes. I agree with the statement ‘stem cells are promoted as “the way of the future” for the treatment of many illnesses and therefore medical research into these cells should be a high priority’. Here are some reasons why I support this statement.

Stem cells are unspecialized cells which are able to divide for indefinite periods in culture and give rise to specialized cells. Firstly, stem cells are self-renewal and can go through multiple cell division cycles while remaining undifferentiated. With this property of being able to maintain its cell pool, stem cells will be readily available in the market and may even lead to more affordable medical costs. This will definitely benefit the people with low income. 

Besides that, stem cells can differentiate into specialised cells. It has been classified into several categories which are totipotent, pluripotent, multipotent, oligopotent and unipotent. Stem cells especially totipotent have the ability to differentiate into all cell types in our bodies. This makes the transplantation of tissues or organs as one of its therapeutic potential. Moreover, it can also repair the injured or defective calls in our bodies. Its regenerative therapy to treat heart disease, stroke, spinal cord injury etc has been already proven by the researchers nowadays.

Stem cells are also said to be able to clarify complex activities that happen during human development and subsequently understand the molecular theory of cancer. This can help us to know more about the formation of cancer cell and thus discover the preventive methods or the novel treatment for cancer cell. I believe that this will be a huge breakthrough in medical field and saves the people who are suffering for final stage of cancer.

Moreover, stem cells can be developed into specialized cell type and are used for new drug testing. This is not only providing a new safe way for drug testing but also reduces reduces the number of animal killed for researches  which may deals with some kinds of ethical issues. This also allows the drug testing to conduct in wider range of cell types. For example, cancer cell lines have been proven that it is able to be used for the  screening of potential anti-tumor drugs. 

In conclusion, stem cells have shown its huge potential in medical treatment for many illnesses nowadays. Therefore, stem cells research is believe to hold a tremendous promise for medical treatment in the future. However, there are still much more for scientists to be discover in order to understand how they work and their healing capacity.

First, the particular cell which we are going to be used in treatment of disease must be able to reproduce in large quantities in order to provide amounts of cells that needed for treatment. Stem cells fulfil the requirement due to its ability to undergo self-renewal. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells which able to divide repeatedly either through symmetric division or asymmetric division while maintaining their undifferentiated state. Hence, issue of lack of donor tissue I treatment of diseases can be solved.

Next, stem cells are having a unique characteristic which is potency. Stem cells are cells characterized by their ability to differentiate into multiple cell types. Thus, they have the ability to differentiate into specialized cell types which can help to create the needed cell types in therapy of diseases. For example, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent which mean it can differentiate into any tissue type except for placenta tissue. Stem cells will differentiate into specialized cell in response to internal chenical and external signal.

Furthermore, cells that implanted into human body with the purpose of curing the disease must be able to stay alive and remain functional for the rest of patient’s life. Stem cells are again fulfil the requirement due to its ability to return function to damaged cells in the living organism. Thus, stem cells can serve the function of organ maintenance and repair in patient’s body.

Moreover, the creation of artificially induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) is able to take over to roles of ESCs for the treatment of many genetic diseases. IPSCs are a type of pluripotent stem cell which artificially derived from a non-pluripotent cell, typically an adult somatic cell, by inducing 4 transcription factors : OCT 4, KLF 4, CMYC, SOX 2. IPSCs can be produced by reprogramming somatic cell by using only small molecule (VC6T). This chemical approach is able to produce IPSCs which are non-immunogenic and non-integration with cell of host organism. Thus, immunocompatible defined cell lineages with can be produced through a controlled differentiation by small molecule.

Last but not least, stem cells allow unprecedented access to all stages of human biology. Thus, stem cells can be used in studying development and function of human tissue. Stem cells are also a potential model that can be used in studying disease. Stem cells are a novel tool in drug screening, toxicological testing of new drugs as well as identification of genes as potential therapeutic targets. The ability of stem cells to be used as an in vitro system have largely contributed advantage toward medical research. This step ensures the drug are safe before deliver to patient.

In conclusion, stem cells research holds incredible healing potential. Thus, I strongly support that this research should be continued in order to save lives and improve people's living standards. 

 

Self-renewal refer to the ability of the stem cell to undergo multiple cell division cycles while maintaining its population. In this way, the stem cell can renew themselves for long periods which make them differs from other cells. There are two different ways of stem cell division that are symmetric and assymatric cell division. Symmetric cell division produce 2 identical stem cell with one remain as stem cell and other one differentiate into specialized cell. Assymetric cell division produce one new stem cell and one specialized cell.

Potency is the ability of the stem cells to differentiate into multiple cell types to carry specific function. There are five levels of potency that are totipotent, pluripotent, multipotent, oligopotent and unipotent. For example, a blood stem cell isolated from bone marrow can differentiate to become any cell types of blood cell such as red blood cell, white blood cell and platelets. In addition, embryonic stem cells can differentiate to any cell type by changing its growth condition. With this ability, the stem cell can help to repair the damaged or dead cells and return its function.

Eventhough there is an ethic issue regarding the use of human embryonic stem cell, we can avoid it by using the artificially induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) which can be form by genetic reprogramming. Genetic reprogramming is done by addition of certain genes to the cells isolated from the body and cultured in the lab.

As a conclusion, stem cell can be regarded as “the way of future” and have the potential use to becomce regenerative therapy to treat diseases such as ALS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, stroke and other diseases.

I agree with the statement that stem cells should be a high priority for medical research. 

First, stem cells have the potency, which is the ability to differentiate into various types cancer cell lines. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, thus can be differentiated into any type of cell except placenta tissue. Unprecedented drugs can be applied and tested on various types of cancer stem cell line to test the effect of drugs on cancer stem cell, in order to find a treatment or cure for the disease. Adult stem cell, for example pancreatic exocrine cells, are multipotent. They can be converted into β-cells, which are closely related to the islet β-cells to treat for diabetes. Secondly, stem cells have ability to repair damage themselves due to being able to divide without limit. Embryonic stem cells are mainly used for therapeutic uses, such as to repair the heart muscle after heart attack. Lastly, stem cells can undergo multiple cell division while remaining undifferentiated to self-renewal themselves. Embryonic stem cells can also be used to replace neuron after an accident, moreover they help in regenerating an organ tissue. 

Cell replacement therapy has proved to be useful for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, a common neurodegenerative disease caused by the loss of midbrain dopamine neurons. The transplantation of foetal midbrain cells has been shown to restore dopamine function not only in animal models, but also in human patients. Gene therapy, too, can be performed using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) instead of embryonic stem cell, in which there is consideration on ethics into using embryonic stem cells would be sacrificing a life. The invention of three-dimensional (3D) cancer cell culture model contributes to cancer research and drug resistance studies. Specific cancer stem cells were isolated and were cultured inside the 3D model which mimics the microenvironment where the cancer stem cell line live in. By releasing internal signals and external signals that will affect signal pathway in cancer stem cells, the development and behaviour of cancer stem cell line can be studied. 

Hence, stem cell research holds great promise for human to fight again diseases in the future. 

 

 

 

 

Besides that, stem cells have different levels of potency. the potency of the stem cell makes the stem cell can differentiate into different specialized cell. The stem cell that possess the pluripotency can be used widely in the medical treatment as they can be differentiate into many type of tissue except for the placenta tissue. The availability of pluripotent stem cells would allow drug testing in a wider range of cell types. Therefore, the pluripotency can precisely control the differentiation of stem cells into the specific cell type on which drugs will be tested. Besides that, there is study on treatment of heart failure The use of embryonic and adult-derived stem cells for cardiac repair is being studied. A number of stem cell types, including embryonic stem cells, cardiac stem cells that naturally reside within the heart, myoblasts, adult bone marrow-derived cells including mesenchymal cells (bone marrow-derived cells that give rise to tissues such as muscle, bone, tendons, ligaments, and adipose tissue), endothelial progenitor cells (cells that give rise to the endothelium, the interior lining of blood vessels), and umbilical cord blood cell , have been investigated as possible sources for regenerating damaged heart tissue. 

There are still a lot of hurdle that need to overcome in the implementation of the stem cell technology. However, I believe that the stem cell research could help the mankind in the medical industry in the future even though there is needed to assess the safety and improve the efficiency of stem cell technology  

Stem cells can be classified into three types: embryonic stem cell, adult stem cell and induced pluripotent stem cell. Adult stem cell has the disadvantages of having difficulties to locate the cell when the differentiation of adult stem cell is started. However, adult stem cell such as Mesenchymal stem cell is important in treating the disease related to bone. Pluripotent embryonic stem cell can be differentiated into many types of cell except for placenta tissue and was used in treatment of genetic diseases. However, there was some ethical issues found in the embryonic stem cell and therefore, the artificial induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSCs) was introduced to treat the diseases. iPSCs is generally derived from non -pluripotent stem cell by inducing a ‘forced’ expression of reprogramming factor genes such as Oct4, Klf4, Sox2 and C-Myc.

There are some applications of stem cell in the medical study recently. Firstly, Parkinson’s disease can be treated with iPSCs. Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease caused by loss of midbrain dopamine neurons. The function of dopamine can be restored by transplanting of fetal midbrain cells in human patient and animal model. Secondly, the diabetes also can be cured with pluripotent iPSCs. The diabetes is an autoimmune disease that insulin producing cells in pancreas are destructed. The iPSCs will differentiate into the beta cell that can be used in the transplantation. Furthermore, stem cells can be used in drug discovery and development. The availability of pluripotent stem cells allows the drug testing in the wide range and this can reduce the animal testing. They also can be used in basic research such as study of molecular mechanisms for gene control, study of the roles of signal in gene expression and stem cell therapy in treating the cancer.

In conclusion, stem cells are important and useful in the medical research. Hence, the medical research into these cells should be a high priority.

 Thank you.

Stem cells studies should be a high priority in medical research field as it is believe that they can cure many diseases and able to ease the medical process and method. Stem cells is unspecialized cells. Thus totipotent stem cells is able to differentiate into entire organism. It can replace the damage tissues in the body without doing transplant from other patient. Stem cell also may reduce the rejection from the body as the stem cells is coming from their own body. 

By using stemcell also, it can heal the skin that suffer from severe burns or major damage. As recent method used, doctors will collect the healthy skin from other parts of the body and place it at the damage area. The patient now may suffer because they need to take care of two different area at their body. by using stem cell therapy, the stem cells able to heals the wound of the patient without taking other parts of skin. 

Many people are trying to avoid surgery for many reasons. Might be because of the risk of the anaesthesia and the effect after the surgery, religion reasons, or they afraid of those needle and knife. Whatever it is, stem cell therapy may provide healing without surgery. Mostly used for skeletal and muscular system damage. Adult stem cells which is multipotent stem cells can differentiate into multiple cells in the related family, thus it is easier to treat using this type of cell.

For brain damage and diseases like Alzheimer and Parkinson, current treatment method use drugs which can cause side effect from the drugs. Thus, using stem cells treatment may provide a better treatment, and a permanent cure compared to drugs treatment.

There is an issue about using embryo as the stem cell source in research, but as we all (IBG 215 classmate) already know we got iPSCs to use instead. Based on the above justification, I really support this stem cell research to keep going for better future. 

Thanks.

Yes, i do agree with the statement that research regarding the stem cells should be placed in higher priority. I am not saying that the other disease-related research in not so important, but considering to the facts that this stem cell technology provides more chances to cure the diseases, so the deep and further research should be performed. This is due to the facts that this unique kind of cells have the ability to self-renewal, regenerative properties and their potency.
 
 As we know, stem cell is a type of cells that have the ability to multiple themselves according to their level of potency and give rise to specialized cells. As the cell undergoes cell division, they remain undifferentiated so this give the ability of those kind of cells to rapidly increase in number thus reducing the time needed for the cells to fully grow. Next, they also able to repair themselves so that the damaged cells can carry out specific function in the living organism. This enable our body to treat themselves without the needs to rely on the foreign cells, as the foreign things only can cause autoimmunization that will complicates our body system. Stem cell also known with their  level of potency which including the totipotency, pluripotency , multipotency , oligopotency and unipotency which indicates the possibility for the cells to become different kind of cells. 

 

These properties clearly shows that stem cell technology is more convenient for us to find the cure of diseases thus decreasing the death rate of certain fatal diseases. The successful isolation if stem cells enable us to identify many kind of cells without having to isolate new ones. Thus, instead of focusing only one kind of cell, we can generate more differentiated cells just from one cell culture. Therefore, medical research involving stem cell technology should be a high priority. 

As we all know that stem cells are primitive cells with the capacity to divide and give rise to more identical stem cells or to specialize and form specific cells of somatic tissues. Generally, stem cells possess these three criteria which are self-renewal, potency and repair. Since stem cells are capable of differentiation into various types of cells, and have therefore been applied to investigations of genome and cellular functions, genetic therapy, toxicity, and drug screening.   Broadly speaking, there are three types of stem cell that can be distinguished: embryonic stem (ES) cells which can only be derived from pre‐implantation embryos and have a proven ability to form cells of all tissues of the adult organism (termed ‘pluripotent’), and ‘adult’ stem cells, which are found in a variety of tissues in the fetus and after birth and are, under normal conditions, more specialized (‘multipotent’) with an important function in tissue replacement and repair, as well as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) which generated from reprogrammed somatic cells. 

First of all, since stem cells have the ability to turn into various other types of cells, thus this is very useful and essential treating and understanding diseases especially in cancer research. For instance, stem cells can be used to study causes of genetic defects in cells as well as research on how diseases occur or why certain cells develop into cancer cells. By understanding more about certain diseases formation, stem cells research enable us to treat those illness effectively and efficiently such as grow new cells in a laboratory to replace damaged organs or tissues and even repair or correct parts of organs that don’t work properly. 

Next, due to the improvement in stem cell research, stem cell transplant and stem cell treatment are also available and widely applied. In a stem cell transplant procedure, embryonic stem cells are first specialized into the necessary adult cell type. Then, those mature cells replace tissue that is damaged by disease or injury. For instance, this type of treatment could be used to replace neurons damaged by spinal cord injury, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease or other neurological problems. Since stem cell has the ability to repair, self-renewable and potency, thus, it can be used to replace virtually any tissue or organ that is injured or diseased. In cancer treatment, stem cell transplant is used to restore blood-forming stem cells in people who have had theirs destroyed by the very high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy that are used to treat certain cancers. However, stem cell transplant and stem cell treatment research are still in the early-stage, therefore, stem cells should be a high priority for medical research from now onwards. 

Furthermore, stem cell can use in drug screening  which is useful for investigating developmental toxicity, tissue specificity, and disease-specific responses. Since Induced Pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are available now and it is very useful for drug development and developmental studies, thus, ethical issue like using embryonic stem (ES) for research can be eliminated. In particular, adult PSCs and iPSCs derived from patient tissues may not only be a source of cells for autologous therapies but also for individual customized in vitro drug testing and studies on the molecular mechanisms of disease. Besides, stem cells are mostly used in regenerative medicine therapies, in studying mechanisms of disease, as well as in drug screening and toxicology tests that are crucial in new drug development. In addition, using stem cells for drug testing able to reduce animal testing issues.

In the nutshell, I hope that stem cells research in medical field able to improve greatly and creating more effective treatment for the patients who suffered so much in order to make a healthy future.

Stem cell research provides the insights of basic biology modelling in human development through the differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). Stem cells have the ability to differentiate into a wide variety of specialised cell types. For example, hESCs provide an in vitro model to study the epigenetic regulation based on the reprogramming of their epigenome during differentiation. Stem cell research also allows the patterns of gene expression to be compared among various cell types through microarray analysis. It has been applied to investigate the similarities among different pluripotent human cells and for better understanding in genesis of human germ cell tumors (GCTs). This facilitates the study of gene functions in vitro in cell lineage selection and marking.

 The knowledge of genetic and molecular controls will further provide the insights of the emergence of the diseases and development of new approaches for therapy. Stem cell research also contributes to the field of regenerative medicine for a wide range of diseases such as Parkinson's, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Stem cells can be directed to become specific type of mature cell to replenish damaged tissue. For example, skin cells from diabetes patient can be reprogrammed into iPSC to differentiate into any cell type in the body, such as beta cells and immune cells to destroy defective beta cells in type 1 diabetes. Embryonic stem cells also possess unlimited self-renewal ability by generating replacement beta cells in large number. This approach can eliminate the graft-to-host incompatibility as those tissues are regenerated from the stem cells of the patient.

Furthermore, stem cells are also employed in drug screening and toxicology tests in new drug development. iPSCs derived from patient tissues can be applied in customized in vitro drug testing and disease modelling based on studies on the disease molecular mechanisms. ESCs are employed to generate into specialised cells to observe its behaviour against the potential drug compound. This approach can test the toxicity of potential drugs more accurately than the conventional animal models in the cell types that have most common drug side effects such as heart, liver, or kidney cells. This ensures that a safer drug and non-immunogenic source of cells for patient, eliminating the adverse effect in animal testing. 

For my opinion, I strongly agree that stem cell research should be high priority for disease treatment in future. Firstly, stem cell have the ability of self renewal, pluripotency and it have a repair mechanism. The self renewal of stem cell provides an undifferentiated cells that can divide repeatedly while maintaining their undifferentiated state.  Another special ability of stem cell is it have a pluripotency ability that make it can differentiate into a variety of different cell types. Stem cell also have an ability to repair a damaged cell and return it function back. 

Nowadays, the stem cell research should be highly prioritized because it have been proved to use for treatment for many diseases. For example, the totipotent stem cells that can be obtained from the fusion of egg and sperm can be used to make any types of cell in living organism. Although this category of stem cell have some ethic issue, we may do a further study that make it approvable so that it can contribute to help mankind in future. Another solution of this issue is by using induced Pluripotency Stem Cells (iPSCs) that can be generated from reprogrammed somatic cells. A further research of the iPSCs should be done inorder to use it worldwide. Todays, stem cell have been used for regenerative therapy to treat Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Spinal cord injury, stroke, severe burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. 

Next, stem cell research provide further understanding the human development and understanding molecular basis of cancer. In this research we are able to understand the role of signals in gene expression and differentiation of the stem cell in the human being. Theoretically, cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells that may occur anywhere in a body. Recent research shows that stem cell can be used as cancer therapy such as the use of stem cell in immuno-modulation or reconstitution. This method is one of the methods used for decades in cancer cell therapy. 

finally i would like to conclude that stem cell research should be high priority to promote a healthier life in future.

 

One of the factors that stem cell technology can be promoted as “the way of the future” is stem cells are therapeutic. To date, we know that stem cell technology is helpful in treatment of lot of diseases for example spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, stroke, burns, cancer and osteoarthritis etc. Humans with certain diseases need not to feel hopeless as the diseases are curable. Stem cells even helping us to understand the theory of cancer. Hence, research is being done to prevent and finding solutions. This is a good sign showing how powerful the technology is!

Besides, stem cell technology is useful in drug testing as stem cells can be cultured to a model to be used on drug testing. Hence, living creatures no need to be killed. It is also useful in drug screening and toxicity testing. By studying stem cell, we can understand the cell cycle and cell biochemistry. This enable us to understand the molecular processes that occur in human development. 

Stem cells technology is widely used because the sources can be easily obtained. Stem cells can be obtained from embryonic cells and adults cells. Stem cells can be taken either from human or animals. Combining the knowledge of genetics, it is possible for us to have our characteristics of interest in an organism. Bioethics issues can be solved as somatic cells can be transformed by cell reprogramming to become pluripotent.

Due to factors like environmental pollution, climate change, mutation of gene, humans’ health is being threatened. Hence, more drugs and treatments are needed in the future, and so medical research into these cells should be a high priority. We should be thankful to those who had discovered and contributed in this technology but at the same time, we should also continue the research so that stem cell technology can be improved to solve even more medical’s problems. 

 

Stem cell research offers an extraordinary potential to the future regenerative medicines. They form the basis of cellular therapies for diseases involving organ systems with limits regenerative capacity. Stem cell research also provides additional systems for drug screening and toxicity testing. Moreover, it also gives insight into early human development and obviates the need for human embryo. Stem cells contain therapeutic potentials such as being able to replace tissues or organs and also delivering of defective cell types. Nowadays, cell based therapies such as regenerative therapies to treat Parkinson’s Alzheimer ‘s, stroke, heart disease are available in most of the developed countries. Stem cells are used as vehicles after they have been genetically manipulated in gene theraphy. It can also act as the delivery of genetic therapies and also chemotherapeutic agents. 

Besides, stem cells can provide specific cell types to test on new drugs. Now, safety testing of new drugs can be done easily on differentiated cell lines with the aid of stem cell technology. Availability of pluripotent stem cells would allow drug testing in a wider range of cells types and at the same time animal testing can be prevented. In theory, there is no limit to the types of diseases that could be treated with stem cell research. Given that researchers may be able to study all cell types via embryonic stem cells, they have the potential to make breakthroughs in any disease. In conclusion, stem cell technology should be developed more and should be given a high priority in medical research of treating many illnesses.

Yes. Stem cells should be a high priority in medical research because stem stem can be used to treat many illnesses as it can repair and replace the damaged cells. Cell injury occur in our body after toxic acculumation or inflammatory at the cell and result in cell death or even organ failure. Due to stem cell has ability to differentiate into specialised cell based on their potency, stem cell can differentiate into damaged cell type and replace the damaged cell. Two type of stem cell involve in repairing damaged cell which are constitutive stem cell and facultative stem cell. Constitutive stem cell involve in routine renewal of the cell and repair the damaged cell while facultative stem cell only involve in cell repair in not normal physiological condition such as cell injury. Due to specialised cells in our body cannot undergo cell division, self renewal or repair, thus stem cell are important in repairing and renew the cells in our body. For example, diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease is due to neutron damage, to cure these diseases, neural stem cells which are multipotent adult stem cell in our body will differentiate into neutron cell and replace the damaged neutron cell. Another example is injury at bone or cartilage, mesenchymal adult stem cell in the body is differentiate into the bone or cartilage cell and replace the damaged cells. However, adult stem cell is not able to cure the organ failure as it only have cell that differentiate into closely related family of cells and it can only renew themself several time, not indefinitely. Hence, embryonic stem cell is used to differentiate into whole organ for the organ transplantation as embryonic stem cells are pluripotent which can differentiate into any type of cell except for placenta tissue. Due to some ethic problem, the use of embryonic stem cell is replaced by induced pluripotent stem cell which is similar to embryonic stem cell. By reprogramming the somatic cell from human body, the somatic cell is able to turn to induced pluripotent stem cell. Somatic cell such as  fibroblast is extracted from human and transcription factor or known as Yamanaka factor is transduced into the somatic cell and induced pluripotent stem cell is produced. Four important factor is enough for the production of induced pluripotent stem cell which are Oct 4, Klf 4, Sox 2 and c-Myc. By changing the culture condition, the induced pluripotent stem cell is stimulated to differentiate into desired cell type. One of the advantage using induced pluripotent stem cell is that it will not rejected by our body as it is made up of somatic cell from our body. 

Potency is categorized into five group which are totipotent, pluripotent, multipotent, oligopotent and unipotent. Totipotent or also known as omnipotent cell that normally differentiate into entire organism compared to pluripotent cell that have ability to differentiate into any tissue type except for placenta tissue. Next, multipotent cell is the cell that differentiate into multiple cells in closely related cell family while oligopotent is a stem cell that can differentiate into only few cell types compared to unipotent cell that differentiate into only one cell type but still have ability to self-renewal.

Moreover, stem cell has the ability to repairing in living organism where they can regenerate the cell although the regenerative response is complex and it involves the cell proliferation, cell specification, differentiation and patterning as stem cell and undifferentiated cells playing role in homeostasis and tissue regeneration. Stem cell are normally inactive or passing slowly through cell cycle in adult tissue but they can be activated in response to cell loss and wounding.

Stem cell study shows high potential as basic research where explanation and complex procedures that occur during human development while understanding the molecular basis of cancer. Furthermore, stem cell can provide specific cell type to test new drugs as it is safer to do testing on the differentiated cell line compared on human in biotechnology area. Potential drugs also can undergoes screening using the cell line hence this will reduce the number of animal testing. Aside that, stem cell having potential in cell based therapies where regenerative therapy can be done towards people who suffered from diseases. Stem cell also have potential in gene therapy, therapeutic cloning and cancer study. Therefore, I agree that stem cell will offers us new ways in treating diseases.

For the treatment of illnesses, embryonic stem cells are much preferable due to their pluripotency. However, extraction of these stem cells is ethically forbidden. Then, there was a breakthrough research that introduces a new type of stem cells, namely Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs). These stem cells are derived from the adult cells, mainly skin cells that have been genetically reprogrammed. This method requires some necessary transcription factors. These factors include c-Myc, Sox2, Oct4 and Klf4. Further researches shown that some chemical molecules can be utilized to replace the transcription factors required for the production of iPSCs in terms of cost and availability. In general, iPSCs are more acceptable since no embryos are used but still contain the characteristics that are identical to the embryonic stem cells.

From the fact that stem cells possess potency, researchers can use totipotent or pluripotent stem cells for drug screening and clinical trials since the cells are able to become any type of cells as desired. Thus, different types of alternatives can be tried in order to find out the best and most effective treatment for illnesses such as diabetes and osteoarthritis. Plus, animal as well as human trials can be avoided.

In conclusion, stem cell is a good alternative for the treatment of serious illnesses. Therefore, advancement in the stem cell technology will definitely provide a cost-saving and effective treatment. This is because stem cells can be induced to become the desired cell type such as neurones and muscle cells based on the disease the patient encounters.