Stem Cell Therapy Pdf Download
Melva Simons
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Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) results in direct and indirect damage to neural tissues, which results in motor and sensory dysfunction, dystonia, and pathological reflex that ultimately lead to paraplegia or tetraplegia. A loss of cells, axon regeneration failure, and time-sensitive pathophysiology make tissue repair difficult. Despite various medical developments, there are currently no effective regenerative treatments. Stem cell therapy is a promising treatment for SCI due to its multiple targets and reactivity benefits. The present review focuses on SCI stem cell therapy, including bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, umbilical mesenchymal stem cells, adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells, neural stem cells, neural progenitor cells, embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, and extracellular vesicles. Each cell type targets certain features of SCI pathology and shows therapeutic effects via cell replacement, nutritional support, scaffolds, and immunomodulation mechanisms. However, many preclinical studies and a growing number of clinical trials found that single-cell treatments had only limited benefits for SCI. SCI damage is multifaceted, and there is a growing consensus that a combined treatment is needed.
You've heard about stem cells in the news, and perhaps you've wondered if they might help you or a loved one with a serious disease. Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about stem cells.
Stem cells are a special type of cells that have two important properties. They are able to make more cells like themselves. That is, they self-renew. And they can become other cells that do different things in a process known as differentiation. Stem cells are found in almost all tissues of the body. And they are needed for the maintenance of tissue as well as for repair after injury.
Depending on where the stem cells are, they can develop into different tissues. For example, hematopoietic stem cells reside in the bone marrow and can produce all the cells that function in the blood. Stem cells also can become brain cells, heart muscle cells, bone cells or other cell types.
There are various types of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are the most versatile since they can develop into all the cells of the developing fetus. The majority of stem cells in the body have fewer abilities to give rise to cells and may only help maintain and repair the tissues and organs in which they reside.
Generate healthy cells to replace cells affected by disease (regenerative medicine). Stem cells can be guided into becoming specific cells that can be used in people to regenerate and repair tissues that have been damaged or affected by disease.
People who might benefit from stem cell therapies include those with leukemia, Hodgkin disease, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and some solid tumor cancers. Stem cell therapies also might benefit people who have aplastic anemia, immunodeficiencies and inherited conditions of metabolism.
Stem cells may have the potential to be grown to become new tissue for use in transplant and regenerative medicine. Researchers continue to advance the knowledge on stem cells and their applications in transplant and regenerative medicine.
Test new drugs for safety and effectiveness. Before giving drugs in development to people, researchers can use some types of stem cells to test the drugs for safety and quality. This type of testing may help assess drugs in development for toxicity to the heart.
New areas of study include the effectiveness of using human stem cells that have been programmed into tissue-specific cells to test new drugs. For the testing of new drugs to be accurate, the cells must be programmed to acquire properties of the type of cells targeted by the drug. Techniques to program cells into specific cells are under study.
These are pluripotent (ploo-RIP-uh-tunt) stem cells, meaning they can divide into more stem cells or can become any type of cell in the body. This allows embryonic stem cells to be used to regenerate or repair diseased tissue and organs.
Adult cells altered to have properties of embryonic stem cells. Scientists have transformed regular adult cells into stem cells using genetic reprogramming. By altering the genes in the adult cells, researchers can make the cells act similarly to embryonic stem cells. These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
This new technique may allow use of reprogrammed cells instead of embryonic stem cells and prevent immune system rejection of the new stem cells. However, scientists don't yet know whether using altered adult cells will cause adverse effects in humans.
Researchers have been able to take regular connective tissue cells and reprogram them to become functional heart cells. In studies, animals with heart failure that were injected with new heart cells had better heart function and survival time.
The embryos being used in embryonic stem cell research come from eggs that were fertilized at in vitro fertilization clinics but never implanted in women's uteruses. The stem cells are donated with informed consent from donors. The stem cells can live and grow in special solutions in test tubes or petri dishes in laboratories.
Progress in cell reprogramming and the formation of iPSCs has greatly enhanced research in this field. However, reprogramming is an inefficient process. When possible, iPSCs are used instead of embryonic stem cells since this avoids the ethical issues about use of embryonic stem cells that may be morally objectionable for some people.
Although research into adult stem cells is promising, adult stem cells may not be as versatile and durable as are embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells may not be able to be manipulated to produce all cell types, which limits how adult stem cells can be used to treat diseases.
Adult stem cells are also more likely to contain irregularities due to environmental hazards, such as toxins, or from errors acquired by the cells during replication. However, researchers have found that adult stem cells are more adaptable than was first thought.
A stem cell line is a group of cells that all descend from a single original stem cell and are grown in a lab. Cells in a stem cell line keep growing but don't become specialized cells. Ideally, they remain free of genetic defects and continue to create more stem cells. Clusters of cells can be taken from a stem cell line and frozen for storage or shared with other researchers.
Stem cell therapy, also known as regenerative medicine, promotes the repair response of diseased, dysfunctional or injured tissue using stem cells or their derivatives. It is the next chapter in organ transplantation and uses cells instead of donor organs, which are limited in supply.
The specialized cells can then be implanted into a person. For example, if the person has heart disease, the cells could be injected into the heart muscle. The healthy transplanted heart muscle cells could then contribute to repairing the injured heart muscle.
Yes. Doctors have performed stem cell transplants, also known as bone marrow transplants, for many decades. In hematopoietic stem cell transplants, stem cells replace cells damaged by chemotherapy or disease or serve as a way for the donor's immune system to fight some types of cancer and blood-related diseases. Leukemia, lymphoma, neuroblastoma and multiple myeloma often are treated this way. These transplants use adult stem cells or umbilical cord blood.
Embryonic stem cells also might trigger an immune response in which the recipient's body attacks the stem cells as foreign invaders, or the stem cells might simply fail to function as expected, with unknown consequences. Researchers continue to study how to avoid these possible complications.
Therapeutic cloning, also called somatic cell nuclear transfer, is a way to create versatile stem cells independent of fertilized eggs. In this technique, the nucleus is removed from an unfertilized egg. This nucleus contains the genetic material. The nucleus also is removed from the cell of a donor.
Some researchers believe that stem cells derived from therapeutic cloning may offer benefits over those from fertilized eggs because cloned cells are less likely to be rejected once transplanted back into the donor. And it may allow researchers to see exactly how a disease develops.
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At this point in time only a few FDA-approved stem cell-based therapies are available. The most common such treatment is the blood stem cell transplant procedure in which blood stem cells are used to treat patients with blood cancers, like leukemia. In this procedure, harmful cancer cells are attacked with chemotherapy, then replaced with healthy stem cells that, hopefully, proliferate and grow healthy tissue. Like all FDA-approved treatments, the blood stem cell transplant procedure was the result of rigorous research and testing conducted over many years.
Thanks to decades of data, we know much more about the effectiveness of blood stem cell transplants. We also know they are not instant cures. While the procedure itself only lasts a few hours, recovery can take weeks. During this period, patients are monitored closely by physicians and nurses for side effects and for evidence of recovery.
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