Internet Marketing BlogInternet Business Marketing Tips Blog

The big discoveries related to stem cells have issued a real tsunami wave of debates. Stem cells represent those cells that have not received a body function yet; they either remain inactive in the tissues until it’s time for them to regenerate the body after disease or injury, or they gradually develop their body tasks according to the genetic evolution of the embryos. Thus, stem cells become specialized in damaged tissues regrowth or internal organ repair, and the most advanced research attempts are in the domain of red blood cells or nervous cell regeneration.

Scientific medical success has been reported for the repair and replacement of damaged cells in the bone marrow, but so far, stem cells have been only partly able to divide in the heart or the pancreas. The major types of stem cells used in laboratories are embryonic and adult, which clearly designates where the biological material is extracted from. The studies with the embryonic ones date back to the early 80s when mouse cells were used for lab testing. These first investigations enabled scientists to discover methods of deriving stem cells from human embryos at the end of the 20th century and then grow them in laboratories.

Even if morally and ethically debated, embryonic stem cells represent the best viable option to push medical knowledge beyond its present limits. Most of the studies are conducted on embryos created as part of infertility programs adjacent to in vitro fertilization techniques. The embryos that are no longer needed for implantation in the uterus, can be passed to laboratory studies if the donor gives his/her consent. Another source of stem cells is the use of somatic cells that are reprogrammed to return to the initial unspecialized state.

If this practice proves successful and useful, worries will stop concerning the legitimacy of lab tests on human embryos. While banned by president Bush in the United States, studies have once again been given the green light by the new American president Barrack Obama. Stem cells do remain the main hope of many health care providers in the fight against devastating diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer, diabetes, leukemia, heart failure and lots of others. However, the medical world is just taking the first steps towards understanding how regenerative and reparative medicine could work with the help of cell-based therapies.

Chemotherapy as a cancer treatment destroys the blood generating cells in the bone marrow, which is why transplants are often necessary in order to increase the life expectation of patients treated for tumors. Stem cell transplantation thus represents the major treatment solution for thousands of people who need such a form of regenerative therapy. Before any transplant, one needs to find a suitable donor, or in the absence of compatibility, the patient’s bone marrow cells will be collected and stored prior to the beginning of chemotherapy. After collection, they will be frozen and stored until the intervention.

The stem cell transplants are injected into the patient’s bloodstream and they thus reach the bone marrow where they start producing blood cells. Normally, more than one transplant sessions are necessary, as the treatment cycles ought to follow the chemotherapy periodicity. How can stem cells contribute to blood formation? Well, stem cells can generate the three types of blood cells such as the red blood cells, the white blood cells and the platelets. The red cells transport the oxygen through the body, the white cells protect the system against bacteria acting as body defenses and the platelets control blood clotting and bleeding.

The blood and bone marrow naturally contain stem cells, but under the influence of chemotherapy drugs, they get destroyed without the possibility to regenerate without help. The stem cell transplants thus become the way to restoring the blood cells production that would otherwise stop in the absence of the undifferentiated cells. Stem cell transplants are not necessary to all cancer patients. In fact, there are several elements that decide whether such an intervention is necessary or not, and the clearest examples are the patient’s responsiveness to the treatment, the health condition, the stage of the disease and so on.

In the past, only younger patients were chosen for stem cell transplants, but at present, age is no longer such a relevant criterion. What does indeed matter is the health of the internal organs such as kidneys, heart and lungs as well as the performance status in the cancer therapy. There are several types of stem cell transplants but people have only heard of just a few. And these include bone marrow transplants, peripheral stem cell blood transplants or cord blood transplants. There are other more scientific ways of separating stem cell transplants into further categories but they usually serve more for research purposes.

Stem cell transplantation is a necessity for many cancer patients who undergo a very intense chemotherapy treatment. The drugs used to destroy the cancer cells affect all the body cells that have a high division rate, which includes bone marrow, hair follicles and digestive linings. The problem comes from the fact that chemotherapy triggers the blood’s incapacity to regenerate. If the personal stem cells are destroyed only a stem cell transplantation could save one by the regeneration of the blood. To put it in other words, stem cells will be able to evolve into specialized blood cells such as platelets, white and red cells.

Bone marrow transplant represents the most basic form of stem cell transplantation, and the practice of this treatment has brought numerous successes. The cancer patient often needs a compatible donor. If this is not possible, doctors will perform a stem cell collection from the patient’s own bone marrow, before the beginning of chemotherapy. The stem cells will be frozen and stored until the intervention.

Modern stem cell transplantation options include the use of umbilical cord blood or peripheral blood collected either from a donor or from the patient. Nevertheless, such procedures have just started being put into practice since they usually need special equipment and modern technologies. Hence, the bone marrow transplant remains the most popular and widely used kind of stem cell transplantation in the world. It has a high rate of success, even if it often requires several transplants before complete blood regeneration. Normally, there will be a stem cell transplantation for every intensive chemotherapy session.

It is important that the the patient and the doctor should discuss all the aspects related to the procedure. For instance, the donor as well as the patient have to be carefully prepared in order to know what the procedure involves. Most people fear the fact that the collection of bone marrow is incredibly painful. This is why the doctor has the obligation to inform the people involved and discuss possibilities as well as methods that work for the benefit of all, so that the result of the transplantation be a successful one.

A stem cell transplant is a medical procedure consisting of the transfer of stem cells into the system of a cancer patient who is undergoing chemotherapy. The drugs used for the reduction of tumors damage the blood generation cells as well. Therefore, the stem cell transplant will be the only way to support the body to cope with the anti-cancer treatment and the number of chemotherapy sessions prescribed. There are many cases when stem cell transplant is not necessary or possible. But only a doctor or team of specialists will be able to pass a diagnosis after carefully pondering over the patient’s condition and the proved anti-cancer treatment efficiency.

The use of a donor or the collection of individual stem cells is one main issue to consider once the necessity of a stem cell transplant has been established. The collection operation for individual transfers has to take place before the administration of the chemotherapy drugs. Then, the stem cells will be frozen and stored until used. When a donor is available, then the transfer of cells occurs only just before the intervention without any necessity of storing the biological material. It is preferred to undergo a stem cell transplant from a donor because when using the patient’s cells, there is the risk of a reaction from the immune system.

Bone marrow collection was the only way to get the stem cells a few years ago, but science has made quite a progress in this direction. Such a procedure used to be pretty dreaded because of the pain and discomfort associated with it. Yet, medical advancement has made it possible to extract the stem cells necessary for the stem cell transplant from the patient’s or donor’s peripheral blood. It is true that for the moment, bone marrow transplants are more used or common, but the one relying on peripheral blood is gaining territory and will impose itself eventually.

The stem cell transplant may also be performed with umbilical cord blood, but since the number of stem cells extracted from the umbilical cord is low, the procedure is definitely not so common. New studies have also proved that umbilical cord stem cells from more patients be combined and used to suit a specific medical condition. And last but not least, an even more rare or unusual case of stem cell transplant is that from an identical twin, in which case the compatibility is expected to be very high.

Stem cell therapy relies on the use of cells that have not received a function in the body yet and which have a large if not unlimited potential of regeneration and evolution into cells with specialized tasks. The transformation of stem cells into body functional cells is known as specialization or differentiation, and it represents the main characteristic on which all stem cell therapy is based. Most of the time, stem cell transplantation serves for regenerative medicine in the case of patients with serious injuries that have impaired their body motion and functions. Imagine what this means for the recovery of spinal cord injuries!

A team of Korean researchers reputed an incredible success in 2004 when they transplanted stem cells into the broken spine of an immobilized patient. Presently, the woman has recovered almost completely, being able to walk, after a nineteen-year period during which she was not able to move. The stem cell therapy was effective as it was simple. Heart diseases are also supposed to be treated by the revolutionary stem cells, but cures are still experimental for these ailments. People from all over the world can turn to experimental medicine to solve their heart problems, but surely, they should also afford the intervention.

The blood cells formation is another territory conquered by stem cell therapy. Many types of cancer destroy the quality of the vital fluid and cause a collapse in the entire system. Moreover, the chemotherapy drugs used in the treatment of tumors further destroy the rapidly regenerating blood cells. The use of stem cell therapy for the improvement of the blood condition is one of the first merits of medicine and stem cell research. The most common intervention involved is the bone marrow transplantation from a donor to a patient.

Although the applications of stem cell therapy extend to pretty much any injury, damage or disease that affects the human body, we’ll only mention one other treatment possibility considered pretty revolutionary. Stem cells could be the solution for hair loss or baldness because they can take over the function of the cells in the hair follicles that for some reason have failed to regenerate from a certain moment onwards. This stem cell therapy consist in the collection of stem cells from healthy hair follicles, their growth in cultures, followed by the implantation once there are enough new follicles. All sorts of injuries will therefore benefit from a similar treatment.

A huge controversy touches upon stem cell research because of the way embryos are created, used and destructed for study purposes alone. The main interest in stem cell research comes from the possibility to develop treatments and cures for the irrecoverable diseases that plague humanity such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Parkinson’s, heart attacks and so on. Yet, lots of people who protest against stem cell research don’t really know that there are many processes and lab tests that work with stem cells without causing any harm to human embryos. Even if they have a lower biological potential, adult stem cells for instance represent a great study material and a constant replacement for embryonic samples.

There are many limitations related to the specialization potential of adult stem cells, particularly since embryonic cells have an unlimited variants of differentiation. Moreover, stem cell research has proved the fact that stem cells collected from embryos are more valuable in the treatment of nervous disease. Bad bits can be identified for embryonic stem cells as well because the immune system could reject the transplant. Such an issue ought to be known to parents who store stem cells from the umbilical cord blood, so that they may not be given false information that such samples can solve any future disease their child could be fighting against.

The truth is that stem cell research has more to do before real treatments can be performed in full safety and knowledge of the outcome. The only type of stem cell transplant that is widely practiced without any problem is the bone marrow transplant. Otherwise, the rest of the cures available on the basis of stem cells are usually experimental and pretty expensive. For the moment, stem cell research tries to find alternative sources for cells, other than embryos.

It was in 2007 that the Advanced Cell Technology Institute announced the creation of three stem cell lines that were produced without the destruction of the parenting embryos. Such results of stem cell research have been unique so far in the world, but more novelties seem to change the evolution of experimental medicine. In the same year, 2007, it was discovered that the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus in the uterus contains stem cells that can differentiate and develop into organs, bones, nerves, muscles or blood vessels. This new resource for tissues could increase the chances of developing ways for the treatment of injured or malfunctioning organs.

Stem cell lines represent families of cells that divide on a constant basis resulting from a unique parent group of stem cells that replicate extensively. Most of the time, stem cell lines develop in artificial environments serving for research purposes. A similarity with the womb conditions is necessary in order to create viable embryonic cell lines, because the embryos can only develop in the presence of nutrients matched to their needs. The stem cell lines that result from the division will continue the process of multiplication without specializing as long as no chemical signal interferes to initiate the differentiation. The number of stem cell lines available for distribution to researchers is not known at the moment.

The American National Institute of Health claims that there are only twenty-one viable stem cell lines to be used. While those derived from embryonic biological material are the most widely appreciated, there are also adult stem cell lines that work well for research purposes. Success was claimed even for the projects using umbilical cord blood as a source of stem cells. The only issue with such lineage is that the cells have a specific genetic imprint included, and this specificity limits the experiments, as they are not functional for the treatment of genetic disorders for instance.

Another source of stem cells that provides the possibility to develop a lineage is in specialized somatic cells that are worked back into becoming stem cells again, through a reversal purpose. The main advantage for such stem cell lines comes from the fact that the DNA of the donor is present in the stem cells so that the new biological material may be used efficiently as a therapy without painful procedures like bone marrow extraction. The main efforts of the medical research sector are directed towards developing media for the cultivation of stem cell lines without any use of animal ingredients.

Study models for the development of stem cell lines are quite numerous, and progress is being made into the creation of newer and more ethical ways of creating stem cell cures. For example, scientists are trying to isolate stem cells from living tissues without causing any harm to the organism. This would be very much in the line followed and supported by pro-lifers who claim that any embryo that dies in the lab is a wasted life or a homicide. Until a viable solution is provided for the controversy, many more debates will fire public opinion, hindering the progress of science and medicine in general.

Stem cell funding has become a priority for many research institutes, organizations and even governments, if we consider the efforts being made to come up with treatments for all sorts of irrecoverable diseases. The money goes to regenerative medicine institutes that commit to the research in the field of stem cell biology for the purpose of developing cures and viable therapies for the future. Ethical questions and concerns have always been fired on the topic of stem cell research because of the embryo death controversy. Pro-lifers lead a sustained open fight against all the lab tests during which embryos die or get discarded.

Some institutes receive more stem cell funding than others, with continuous support from the organizations interested in the development of this part of the medical science. CIRM for instance gives millions of dollars in the form of stem cell funding to Stanford’s Institute both for clinical studies and specialized projects planned over a two or four-year period. Some of these funds are dedicated to the treatment of autoimmune diseases like scleroderma or sclerosis, while others are directed to transplantation research. The National Institute of Health is one other financial supporter of research centers that specialize in stem cell biology.

Moreover, lots of other smaller societies and associations finance research: The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the American Cancer Society, the Diabetes Foundation and several others. These groups act on behalf and in the interest of disease-specific groups that expect solutions from the achievements and findings of stem cell therapy. Moreover, it is together with such financial supporters that one institute or another designs clinical trials and group tests for patients declared irrecoverable. For the moment, stem cell research is going through a new phase of development with the elimination of the ban for stem cell research performed by Obama’s government in March 2009.

Consequently, we may expect a new wave of stem cell funding in the near future given the boost medical research centers received. There are clear justifications for the large sums of money necessary to research. Well, the demands and challenges of experimental science comes from the necessity of using advanced technologies. The biological material, the laboratory equipment, the qualified personnel, the special work environment and overall gear necessary for research cost a huge amount of money, and without a serious investment in this research field, development and discoveries would stagnate.

Given the great medical potential discovered in stem cells, many therapies have high treatment hopes and expectations. In many experts’ opinion, stem cell cures have the huge potential of stopping devastating illnesses that claim people’s life after intense suffering. The mechanism on which the use of stem cell cures depends, comes from the differentiation of stem cells into absolutely any organ and tissue in the body. This means that if injected or placed in a damaged tissue, they will regenerate it without any threat for the patient’s health.

Although limited in number and extent, for the moment, stem cell cures do exist. Other than the performance of bone marrow transplants that is widely practiced and almost ordinary, the rest of the stem cell treatments are costly and experimental. Stem cell cures are presently being tested for diabetes, muscular damage, Parkinson’s disease, cardiac problems, cancers, Alzheimer and many others. Consequently stem cell cures can be used both for regenerative and curative therapies. How does tissue regeneration function? Well, the insertion of stem cells in the wound represents the best way to insure a good healing and prevent scarring.

Stem cell cures have been developed from the umbilical cord blood and they are generally used in the treatment of blood cancer such as leukemia or lymphoma. Chemotherapy used to destroy tumors will also kill the rapidly growing cells in the bone marrow. Hence, in the absence of a transplant, the patient’s recovery may not be possible. A matched donor has to be identified so that the patient can receive good stem cells for the stimulation of the blood creation process. Besides the basic bone marrow transplant, the rest of the stem cell cures represent only potential treatments.

Other clinical tests for stem cell cures include the use of the treatment for the recovery of brain damage caused by strokes. Head injuries could thus become treatable if the brain stem cells are stimulated to divide and differentiate more quickly. Experiments on animals have also proved that stem cell cures may be the answer to all sorts of tumors. This would be a major difference from the majority of the cancer treatments that destroy the tumor without any possibility of preventing it in the first place.

The constant blood crisis and the low number of donors that many medical units complain about could be solved if scientists manage to come up with a method of creating blood out of human stem cells. Experiments and trials have been made at various universities worldwide, and so far, scientists have managed to come up with a kind of immature stem cell blood. Research is in the early stages and the blood cells obtained by such means may never be adequate to substitute blood donation. Another issue here is the sterility of the so-called artificial stem cell blood that would be totally free of diseases.

Yet, many people believe that stem cell blood production in laboratories is very distant. So far, only speculations can be made in relation to stem cell blood because experts cannot say whether their research will prove an incremental step forward or just another project without perspective or clear safe finality. Medical units continue to encourage and support blood donation because it remains the only possibility for surgery, transplants and other interventions. Stem cell blood formation is financed in several laboratories worldwide, and money will continue to flow towards such experimental institutions.

Another issue worth analyzing in relation to stem cell blood is not the artificial production of this vital human fluid, but the collection of the umbilical cord blood that is very rich in stem cells. The procedure is widely practiced and more and more parents believe in the possibility to solve future health problems, thanks to the umbilical cord stem cells stored in private or public banks. The main criticism is directed against private stem cell blood banks that collect and store umbilical blood samples for lucrative purposes, pretending that these cells will be enough to cure a very serious disease.

The fact is that no one can guarantee a treatment that is still in the experimental stages. No doubt, there is an immense potential to the use of umbilical stem cell blood, but no all potent treatments can be generated on its basis, at least for the moment. The storage of stem cell blood extracted from the umbilical cord could be a small fortune, and you may never be able to test its potential. The controversy will not be over too soon, and stem cell blood remains a major issue and pivotal element related to stem cell research carried on all over the world.