Stem Cell Research

Stem cells are the body’s master cells, replenishing the various cells and tissues as they die. You will be amazed to know that your red cells may be only 120 days old whatever your age may be. Its stem cells that help maintain this replenishment in the body.

Researchers and doctors, hope that stem cells will provide a breakthrough in medical science revolutionizing how we treat ourselves.

Researchers in Advanced Cell Technology, Massachusetts have found out a way to convert these stem cells to blood cells. Stem cells taken from day-old embryos are especially powerful, with the ability to produce any cell type. One major problem is that the immune system may reject tissues grown from someone else’s stem cells. But since blood cells do not have a nucleus, there is no chance of such rejection. In producing blood cells the chance of DNA interference is zero. So stem cells can be converted to blood cells and even transfused into other people who bear a different genetic make-up.

The researchers currently generated up to a 100 billion red cells from a single six well plate of stem cells. You can download the entire research paper on this subject from Advanced Cell Technology