Amniotic Fluid and Stem Cells
Recent studies show that amniotic fluid contains a considerable quantity of stem cells. These amniotic stem cells are pluripotent and able to differentiate into various tissues, which may be useful for future human application. Some researchers, including Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University, a team from Harvard University, and Italian Paolo de Coppi, have found that amniotic fluid is also a plentiful source of non-embryonic stem cells. These cells have demonstrated the ability to differentiate into a number of different cell-types, including brain, liver and bone.
It is possible to conserve the stem cells extracted from amniotic fluid in private stem cells banks. Some private companies offer this service for a fee.
Read more about this topic: Amniotic Fluid
Famous quotes containing the words fluid, stem and/or cells:
“It is a mischievous notion that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To ignorance and sin, it is flint. They adapt to themselves to it as they may; but in proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the firmament flows before him and takes his signet and form.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Apples? New Hampshire has them, but unsprayed,
With no suspicion in stem end or blossom end
Of vitriol or arsenate of lead,
And so not good for anything but cider.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Madness is locked beneath. It goes into tissues, is swallowed by the cells. The cells go mad. Cancer is their flag. Cancer is the growth of madness denied.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)