Adult Stem Cell Therapies
The therapeutic potential of adult stem cells is the focus of much scientific research, due to their ability to be harvested from the patient. In common with embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells have the ability to differentiate into more than one cell type, but unlike the former they are often restricted to certain types or "lineages". The ability of a differentiated stem cell of one lineage to produce cells of a different lineage is called transdifferentiation. Some types of adult stem cells are more capable of transdifferentiation than others, and for many there is no evidence that such a transformation is possible. Consequently, adult stem therapies require a stem cell source of the specific lineage needed, and harvesting and/or culturing them up to the numbers required is a challenge.
Read more about this topic: Adult Stem Cell
Famous quotes containing the words adult, stem and/or cell:
“A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other peoples patience.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“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 (18741963)
“She that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)