Advantages Over Embryonic Stem Cells
In harvesting embryonic stem cells, a human embryo is destroyed. Many pro-life individuals associate this act with abortion and consider it immoral. Amniotic epithelial cells are harvested from the placenta, which is commonly discarded after birth. The cells are very easily obtainable without the use of intrusive procedures. Thus their use averts the controversy about embryonic stem cells. There are also large amounts of amniotic epithelial cells found in the placenta and can be found in upwards of 50-100 million cells from one extraction. However, several billion cells are required to use for transplantation in order to treat and fight diseases. Therefore, the cells must be expanded in a lab to have enough cells for transplantation.
Unlike embryonic stem cells, amniotic stem cells have not shown a propensity for developing into teratomas and other cancer-like tumors upon injection into living tissue. Amniotic epithelial cells have not been known to produce cancerous tumors in the host despite the fact that these cells do express genes found in embryonic stem cells that are known to promote tumor formation.
Organs engineered from amniotic epithelial cells obtained from the placenta associated with a particular person's birth would not be rejected by that person; such organs would have the same genotype as that person and thus be fully compatible with that person's immune system.
Read more about this topic: Amniotic Epithelial Cells
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