Stem Cells: The Possibilities Are Endless

I have tried to write this post three times now, without success. I have no idea where to start and no idea how to explain the masses of information that could potentially be written here, but, I am going to attempt it one last time!

I read an article two weeks ago on the BBC website about organ transplant, and how stem cells have been used to help stop rejection of transplanted kidneys. When I read this, I was amazed. I cannot actually find the words to explain how amazing this is. I mean, the amount of people that this one piece of information could help is enormous. Every single person that has ever had an organ transplant has to take pills every single day to stop their body rejecting the organ, except 5 people that were involved in this study. As those of you who know me can imagine, I got very excited when I read this story and told pretty much everyone I know. They, however, were nowhere near as excited as me, and when I asked them, they said they didn't really know what I was on about and mainly thought of dead babies when I mentioned 'stem cells'. So, instead of writing a post specifically about the article I read, I thought I would write a general post on stem cells to help you understand what they are and where the 'dead baby' thing comes from. Here goes...

Stem cells are found in multicellular organisms for example, you and I. They are unspecialised cells, that is, they do not have a definitive function but they can differentiate into specialised cells. For example, a red blood cell started life as a stem cell. This stem cell underwent many changes (that are way too complicated for me to understand and therefore explain to you!) and so turned into a red blood cell. There are two types of stem cell: embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Adult stem cells can be found in the bodies of all adults, in bone marrow, in adipose tissue (basically, thats just fat cells, which can be taken from people using liposuction! Gross!) and in blood. Although this is all very interesting, I want to talk more about embryonic stem cells as these are more commonly used and are the ones that most people think of when they hear the term 'stem cell'.

As most of you will know, there are many ethical issues surrounding the use of embryonic stem cells for scientific research. Before I write any more, I would like to clarify that although I believe using embryonic stem cells is a good thing, I am not trying to convince you to think the same or to change your existing views on the subject. I merely want to explain why I think it is acceptable to use these amazing cells for research what we could potentially discover. 

Human embryonic stem cells come from a 4-5 day old fertilized egg. They are defined by two things: they are pluripotent, (this simply means they can give rise to any cell type, including more stem cells) and they divide indefinitely (differentiated cells die after they have divided a certain number of times). Because these cells come from a 4-5 day old embryo, many people believe that it is immoral to use these cells as it is destroying a life. I however, believe that this is not the case. The embryos used in research are created outside of the body in a laboratory. At this stage, the embryo has not developed any characteristics of a baby for example, it cannot feel or think. A woman at this stage in her pregnancy wouldn't even know she was pregnant and many naturally miscarry at this stage without ever knowing they were pregnant. 

Embryonic stem cells can be used for medical research and any results can be used to help millions of people. For example, the potential that the results of the above story have is enormous; thousands of people have transplants every year and each and every one of them need to take pills every day for the rest of their lives to stop their body rejecting the organ. However, with the use of stem cells this may not have to be the case, people may only have take the pills for a short while which is a huge advantage as many people often forget to take their pills which can lead to complications. Not only this, but in the future, with the use of stem cells, we may be able to cure people of paralysis, or blindness. We may be able to grow organs from stem cells so people no longer need to wait so long for a transplant. The possibilities of what stem cells could do for us, medically, are infinite. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, as ever, if you have any comments or criticism, leave me a message. Thanks for reading The Mad Scientist!

What's all this monkey business?

This week on the BBC, I read that researchers in Cambridge have sequenced the genome of the gorilla. What are you talking about? I hear you say. Well, lets start from the beginning shall we?

For those of you who don't know, a genome is an organisms entire hereditary information. For example, information on your hair colour, eye colour, height, fingerprints and pretty much everything else to do with your body can be found within your genome. Your genome is encoded by your DNA (or, if you want to get fancy, deoxyribonucleic acid!) and DNA can be found in pretty much every cell within your body. Your DNA then encodes for your genes and it is these that determine certain attributes that make you, you. Every human has a different genome, except for identical twins, and it is this that makes us all individuals.

Why is it important for us to want to sequence all of the gorilla's DNA? Well, by knowing the differences and similarities between different species of primates, we can discover why they look and act the way they do. In addition, as the gorilla's DNA is very similar to human DNA (we share 98% of our DNA with gorillas!), by studying them we may begin to understand why we behave in certain ways. For example, researchers are hoping to be able to discover information that may help us understand how and why gorillas interact and communicate with one another; by studying this, we may discover why we act the way we do in similar situations. It may also help explain how we have evolved to be different from gorillas (well, most of us at least!) as it will be the differences (all 2% of them) that make us so different from these extraordinary animals. Not only would learning this information be interesting, it could also help in the understanding of human diseases and disorders, particularly dementia. In humans, a mutation (that is a change in the genome that can occur naturally or be induced by external stimuli) that results in dementia appears not to affect gorillas. By studying this, we could perhaps find links that may help us understand and potentially cure dementia (although not entirely likely so don't get your hopes up!).

So, by studying the genetic material of these amazing animals, we may be able to add more insight into what makes us humans capable of abstract thought, one of, if not the, most important abilities we have. As this is my first post I would love to hear from anyone who reads this: let me know if its too sciencey or if I haven't explained anything properly, just general comments on how I can improve my next post. Thanks everyone and I hope you found this post at least vaguely interesting!