week 13 to 14 p2

• Gene therapy


  Therapy that involves introducing genetic material into cells to treat or prevent disease
• Stem cell therapy


  Therapy that uses stem cells to treat or prevent disease
• Stem cells


  Cells from which all other cells with specialized functions are generated
• Stem cells


  • They have the ability to differentiate
  • They have the ability to self-regenerate
• Types of stem cells

  • Totipotent cells
  • Pluripotent cells
  • Multipotent cells
  • Unipotent cells
• Stem cell therapy


  Promotes the repair response of diseased, dysfunctional or injured tissue using stem cells or their derivatives
• Uses of stem cells

  • Tissue regeneration
  • Cardiovascular disease treatment
  • Brain disease treatment
  • Blood disease treatments
• Importance of stem cells

  • They can replace diseased or damaged cells
  • They allow us to study development and genetics
  • They can be used to test different substances (drugs and chemicals)
• Planarians are flatworms that are capable of profound regenerative feats dependent upon a population of self-renewing adult stem cells called neoblasts
• Where do stem cells naturally come from?

  • Adult body tissues (Adult Stem Cells)
  • Embryos (Embryonic Stem Cells)
• Ways to harvest stem cells

  • Frozen embryos
  • Therapeutic cloning
  • Bone marrow
  • Peripheral stem cells
  • Umbilical cord blood
  • Adult cells (skin cells)
• Issues concerning stem cells

  • Ethical and social issues
  • Mixing humans and animals
  • Stem cell therapy and FDA regulation
• There has been some controversy about stem cell research, mainly relating to work on embryonic stem cells
• In some countries, it is illegal to produce embryonic stem cell lines. In the United States, scientists can create or work with embryonic stem cell lines, but it is illegal to use federal funds to research stem cell lines that were created after August 2001