Stem Cells Are Ready to Release Unlimited Potential

In the society of our body, every individual cell is trained to be highly professional to adapt to its own function. White blood cells and lymphocytes protect us from bacteria and viruses; red blood cells carry oxygen, and platelets can clot blood.

But in addition to these, there is a more complex cell function in the human body, that is, stem cells. Stem cells are like a student who has not received any professional training. They have the potential to engage in various occupations, such as repairing damaged tissue cells, replacing damaged cells, or stimulating the body's own cell regeneration. And this is precisely the fascination of stem cells.

"All cells in the human body have a lifespan. For example, red blood cells generally have a lifespan of about 120 days. After 120 days, brand new red blood cells will replace those old red blood cells. So, where do the new red blood cells come from? In fact, they are differentiated from hematopoietic stem cells among stem cells." introduced by a scientist at Creative Biolabs, a biotechnology company focusing on stem cell products and services.

There are mainly five characteristics of stem cells:

1. Self-renewal, which means that the progeny cells produced still maintain the original characteristics of the parent cells during the process of cell division and proliferation. For example, a liver transplant donor can remove 3/4 of the liver and it can be completely restored to its original state within two weeks.
2. Clonal origin, that is, a single cell has the ability to create more identical cells, and one cell can replicate into two identical cells.

3. The high differentiation potential, which is the ability to differentiate into different organizations. For example, the clinically mature treatment method for leukemia, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, actually uses the differentiation function of hematopoietic stem cells. In other words, the abnormal cells are replaced by normal stem cells.

1. Plasticity. This is the ability of stem cells to differentiate into other types of tissue cells. For example, bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells can differentiate into nerve cells of the same type as the nerves of the brain tissue with specific environmental requirements.
2. The biological characteristics. Stem cells need a specific microenvironment in order to maintain the characteristics of self-renewal and differentiation. In different microenvironments, stem cells can exert different abilities.

Nowadays, stem cells have been successfully used in the treatment of various diseases. Well-known examples are stem cell therapy for athletes’ recovery from various diseases, such as knee injury, joint space narrowing, ligament injury, tendon injury, muscle injury, joint injury, etc.

The Spanish professional tennis player, Rafael Nadal, once received the treatment with stem cells, which resorted in November 2013 after exhausting the possibilities of previous treatments with plasma rich in platelet. Thanks to the results, Nadal returned to resort to the stem cells to cure in this case his back problems, the facetary syndrome, which is inflammation of a part of the lumbar vertebrae.

With the continuous development of technology, stem cells will inevitably lead to a medical revolution and become the third treatment method after drugs and surgery. A series of intractable diseases that are difficult to treat by traditional methods such as various diseases will eventually be gradually healed.

Candy Swift: Focus on the cutting edge biological information around the world.