Stem Cells: Recent Breakthrough's

One of the main hurdles in stem cells research is working with the embryonic stem cells, they are destroyed so they raises a major social and ethical issue in many countries so the recent breakthrough in stem cell research is culturing and harvesting stem cells without destroying the embryonic stem cells using the original skin cells.

This new technique involves, fusing skin cells with an existing laboratory grown embryonic stem cells and then this hybrid cell is reprogrammed to its embryonic state.

Scientists look forward to embryonic stem cells can eventually be used to grow new tissue and replacement organs and to cure a variety of disease, from spinal cord injuries to Alzheimer's disease. To study embryonic stem cells, researchers developed cell lines from stem cells, which were initially harvested from fertilized human eggs, such as those available from in vitro fertilization. But this process involves destroying of embryonic stem cells so to overcome this, new technique is used.

The original type of stem cells is basically a rejuvenated description of a person's own skin cells. A stem cell formed by the new method would have DNA matching to that of the skin cell donor. Any tissue grown from the new stem cell probably will be transplanted into the donor without much risk that the tissue would be abandoned
   

     
, But before the technique is viable, researchers must obvious a technical difficulty how to eliminate excess genetic information from the obtainable embryonic stem cell. Even if the embryonic stem cells that were made contain the patient's genes, they also contain the embryonic stem cell genes.

The research team combined human skin cells called fibroblasts with laboratory-grown embryonic stem cells and resulting hybrid cells restricted chromosomes from both the skin cells and the stem cells. But according to several test results, the hybrid cells had the look, growth rate, and some key genetic characteristics of human embryonic cells.

If future research can clear left over technical hurdle, the approach may avoid some of the logistical and societal concerns surrounding .While the new technique requires an existing embryonic stem cell, the researchers hope to learn how to reprogram adult cells without the use of an embryonic cell in the first place. The real induce ten years down the road perhaps, is to be able to directly encourage those actions or factors of the adult cells and change them to an embryonic state without having to use an egg.

Many research on stem cells research is in progression, so lets hope this stem cell based therapies will revolutionize disease treating capability in future.