Embryonic stem cells offer hope for new therapies, but recently been highlighting the different behavior of these cells in the body and the potential for damage events Hence, it is wise to consider implications use these cells in treatment, along with potential clinical applications, under the principle of causing no harm, following risk and benefit rules in decision making and with respect of the human condition as a priority.
I would like to discuss the implications of successful use of embryonic stem cells in therapy, and what exactly are the arguments for therapeutic use?
I can give you one example- my neighbour is working on: ESCs can differentiate into articular cartilage and growth plate cartilage using variable cytokine and growth factors. This has great potential for repairing osteoarthritis, entheses and bone injuries, pl see the manuscript. This is an excellent paper. Your questions should be responded from different researchers in their field
With what has been known about the risk of teratoma formations from animal models; I don't believe in using ESC in clinic and taking a patients health at stake. Moreover, there has always been ethical issues associated with it. However, ESC and their differentiated derivatives are great tools in drug discovery and understanding the basic biology and functions of certain cell types.
If we are thinking beyond this point to take ESC to therapy; the primary concern is to have a pure population of differentiated cells (eg: cardiomyocytes - for myocardial infractions). There has been a lot described in the literature about the difficulties in getting "this" 100% efficiency in differentiation and/or purifying pure populations after differentiation. Its a "no" to use of ESC in therapy unless we attain either of these.
There are examples of components of the blood production. As erythrocytes and platelets do not have a nuclear we do not have a risk to produce teratomas or some abnormal cells. There are couple of companies in US and UK who is doing optimization of differentiation protocols for large scale production of such cells.
Though embryonic stem cells are totipotent in nature I.e it can form any cells and all the layers like endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm it is not worth killing an embryo to achieve it. Induced pluripotent stem cells which have property of embryonic stem cells can be used. Therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells are limited due to its adverse problems like teratoma formation and require use of immuno suppressants.
Thanks to all .
As is well known , successful treatment record by ESC in blood diseases only . and the researchers are currently trending to the possibility of use Induced pluripotent stem cells instead ESC in therapy . While some researchers believe the possibility of using ESC in the treatment despite these constraints
So , I want discuss the post published scientific research in this area , and see the different points of view with both researchers in their field
The purpose of ES and iPS therapy is two fold: cell replacement (differentiating cells and replacing cells with those that are lost) and cell augmentation (using them as trophic factor delivery vehicles to repair damaged tissue). There's also a gene therapy approach, taking cells from a patient with a genetic disorder, correcting the gene ex vivo/in vitro, and then repopulating with those cells. In general, with the advent of iPS cells, the field has shifted away from the ES cells because of the political and moral issues associated with ES cells. No one I know at my university is doing ES studies anymore.