I heard that stem cell procedures are getting quite common in Asian and European countries but why is there a restriction in US?
Also, can someone clarify what exactly are stem cell procdeures all about? I believe stem cells are taken from say the umbilical cord and transplanted to treat tumors, etc.
Please educate me, thanks.
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
stem cells are basically cells that haven't "specialized" yet. by specialized i mean cells that are specific to a job, such as muscle cells, brain cells etc. an embryo is basically a bunch of stem cells. they have the capability of turning into any kind of cell. that usually happen by a chemical signal, and that embryo turns into a fetus. humans don't have a lot of these stem cells though. there are just a few in the body, but they are also at a stage where they can turn into just 1 kind of cell. some were found in the brain, some are found in another part of the body which i can't remember right now =/ and ofcourse stem cells from an umbilical cord.
now the big controversy is that well if you are going to take stem cells from an embryo, you would be basically destroying it. pro-life advocates call it a murder. but at the stage when the cell is taken, the little egg is still dividing. if you take a few cells away, the egg will divide again to compensate for the few cells taken (those cells taken can be treated as such so they divide even more into unspecialized cells). if things are done right the embryo can normally develop into a human being. just that right now that is very hard to do. so a lot of people are not happy about that procedure. stem cells that are obtained from a human being are harder to separate, from the umblical cord, from the skin, from the brain, because even though they are unspecialized, they will eventually will develop into umbilical cord cells, skin cells, neurons. not that it's impossible, just a bit hard to make sure that those cells don't develop into what they are programmed to develop into. so i think the restriction is that the cells might come from embryos, and the pro-life movement is very strong in the US compared to other nations.
i dunno how you could treat tumors with stem cells =/ i would love to hear about that =D as for other diseases, stem cells promise a lot. for example, in MS, the body attacks the fatty lining around the neurons in the brain, thus destroying it. that fatty lining is important, because it helps transfer the electrical brain signal. if it is destroyed, the impulses can't travel, and the normal functioning of a human being is severaly affected, and will eventually lead to death. if stem cells are injected in such a person, what it can do is that through the chemical signals, those unspecialized cells can then develop into oligodendrocytes (the cells that make the fatty lining), and then that could slow or even stop the destruction. because once stuff is destroyed in teh brain, it stays that way. so this is like reversing the destruction.
i think education is needed about stem cells. people need to know more about stem cells before calling it murder, because not all cells are produced from embryos, and not all cells produced from embryos destroys them. so far a lot of research that is being done is from embryos donated from the fertilization clinics, which would have been destroyed anyways. but as it is, the supply is limited. and it's severly restricting the research this concept. you hear of stem cells, you think of embryos without thinking about other potential sources of stem cells.
ummmmm...is that wat you were asking?
Holy smokes. You are so knowledgeable. I suddenly have a new found respect for you, Ms. Khumi, if I may call you that from now on. 
Yes, this is exactly what I wanted to know.
I am also not sure about tumor, but I think I article I read was about some damage done after tumor removal and some docs were using stem cells to regenerate what was lost. I may be totally wrong here. Let me find that article and get back on this.
Now, I have a friend who’s brother in India had spinal embolization after a series of problems. He has since then lost the ability to walk and is paralyzed waist down. Recently he read about a hospital in Southern India that showed promising procedures involving stem cell transplantation to give possible “strength” back to the lost “stuff” in the back and hopefully with time see a big difference. He is going for it. She called me to ask me the question above as to why we don’t hear of these procedures here.
I understand what the issues are with taking cells from an embryo, but can’t they use stem cells from placentas that are donated after a child is born?
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
There are two types of stem cells, these are:
1. in the embryo
2. they are present in smallll numbers in the adult
Stem cell biology is a huge topic and this is what I understand about it: stem cells are able to differentiate into all embryonic specialized tissues e.g heart tissue, part of the nervous system or part of the immune system cells. In adults organisms, stem cells act as a repair system for the body, so they 'restore' specialized cells, they can also renew cells e.g. red blood cells or tissue of the intestine.
When stem research is carried out often an embryo is used to extract the cells from and the the embry is disposed of, the big controversy is that 'when does life begin?' and pro- life campaigners are against it as they feel that a life is taken away in the process. However this way if you put the stem cell in the right enviroment it will differentiate into the cell type that you provide the nutrient for. the embryonic stem cells are generated through therapeutic cloning. Hower there stem cells can also be derieved from umbilical cord blood and bone marrow- which are being more often and pro- life campagners doent have problems with these.
Another technique used, are the stem cells form the adult and once again prvide the right enviroment for thecll to differentiate into the cell that you want.
A number of adulst stem cell therapies already exist e.g bone marrow transplants, used to treat leukemia. I remeber reading an article where a 18 year old had accidently shot himself in the hear whilst carying out home improvements and the doctors used his stem cells, induced them and the cells were implanted in the heart- the kid recovered and its one of the few cases where a person has survived through that kind of injury. They also want to use this type of stem cell therapy for caner, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries and many others. they recenctly reprogrammed adult stem cells and cured sickle cell anaemia in mice.
But there are still alot of controversies about this kind of reasearch which could be overcome through public debate and future research, and further education of the public. Adult stem cells are favoured and more reserach is being done on these as embryo's are not needed and disposed of. America has actually given alot of funds for the research of adult stem cells and so have a lot of other countries, although some of the other contries also give funding for the embronic stem cell reasearch which are thought to have alot of potential.
I understand what the issues are with taking cells from an embryo, but can't they use stem cells from placentas that are donated after a child is born?
There is a relatively new technique in which they are using stem cells form the umbilical cord of the donated placenta, however I know a friend that did research in this and he found that they could only be stored for a number of hours and experiments had to be carried out fast and the techniques were quite difficult. Recently they have been able to store these placenta's. And with more and more “banks” around the world for saving cord blood, the potential for finding tissue matches for every patient becomes more and more realistic. “There are now eight banks in the UK alone,”
Umbilical cord stem cells are not quite as primitive as embryonic stem cells, which can give rise to any tissue type of the body. But they appear to be much more versatile than “adult stem cells” such as those found in bone marrow which repair damaged tissue during life.
Once again for science this is pretty new stuff
starcity put it so much more smartly than i did
it’s possible…but it’s really really hard. right now there aren’t enough techniques and material and other things to make it possible. a lot more research is needed in it. the research that is done is done in other countries. i think i was watching a documentary and it showed countries such as china and a couple of other european countries were much more knowledgeable about this stuff than US…because of all the restrictions. so that’s why you don’t hear a lot about this coming from US, and instead hear about these procedures occuring in other countries.
@ miss khumi there is sooooooo much out there. this is just tip of the iceberg!
That’s probably because I’m a geneticist! lol! that’s what 3 years of the stuff at uni does to u, and I’m in the middle of my exams- have to learn this stuff for one of my exams next week 
oh wow! geneticists totally impress and intimidate me 
all the stuff i know is from neuropsych or dev psych =/
think of this as review 
Lol! when I saw the question I was like ‘Yey I know this stuff!’ lol! :biggthumb
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
haha :D
Cord blood contains HSC (haemopoeitic stem cells ). These proliferative cells are about one log fewer in number than can be obtained from bone marrow or peripheral blood HSC donation, but they have greater proliferative and colony forming capacity, and are more responsive to some growth factors. Also because they are more 'naïve' than proliferative cells from bone marrow, they seem to produce fewer complications .
In the future, cord blood might be a useful source of stem cells other than haemopoietic precursors. Reports suggest that not only are mesenchymal and neural precursor cells present but that some cord blood cells, present in extremely low frequency, may have the capacity to develop into many different lineages including cartilage, fat cells, hepatic (liver)and cardiac (heart) cells.
Research is still at an early stage and despite the amount of interest in the field, the therapeutic role for such cells remains speculative.
One-fifth of stem cell transplants performed for young patients (less than 20 years old) are cord blood transplants, mostly for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or acute myelobastic leukaemia and other inherited blood diseases like thalassemias.
There is substantial speculation about the use of cord blood non-HSC in treatment of a variety of acute and chronic conditions but there is increasing evidence of the use of fetal-derived stem cells in the treatment of neurological disease and a number of preclinical studies in animal models, which suggest an improvement in cardiac function following infusion of umbilical cord stem cells for acute myocardial infarction. There has also been a report of the infusion of cord blood stem cells in a patient with longstanding spinal injury.
However all these studies are still in their early preliminary trials and as such not yet clinically approved for patient treatment even though commercial cord blood banks site these in their brochures to promote cord blood banking.
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
Using stem cells to treat tumours:)- I found that the drugs that are used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining chemotherapy with peripheral stem cell transplantation may allow the doctor to give higher doses of chemotherapy drugs and kill more tumor cells.
Basically the adult stem cells are obtained prior to the administration of chemo. Patients who do not have peripheral blood stem cells available may undergo a bone marrow harvest instead. and they undergo several rounds of chemo.
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
Wow great info here, esp kumar - thanks!
I actually arranged for and stored cord blood from my first son's birth. There is a time-critical factor where they have to get to the cryogenics lab within a certain amount of time but as long as that happens, cord blood has been sucessfully stored for 10 years or more. It was a pretty big thing to coordinate before the birth and I had to let the docs and the hospital know about it, the cord blood lab spoke with my doc beforehand to explain the extraction procedure and coordination of getting to the lab in time. It cost about $1000 and then a cryogenic storage fee of 90 per year. Inshallah, its not something we'll ever need to use but since we had the resources at that time, I decided to go for it. It may do great things one day!
Something I've always wanted to know is....hospitals toss out placenta and cord right? So why dont they routinely take out the cord blood for the stem cells? Then there wouldnt be a need for the fetal stem cells?
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
i think (and i could be wrong) is that you can't just take the placenta and cord blood. it's kinda like organ donation, where the person donating has to give consent in order to do it. in this case, it's the mother's decision if she wants to donate it or not.
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
hmmm....something as valuable to science, shouldnt they ask moms in labor if they'd like to donate placenta and cord? I was never asked so the hospital did the routine (a couple of microscope slides of the placenta) and then discarded placenta and cord for all 3 births. That small request could yield much cord blood and therefore stem cells for reseach I think.
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
true...it makes sense. but it sounds like it's a lot of work, and maybe hospitals and research centers don't have a lot of resources to accomplish such a big goal.
hmmm....something as valuable to science, shouldnt they ask moms in labor if they'd like to donate placenta and cord? I was never asked so the hospital did the routine (a couple of microscope slides of the placenta) and then discarded placenta and cord for all 3 births. That small request could yield much cord blood and therefore stem cells for reseach I think.
It's true that hospitals do ask if u want to donate placenta in hospitals usually only the ones that have research centres, I know a friend of mine who was looking at the levels of cells in the placenta's- it was really hard cos 1) no one wants to donate, 2) they placenta needs to be worked on really fast and can only be stored for limited time period, in fact labs try to maximise the amount of data that they can get from each placenta, so the blood is extracted, stem cells extracted and sometimes tissue is used then the placenta is disposed of- so like I said they get a lot of information from a placenta.
true...it makes sense. but it sounds like it's a lot of work, and maybe hospitals and research centers don't have a lot of resources to accomplish such a big goal.
Many research centres dont get enough funding I know our research centre is getting problems for this as most of the funding is going to cancer research. And most impotantly many mothers are just scared to donate their placenta, the prject that my frind was doing was really harsh cos he had to wait for the mothers to agree for the lab to use the placenta, and in fact in 8 months and so many hundreds of births at the hospital only 6 mothers had agreed for their placenta's to be used inthe lab.
If the general puplic was educated more they'd realise that no the placenta cant be used to make mutants in the lab and infact usually they are used to come up of new ways of treatments and then more people would donate there placenta
Many people do get scared off by genetics in general
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
Thanks Khumi, Starcity, Sheyn and MO3 for such valuable information.
But why the hesitation in donating the placenta that becomes useless to mother and child?
But why the hesitation in donating the placenta that becomes useless to mother and child?
I guess it's people's mindset, once they hear laboratory, stem cell or genetics they automatically think mutants and clones. The media and politicians often dont even realise the importance or the technique behind medical research and are ready to comdem it and so the public reacts to this
Recently I read a paper that had a politician commenting on stem cells- he didnt seem to really realise what they were and did, and yet these politicians control whether such experiments will be funded my the government- realistically the politicians should be educated first and then the public.
it's sad that mother's prefer that their placenta be disposed of rather than for the placenta to be used in medicine - prehaps save a life and then disposed of. Another thing is that lab technicians and reserachers will not ask these mothers whether they will donate in fact the law is that only doctors and nurses ask them- prehaps of the researcher was there then they could outline what they would be doing with the placenta... at the moment doctors and nures are so busy they often dont really know which experiment, how the placenta will be used by the researcher/ technician. usually only cord blood is needed but even that is hard to get a hold of...
Re: The controversy behind stem cell procedures
I remember when my older daughter was born I was given some documents to sign if I wished to donate the placenta toward research. I figured it would be trashed anyway so why not put it to good use.
I guess it all boils down to educating the masses.