Adult Stem Cells

1. If this cell type is a part of a normal organism, what does it do? Be as specific as possible.
Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells found throughout the body after development that multiply by
cell division to repair and replace dying cells and damaged tissues from injuries or everyday wear and tear.
They possess two propertiesself-renewal, which is the ability to enter numerous cycles of cell division
while still maintaining an undifferentiated state, and multidifferentiative potential, which is the ability to
generate progeny of several distinct cell types. These typically produce the type of tissue in which they are
found, and some tissues and organs have more adult stem cells than others. For example, the heart is an
organ that possesses very few stem cells and is not easily regenerated when damaged.
2. What, if any, are the ethical considerations surrounding the use of this type of stem cell? No need
to discuss yet, just lay out the major issues.
There seems to be no major ethical concerns involving the use of adult stem cells, as they do not involve
the destruction of embryos, which is a major ethical debate in the field of embryonic stem cell research, and
instead are found in tissue samples from adults. In fact, adult stem cells are often used today. They are seen
to be useful in the treating of certain blood/bone cancers, such as leukemia, through bone marrow
transplants. There has also been some transplantation of stem cells intravenously to aid in areas like spinal
cord injuries and vascular diseases.
3. Based on the current science, what are the pros and cons of this type of stem cell for any type of
human therapy? Briefly.
Stem cells can be used to repair tissues or replace dying tissues; the injected adult stem cells, like bone
marrow stem cells, travel to their specified location, and either stimulate the growth of the healthy cells
living there, or they become part of the organ and start producing their own healthy cells. This is a positive
characteristic because it is used to treat disease and repair diseased areas of the body.
The drawbacks to adult stem cell therapy are that it is risky and the injected stem cells need to be accepted
by the host body. If the host bodys immune system rejects the foreign stem cells, there is a risk of cancer.
Quantity is also an issue; often a lot of adult stem cells are necessary for treatment to have any effect on the
host, and adult stem cells cant always multiply endlessly. They can only make so many new cells, and thus
more and more stem cells would need to be injected, creating more risk. Because they are adult cells, there
tend to be more anomalies in the DNA than there would be in embryonic stem cells because the cells have
been exposed and/or changed by the environment.
(BM note- one of the problems with the use of adult stem cells for therapeutics is that their potential is very
limited (i.e. they can only produce cells that can differentiate into a small number of cell types, rather than
being pluripotent like embryonic stem cells).
4. If this type of stem cell has been used for human therapeutics, list them. Do not discuss the
science behind these therapeutics. We are going to tackle this issue next week.
Adult stem cells have been used to treat leukemia and related bone/blood cancers utilizing bone marrow
transplants, and to treat various other diseases including spinal cord injury, liver cirrhosis, and Peripheral
Vascular disease.
Other health conditions (BM note: that may be someday) successfully treated by stem cell therapy:


Parkinsons Disease
Macular Degeneration
Stroke
Autism
Dementia
Cystic Fibrosis
Pulmonary Fibrosis
Congestive Heart Failure
Coronary Heart Disease

5. Who and when?
In 2008 the first full transplant of a human organ grown from adult stem cells was carried
out by Paolo Macchiarini, at the Hospital Clnic of Barcelona on Claudia Castillo, a
Colombian female adult whose trachea had collapsed due to tuberculosis.
Scientists from Britain and Japan shared a Nobel Prize on Monday for the discovery that
adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow
tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.
John Gurdon, 79, of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain and Shinya Yamanaka,
50, of Kyoto University in Japan, discovered ways to create tissue that would act like
embryonic cells, without the need to collect the cells from embryos.
6. Potency?
Potency refers to the ability of the cell to differentiate into other cells. Adult cells are
pluripotent rather than totipotent because they cant divide into anything they want, they
are slightly more specified.
(BM note: Totipotent cells can form all the cell types in a body, plus the
extraembryonic, or placental, cells. Embryonic cells within the first couple
of cell divisions after fertilization are the only cells that are totipotent.
Pluripotent cells can give rise to all of the cell types that make up the
body; embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent. Multipotent cells
can develop into more than one cell type, but are more limited than
pluripotent cells; adult stem cells and cord blood stem cells are considered
multipotent. From http://stemcell.ny.gov/faqs/what-difference-between-
totipotent-pluripotent-and-multipotent)