Stem cell research is a relatively new field which has really entered the spotlight over the last decade. This week, the largest monetary award in the United States was granted to three of the top scientists in the field, totaling half a million dollars.

James Barba, president and CEO of the Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research states:

“The solutions to these debilitating diseases and many, many others that plague humans might very well be found through the science of stem cells.”

The winners announced are Elaine Fuchs of Rockefeller University in New York City, James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco.

Yamanaka and Thomson are credited with discovering in their separate labs how to genetically reprogram adult human cells back to an embryonic state. This discovery was reported as a major scientific breakthrough in 2007. The cell lines, now used in laboratories worldwide, promise to speed up stem cell research by offering an alternative to actual embryonic stem cells.

Fuchs’ work has focused on the biology of stem cells. Her discoveries in understanding how stem cells make skin and hair and how they repair wounds have led her laboratory to the genetic bases of human skin disorders, including cancers.

Stem cells have a unique feature in that they can be coaxed into developing into some or all of the 220 cell types found in the human body. Of the three types of stem cells, embryonic stem cells have the greatest potential in that they can theoretically become any of the 220 cell types. Adult stem cells are less useful in that they have already started to specialize and can only become one of a few cell types. Induced pluripotent stem cells are specially treated cells that can be processed to behave somewhat like embryonic stem cells.

Stem cells are seen by many researchers as having wide application in the treatment and cure of many human diseases and disorders including Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancer, strokes, paralysis, etc.

Embryonic stem cells are a primitive type of cell that can be coaxed into developing into any of the 220 types of cells found in the human body (e.g. blood cells, heart cells, brain cells, nerve cells, etc). In the past, they have always been derived from human embryos in a process that causes the death of the embryos. However, new research is developing techniques to convert skin cells into Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS cells) that emulate embryonic stem cells.

Adult stem cells bear some similarities to embryonic stem cells. Research using adult cells has a two decade head start on embryonic stem cells. Thus, potential treatments have already advanced to human trial stage. In contrast, the first experimental tests using embryonic stem cells only occurred in mid 2010. Unfortunately, adult cells are limited in flexibility, and are only capable of developing into a few of the 220 cell types found in the human body. Umbilical cord stem cells from newborns are one type of adult stem cells.

Induced pluripotent stem cells are specially treated ordinary cells that are specially processed to exhibit some of the properties of embryonic stem cells. Research in this area is just beginning. However, the process seems to offer the advantages of embryonic stem cells without the ethical and rejection problems.

Source: Albany Medical College, New York

Written by Sy Kraft, B.A.