• Question: does the bone stem cells come from an adult or embryo?

    Asked by lgcookie to James on 16 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi Igcookie – you’re asking lots of great questions! I’m trying to keep up with you =)
      The stem cells i use that can turn into bone are from adults. but embryonic stem cells can do the same thing. The reason I use adult stem cells is because there is no need for me to get embryonic stem cells – if you had a fracture, I can use the stem cells that are already in you so that makes things a lot easier. In fact, my research is slightly different from the others in that I don’t even need to extract the stem cells out of you. I just need to inject a drug which makes the stem cells move to where I want them to be and turn into bone cells to help the healing process, so I think this method is much easier and cheaper – this means it’s more realistic to use in real people.

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