how do stem cells know what to do? – Stem Cell Research Zone

Question: how do stem cells know what to do?
- Keywords:
  stem cell
Asked by extremedonkeys to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 17 Mar 2011 in Categories: Stem Cells.
- Sharon Sneddon answered on 13 Mar 2011:
  
  Hi extremedonkeys,
  This is a great question!!
  There are 2 main types of stem cells, adult and embryonic, Adults stem cells are stem cells of the organ or tissue that they come from, so you can have skin stem cells, or blood stem cells and these cells will make new skin, or blood cells. Within the body, there are molecular signals that guide this process, telling which stem cell to turn into which tissue or organ. However, in order to use this power in the lab, researchers must first better understand what these signals are and how they work, then learn how to activate this sequence outside of the body, coaxing the stem cells to become specific cell types.
  
  Embryonic stem cells need to be able to make all the different cells in the body, so they have a big job as there are over 200 cell types!! Again, they rely on chemical signals and the switching on of different genes in the right order so that the cell knows what to turn into. It’s a really complicated process and scientists don’t fully understand it all, which is why we all have a job as researchers, trying to figure out what exactly is going on.
  Hope that made sense!
- Emma King answered on 14 Mar 2011:
  
  Hi extremedonkeys, I will probably let the others answer this one for me. But I have to say I’ve just spend three days telling people that your body can produce 2 million red blood cells a second – so one major thing I’ve learnt is that stem cells in your body are very very good at knowing what to do. Compared to that we are not very good at making them do what we want in the lab!
- James Chan answered on 16 Mar 2011:
  
  Hi extremedonkeys,
  Cheers for Q!
  Well, stem cells respond to a whole load of different chemicals. These cells have receptors on them – basically, they are like the cell’s eyes, nose, ears… they detect chemical signals and do things depending on what signals they are. The chemical signals can make them start making more of themselves (replicate) or move towards the chemical, or turn into different types of cells. So, our idea is if we can get the stem cells to move towards the broken bits of the bone and then turn into bone cells, then this can help speed up the healing process. So by talking to stem cells, I mean to get them to do what we want by giving them the right chemical signals.
  
  check out the link for animations! I hope you like it!
  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12578388/stem%20cells%20and%20broken%20bones.pptx
- Kara Cerveny answered on 17 Mar 2011:
  
  This is an excellent question, and one that many scientists are trying to answer. Some of my research was directed at understanding how cells near stem cells (in a region called the stem cell niche) contribute to the behavior and decisions of stem cells. So far, all we know is that there is complex interplay between the environment surrounding the stem cells and the genetic programs that get activated in the stem cells themselves. For more information about this question and what some zebrafish researchers are doing to understand neuronal stem cells, you might want to check out this link: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/zebrafish-group/research/stemCell.php

Question: how do stem cells know what to do?

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