• Question: Is there anything that stem cells can’t heal?

    Asked by tabbyboo to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 15 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 13 Mar 2011:

      Hi Tabbyboo,

      I’ve already kind of answered this in your other question, but to go a bit further, yes there are some things that stem cells can’t or won’t be able to heal. They will be good for transplanting cells into organs, and for repairing bones and cartilage, but not everything will be able to be helped by stem cells. However, even if they can’t be used directly to heal things, they are still useful in lots of other ways, like in testing new drugs .
      Hope this answers your question!

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hi tabbyboo – yes there are many things that stem cells can’t heal, for a variety of reasons. Mostly we just don’t have the technology yet, either because we are not advanced enough in our research or because we don’t need the technology because we already have drugs that do the same job. And there are many many things that stem cells would just not be suitable for. They would be really useful to re-grow your spinal cord if you were in an accident but not so good for helping if you have food poisoning for instance! We have to weigh up the length of illness and how long it’s going to take to grow the cells that you need and whether your body can do the job for itself or we already have a drug treatment avaliable.
      Hope that helps!

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      The truth is, stem cell technology has not yet been tested much in humans yet, so we don’t know the full extent of how useful it will be. There have been small studies looking at how stem cells can help heart attack patients and so on, which have been encouraging, but not definitive. We need lots more large studies to prove that stem cells are safe and useful. Diseases where stem cells can be potentially very useful include heart disease, dementia, broken bones, liver disease, diabetes – these are the holy grails, if you like. But I don’t think stem cell technology will be a panacea – i.e. cure-all. There will be diseases that stem cells can’t heal, like mental health problems, certain bowel problems like bowel obstruction, certain cancers, but they may turn out to be even more useful than we think! Who knows? That’s why we need you guys to join in and find out!

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