Question: it is said that theoretically, stem cells will be of benefit towards the advancement of medicne and treating diseased and damaged organs, tissues and etc. my question is: is it practically possible to use stem cells in almost all scenarios e.g. all cancer types and so on?

Sharon Sneddon answered on 17 Mar 2011:

Hi israel,

Good question!

It would be great if stem cells could be used in almost every clinical scenario. Thats what us as scientists are working towards!

Stem cells have already been successfully used in numerous patients, including the most well known bone marrow transplants for the cancer leukaemia. They have also been used for cardiac infarction (death of some of the heart tissue), types of rare anaemia’s, nerve damage and windpipe regeneration.

Stem cells are of wide interest for medicine, because they have the potential, under suitable conditions, to develop into almost all of the different types of cells. They should therefore be able to repair damaged or defective tissues and therefore help a lot of other diseasesm for example, destroyed insulin-producing cells in the pancreas for people with diabetes. Many other degenerative diseases, for which there are as yet no effective therapies, could also then be alleviated or healed.

For other types of cancers, for example solid tumours it may be that the role of stem cells is in finding new drugs and therapies, such as improving how radiation affects tumours.
I think that stem cells do hold promise to have an effect on lots of different scenarios!