• Question: Thanks for the answers on the previous question =) Another one, Why are stem cells so hard to study??

    Asked by nierosen04 to James, Jayne, Sharon on 25 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      nierosen04: I don’t know if stem cells are any harder than other fields. It’s exciting for sure. One of the challenges in the study of stem cells is that they are not that easy to identify. All the other specialised cells in your body have on their surfaces a unique set of proteins, almost like a signature. But stem cells don’t because they are not specialised yet, but because they don’t really have a clear signature, it becomes hard to know if the cells you have are really stem cells. Also, they respond to and secrete thousands of different chemicals to communicate with other cells and it’s challenging to find out what each of these do.

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 25 Mar 2011:

      HI Nierosen,
      There are several reasons why stem cells are tricky to study, firstly its very hard to make embryonic stem cells, it only works about 20% of the time, however this is improving as new ways are being found to do it.
      In adult stem cells, it can sometimes be very hard to distinguish the stem cell from any other cell and this poses a big problem for scientists. They sometimes have specific markers that show them to be a stem cell, but no always! Once they are identified or made then another difficulty is trying to get enough of them to grow, if we are to use them in transplants, then we are going to need a lot of cells, trillions infact so we need to be able to do this quickly and safely!

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