• Question: Why did people, when they discovered stem cells, call them stem cells

    Asked by penguin27 to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 15 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      I’m not sure of the answer to this one I’m afraid, but I will try and do some research and get back to you. I do know that when embryonic stem cells were discovered, a scientist called Gail Martin from San Fransisco was the person that came up with the name Embryonic Stem Cells!

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      You know, I have absolutely no idea. Even wikipedia doesn’t seem to know! I always assumed it was because they can make lots of other cells and if you draw that out as a diagram with all the different routes they can take then it looks a bit like a tree….I’m sure that’s totally wrong though 🙂

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Imagine the life of a totally non-specialised cell – it may remain unspecialised forever, or it may begin to differentiate into a more and more specialised type of cell. Stem cells are special because they have the potential to differentiate into different types of cells. Now, which type of cell they ultimately become depends on the signals they receive. So these decision points can be thought of as branching points – kind of like a stem that branches in different directions. In my own research, we are able to turn stem cells into either bone, fat or cartilage, so you can imagine this type of stem cell has 3 branching points. I hope this makes sense!

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