Stems cells are often used as a sort of repair system for the body. As long as theperson or animal is still alive, stem cells can theoretically divide without limit toreplenish other cells. This promising area gives scientists new hope to investigatethe possibility of cell-based therapies for the treat of disease. But there’s aproblem. How can we know exactly what organ or tissue that a cluster of fetalstem cells will become in the end? Is this achieved, it would be more easier toobserve the whole process and ensure it develop in the right way.
Luckily, a recent published study seemed to give us hope. Scientists in this studyhave developed a novel system that has the ability to match what’s happeninginside of an immature stem cell to known human fetal cell gene expression, thusdetermining what the stem cells will turn into in the future.
Named KeyGenes, this system can identify human stem cell derivatives bycollecting extensive data on gene expression during human fetal development.This system was believed to have huge clinic significance, enabling us to knowclearer about where human development goes wrong. It makes the identify ofwhich tissues are present in excessive amounts or are not in the right placepossible.
The next step for them, according to the chief scientists of this study, is to makethis platform openly available for the scientific community, so that more people willbenefit from it.
This was written by Caroline from Creative BioMart.
