Browse Articles

Leading Asian-Pacific stem cell scientists described practical, near-term ways to share human and material resources within the region, and to foster and maintain collaborative research by stem cell biologists in the Asia-Pacific region.

Three articles for background and definition of terms related to the chimera controversy

Ted Peters describes the following article as the “most exhaustive and careful parsing of the scientific and moral issues surrounding chimerism in research.”

A new labeling technique revives an old, discarded theory.

Stem cells build tissue when and where it's needed.

Stem cells are broadly classified as either adult or embryonic. Technically, even stem cells that come from fetal tissue or umbilical cord blood are classified as adult stem cells, and so most researchers prefer the term tissue stem cells for all stem cells other than those from embryos.

Embryonic stem cells can, in theory, produce any type of tissue in large quantities. Researchers use these cells to study development and disease and, hopefully, to find treatments.

In the near term, stem cells that are genetically identical to someone with, say, diabetes or a neurodegenerative disease can be used to study that disease. Eventually, genetically matched cells could mean that patients receiving cell therapies wouldn't need antirejection drugs.

Scientists want to have a variety of stem cell lines so that they can pick the best ones for their experiments. Some lines are better suited for becoming pancreatic cells, others for neurons (no one is sure why). Moreover, older cell lines are harder to grow, and many contain mutations and chromosomal abnormalities.

Difficulties in growing stem cells stymie research. Consistent conditions for growing stem cells will mean that more informative experiments can be performed in less time, and also that experiments done by scientists in different laboratories can be compared more easily.

No one knows exactly what will happen when an experimental therapy is tried in humans.

Scientists are working on ways to make embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos and to make cells that behave like embryonic stem cells. Even if these techniques work, many scientific and ethical issues remain unresolved.

An adult human contains trillions of cells of more than 200 types. All these cells (plus the many, many more cells that are shed throughout life) can be traced back to the fertilized egg, the one cell that can, ultimately, create every type of cell in the body.