What is the scope of stem cells in future?
Stem cells have tremendous promise to help us understand and treat a range of diseases, injuries, and other health-related conditions. Their potential is evident in the use of blood stem cells to treat diseases of the blood, a therapy that has saved the lives of thousands of children with leukemia; and can be seen in the use of stem cells for tissue grafts to treat diseases or injury to the bone, skin and surface of the eye.
Important clinical trials involving stem cells are underway for many other conditions and researchers continue to explore new avenues using stem cells in medicine.
With the increased recognition that cord blood constitutes a viable source of stem cells, cord blood banks were established worldwide to provide a large number of high-quality cord blood units to transplant centers. Stem cell preservation involves the following phases: (1) recruitment, consent, and testing of maternal donors; (2) collection of the cord blood unit; (3) processing, freezing, and testing of the cord blood unit; and (4) release of cord blood unit to the transplant center.
Umbilical cord blood banking in India is done with a standard procedure that involves the following steps:
- Cord Clamping
- Blood & Tissue collection
- Transported to the processing center.
- Examine & processing
- Extraction & storage
- Cryopreservation in -196 degree Celsius, with supervision.
Different ways in which stem cells can be used for research & development-
- There are many ways in which human stem cells can be used in research and the clinic.
- Studies of human embryonic stem cells will yield information about the complex events that occur during human development. A primary goal of this work is to identify how undifferentiated stem cells become the differentiated cells that form the tissues and organs. Scientists know that turning genes on and off is central to this process.
- Some of the most serious medical conditions, such as cancer and birth defects, are due to abnormal cell division and differentiation.
- A complete understanding of the genetic and molecular controls of these processes may yield information about how such diseases arise and suggest new strategies for therapy.
- While recent developments with iPS cells (Induced pluripotent stem cells are a type of pluripotent stem cell that can be generated directly from adult cells) suggest some of the specific factors that may be involved, techniques must be devised to introduce these factors safely into the cells and control the processes that are induced by these factors.
- Human stem cells are currently being used to test new drugs. New medications are tested for safety on differentiated cells generated from human pluripotent cell lines.
- The availability of pluripotent stem cells would allow drug testing in a wider range of cell types. However, to screen drugs effectively, the conditions must be identical when comparing different drugs. Therefore, scientists must be able to precisely control the differentiation of stem cells into the specific cell type on which drugs will be tested.
Therefore, in countries where the concept of stem cell preservation has already been given a heed to, there are proven results that show positive trends in the research & development of cord blood banking.
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