الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Both embryonic and adult pluripotent stem cells hold much promise for cell therapies and tissue engineering. First, results of experiments from various species using a series of tissues indicate that not only ESCs but as well adult stem cells are capable of adopting multiple fates. Second, progress has opened the possibility to use adult SCs from various tissues for transplantation. In place of BM-derived HSCs, PBCs are increasingly used. Cord blood (CB) is an important source of haemopoietic stem cells for transplantation for patients with acquired or genetic diseases of the bone marrow or immune system. Transplantation of CB is developing and innovative techniques are under investigation, including the use of laboratory expansion to increase cell numbers and the use of more than one cord blood unit for a single patient. With the perfection of cell expansion technology, stem cells from umbilical cord blood may well become a preferred option for the treatment of those diseases where bone marrow is currently used. These cells have the advantage that they are more plentiful and more accessible than adult stem cells and they have already been shown to differentiate into a number of different cell types other than haematopoietic cells. They would be ethically more acceptable than embryonic stem cells. |