Advances in Stem cell Biology and its Impact on Medicine

Imagine how would it be, if any of you are able to take out cells from your own skin and use them to cure multiple health issues, right from your hair fall to heart disease? Although it seems to be quite unrealistic, it should be noted that today the world is at the cusp of the stem cells revolution!
“Challenges still remain and have to be sorted but should be necessarily be considered as the stepping stones of the success!”.
The scientific contingent across the world is intrigued with multiple nitty-gritty associated with stem cells and their application in the medicine, such as, the way these cells are communicating inside our bodies, how do they recognize the site of injury, mechanism behind their paracrine effect, homing mechanism, etc.; and the list is still very long! However, the intense research in the last couple of decades has provided various important information related to the developmental, physiological and morphological processes that lead to the structural as well as functional contribution for the tissue.
We started with the idea that human embryos have the key towards immortality, went through a lot of ethical concerns, diverted our attention towards less potent yet readily available adult sources of stem cells and finally landed at a point where adult Stem Cells are reprogrammed to inherit the same potency as that of the embryonic stem cells! Huh, long journey isn’t it? It was certainly not an easy task though; the road was full of many challenges. The journey will end at a final destination, wherein scientists are looking forward to create multiple functional organs ready to be transplanted in a risk-free manner!
It was the mouse that changed the direction of the medicine!
Probably in the early years of the 1990’s, scientists were able to identify the power of stem cells in metamorphosing into cells of multiple tissue-specific origins. The community was quite amazed at the idea that forced them to divert their attention in exploring the power of mouse embryonic stem cells, which went on to create an entire mouse model that was completely normal, but derived from embryonic stem cells grown in a petri dish! The experiment proved to be a breakthrough and quite instrumental in making people believe the potential of regenerative medicine.
In the late 1990s, when the master key of human embryonic stem cells, isolated from human embryos was ready to be used to unlock the mysteries of diseases and their therapeutic outcome; the ethical controversy ensued. Many social reformers and political leaders lobbied against unethical exploitation of human embryos to be used for medical research and development.
With the implementation of stringent guidelines for the same that were quite influential and well beyond the boundaries; scientists moved their focus from embryonic stem cells to their adult counterparts. However, due to limited potency, the adult stem cells were not much fascinating to them at all; and the struggle to find out a comparable source continued till the time stem cell revolution took place in 2006, wherein scientists were able to reprogramme adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells. These cells were named to be as the induced pluripotent stem cells.
The future of medicine?
Currently, stem cells have been noted to be as the boon to the therapeutic module and are being used obsessively by creating an endless supply of different types of cells to study disease models, drug testing and another mechanism. Through different types of studies conducted all over the world, induced pluripotent stem cells were being modified into lung cells, cardio fibroblasts, hepatocytes, neurons etc. and were found to be fully functional.
The challenges in printing the tissue
Scientists are also struggling to produce a functional 3-dimensional model for diseased tissue with the help of living cells captured inside the printable material; quite similar to that of natural tissue. Through the establishment of complex network comparable to that of the real world inside the body, it is now possible to shed more light on factors that are responsible for the diseased condition, lost functions, and other pathological disorders.
Conclusion
For the effective translation of scientific understanding to the clinical practice; a lot of challenges still need to be solved. As for today’s condition, both scientific, as well as medicinal community, is flaunting to have personalized medicine in the form of stem cells, readily available to treat multiple health issues that may ail us; in the near future.

Stem Cell Treatment For Cardiac Diseases- Beat Back The Weak Heart

It’s a great weekend morning, you don’t have to prepare your kids for the school, neither in a hurry to make lunch, nor to rush to the office. You glance over and are delighted to watch your husband and children, who are still in a bed! With the relax state of mind, you go to your favorite window, facing lush green gardens and fountains and enjoy the nature with a cup of tea as a supplementary pleasure. Suddenly you feel that your hands are shaking, which increase to the extent that you no longer able to hold the cup! You feel short of your breath, start sweating profusely and feel the strong initiation of an arrow of pain from the middle of the chest to the neck which disappear within no time!  You just sit on the chair, relax with your head down on the table. Although after few fractions of minutes, everything start getting under control. When you get complete hold over your normal being, you have a glass of water, and start wondering, what happened to you but then ignored immediately as mere a state or stress! Have you ever experienced this? If yes, then please don’t ignore it as just a state or stress, but it’s the first signal given from your heart, that it is getting weak and need your attention!

It is very alarming that the heart diseases, are the leading cause of death affecting people of all age groups and backgrounds. There are many people who survived the heart attack but are left with the scar tissue, reducing the heart’s pumping ability to one third! They can’t dance, can’t play with their children, can’t enjoy life and sleep every night wondering if they could wake up in the morning! Every year, thousands of victims undergoing heart treatments and suffering from consequences post surgeries pray  and wish to find out an alternative medicinal boon, which can transform their weak heart into the strong one without the need for the surgery and medicines. This desperation, motivated many scientists worldwide to gain access over stem cell treatment. Stem cell therapy for heart disease is a contemporary recipe, employing strategies such as damaged cell regeneration, improved muscle movement thereby increases pumping capacity.

Stem cells are the master cells of the body, which are capable of differentiating into many or all kinds of cells. These adult stem cells lie dormant in an adult tissue. We have a quota of them even in our heart! These cells are involved in replacing the damaged cardiac cells in case of normal wear and tear of the heart. Although in case of diseased condition, the heart tissue is already damaged due to excessive resident cell death and hence impose heavy burden on stem cells to remove, replace and regenerate the scar tissue. However, at some point of time, these stem cells are unable to cope up with the burden and need an extra force to help them. This is not the reason for the attack, though it can be one of the reasons of major heart failure. In that regard, the very recently invented Stem Cells have shown great promises in cardiac regeneration as opposed to clinical controversies. As many as 5000 clinical trials are underway all over the world, demonstrating an effectiveness of stem cells as a potential medicine in treating heart diseases and have so far shown no medical complications.

Since, your own stem cells are employed for the treatment which are isolated from the two most potent sources such as bone marrow and adipose tissue, the heart would repair itself to the great extent, posing no harm in terms of immunological rejections. The injected stem cells will immediately start migrating to the scarred tissue if injected intravenously, and become damaged heart muscle cells, this way the heart can be way back to the normal.

Thus, with each advancing day, the progress is happening in every aspect of stem celltherapy for cardiac diseases, making physicians enthusiastic and hopeful to treat the patients suffering from heart diseases in a better way and getting them back to the life!!!!!!!!!!!!!