Scientific articles are a great way to develop your understanding of any topic. Science, essentially, is the field of learning new things about our complex universe, so it is no surprise that people often find it hard to understand more about their topic of interest. Condensed and readable information in the form of articles is an excellent place for newcomers to start learning more. Below, I have linked six articles about stem cells, a particularly controversial topic, and summarized my favorite ones. These six articles are an interesting read and should give you a basic understanding of how stem cells work.
Article 1: What are Stem Cells?
Summary:
This article, written by Mayo Clinic, is a brief overview of the concept of stem cells and their uses. While it doesn’t go in-depth and teach its readers the exact ins and outs of stem cells, it gives people a sufficient basic understanding of the topic and is a great place to start for people interested in learning more.
Stem cells are the raw materials or cells that our bodies use to create other cells with specialized functions, like blood cells. Under some conditions in our bodies, stem cells can be turned into daughter cells, which are either new or specialized cells. Interest in stem cells within the scientific community is growing for three different reasons: increasing understanding of diseases, regenerative medicine, and the ability to test new drugs. Through the research of stem cells, scientists can analyze how stem cells develop into specialized cells from a closer perspective and see the traits these cells have. Scientists can gather more information on how diseases and medical conditions develop and affect cells by studying the cells. Regenerative medicine is one of the most important breakthroughs in modern science. Stem cells have the potential to be changed into specialized cells, which in turn can heal damaged organs and tissue affected by the disease. An example of this would be found in heart diseases. If stem cells were fully developed, scientists could potentially inject new stem cells into the heart, and those new cells will recreate heart muscle cells and heal the damaged heart. Stem cells are also a safer way of testing new medicine. Experimental medicine inside humans can sometimes be dangerous as the effects aren’t known. However, scientists can recreate specialized cells through stem cells and see the effects of a new medicine tested on them.
Stem cells are found in three forms: Embryonic, Adult, and Perinatal. Embryonic stem cells come from embryos about 3-5 days old. These cells can be divided into more stem cells or specialized cells. Adult stem cells are found in adult human tissues. Recently, scientists have discovered that adult stem cells may be able to create other specialized cells. More trials will be conducted to analyze its safety and usefulness in people. Adult cells can also be changed into embryonic cells. Embryonic cells are better for treating humans as the human immune system won’t instantly kill them off. However, these altered embryonic stem cells haven’t been proven to be safe for humans. Perinatal stem cells, the third type of stem cells, are found in fluids surrounding fetuses and umbilical cords.
Stem cells have been controversial because they use early-stage embryos. Embryonic stem cells are only found in human embryos, so questions regarding its ethics have been raised over the years. The National Institutes of Health made new rules in 2009 for human stem cell research. Using embryonic stem cells may cause potential problems in human bodies, as researchers must be 100% sure that these stem cells will differentiate into the exact type of cell required. These cells can also grow or change spontaneously. Adult stem cells are an alternative to embryonic stem cells but aren’t as versatile. This is because they can’t be manipulated to become any stem cell and may be rejected by human immune systems. Therapeutic cloning is a theoretical method of cloning a donor’s stem cells, but it has yet to be successful. Overall, stem cells still have many problems yet to be addressed until it becomes a perfectly safe and viable treatment method across all fields.
Article 2: Treatment of Severe Ocular-Surface Disorders with Corneal Epithelial Stem-Cell Transplantation
Summary:
This article by the New England Scientific Journal covers the successful experiment of performing stem cell transplants to cure conditions that destroy the limbal area of the peripheral cornea, a form of blindness. This experiment highlights the benefits of using stem cells.
Transplants of stem cells were performed on 43 eyes from a group of 39 patients, who all had severe ocular-surface disorders and limbal dysfunction. No medical treatments worked on any of these patients. After an average of over three years, 15 of the 43 eyes recovered and became clear. An additional seven successfully replaced damaged tissue in the eye but produced excess fluids, clouding vision. If you wish to go in-depth on the scientific parts of the study, you should read the article, but I’ll provide a summary below.
The cornea is the eye part that is important for humans’ ability to see. It is covered by a thin layer of tissue called the stratified epithelium, and damage can potentially cause loss of stem cells and functional blindness. The study transplanted functional tissue from donors to replace the damaged tissue. The scientists did this by first removing any abnormal tissue and replacing it with corneal stem cells. The scientists then used amniotic membranes to reconstruct the ocular surface to begin the process of replacing the tissue. Subsequently, the researchers used limbal tissue from eyes obtained from eye banks and dissected it to retrieve tissue containing corneal epithelial stem cells.
The results show that 51% of eyes had corneal epithelialization, which means successfully covering tissue in the cornea, and 35% had a clear vision after the operation. 60% of eyes also had increased clarity. Patients with different conditions also benefited differently from the transplants, as only 28% of people with Stevens-Johnson syndrome managed to recover their eyes and become transparent. In comparison, 50% of patients with chemical or thermal injuries had successful operations. For corneal epithelialization, the results were 41% for patients with Stevens-Johnson syndrome and 71% for patients with chemical or thermal injuries. In the safety aspect, while 60% of eyes had defects in the new tissue, only 5% were unable to recover, showing that this operation is mainly safe. On the whole, this study shows how effective stem cell research is as it successfully managed to cure conditions many thought were untreatable before, and it does so without being dangerous.
This article by the Massachusetts General Hospital discusses new findings about how stem cells turn into blood cells. Stem cells and different mechanisms within the human body still aren’t fully understood, so this new research will help stem cells become more effective and safer for human treatments.
Article 4: Can Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells Become Skin, Gut, or Liver Cells?
This article by the New England Journal of Medicine explains new findings from a study conducted by Martin Korbling. The study provides further evidence that stem cells can be manipulated and changed into specialized cells, which was previously unknown. This article was published in 2002 and is still relevant today as many unanswered questions still exist in the field of stem cells. The topic addressed in the study is a crucial foundation for newer experiments on stem cells and opened up new possibilities for scientists to explore what stem cells can do.
Article 5: Loss of Mismatched HLA in Leukemia after Stem-Cell Transplantation
This article by the New England Journal of Medicine covers a study on antileukemic stem cell transplants' effects on Leukemia patients. Researchers transplanted stem cells and infused donor T cells into the patients. The infusion of T cells was meant to help the patients bolster their immune system to control Leukemia's potential effects, but instead, mutant leukemia cells caused a relapse in 5 of the 17 patients. Leukemia cells were supposed to be identified by the T cells, which would subsequently kill them. But, the study found that leukemia cells can escape from the stem cells because the mutant leukemia cells lost the identifier the antileukemic donor stem cells used, leading to a failure to kill the cells and, as a result, relapse. This shows stem cell treatments' potential adverse effects and why research must be conducted carefully.
Article 6: Scientists plan to drop the 14-day embryo rule, a key limit on stem cell research
Recently, scientists wanted to drop the 14-day embryo rule they set for themselves. According to Technology Review, scientists initially decided to only experiment on human embryos for 14 days before killing them, as experimenting on them past this date may raise some ethical concerns. Now, however, scientists are looking to abolish that as new studies may require the research of embryos past this date. Science sometimes uses dubious methods to learn new things, and in a controversial field like stem cells, it is not surprising that ethical questions like this exist.
To conclude, scientific articles are a great medium to learn from. Texts made by experts targeted explicitly toward an audience are one of the best ways to gain a firm understanding of science. I took away a lot from just the six listed above, and it is a minuscule fraction of the things you can learn from the fascinating topic of stem cells. I hope you keep on learning more about this wondrous field. Happy reading!
