[Donaldson Tan]

I think it's a viable field to go.

Currently, how do labs get their stem cell from?

Do they grow the stem cells from a donor?

Btw, does it fall under chemical industry?

[Yggdrasil]

I don't think stem cell manufacture would be considered a part of the chemical industry.

Currently, the main method of obtaining pleuripotent embryonic human stem cells is from the inner cell mass of ~8 day old embryos.  At this point the embryos are in a stage of development called the blastula or blastocyst, which consists of the an outer layer of cells, the trophoblast (which will eventually become the placenta and amniotic sac), surrounding a mass of cells which will eventually develop into a  fetus.  This inner cell mass is what researchers isolate in order to obtain stem cells.

Since there are no synthetic means of creating the embryos, sperm, or egg neaded to produce a blastula, this would not fall under chemical industry.  It would probably be best classified as biotechnology.

Other types of stem cells can be obtained from other sources (such as adult stem cell tissues like bone marrow), umbilical cord cells, or aborted fetuses, but none of these sources would fall under chemical industry either.  Currently, a cell is much too complicated to produce synthetically.

[Donaldson Tan]

I am not interest to produce stem cells artificially.

i am interested in mass manufacturing stem cells. eg. using growth additives or something to intiate exponential cell production.

Also, do stem cells have a long shelf life? A long shell life makes it possible for world wide transportation of stem cells from a central source.

[Mitch]

Cells already grow exponentially.

[Yggdrasil]

I am not interest to produce stem cells artificially.

i am interested in mass manufacturing stem cells. eg. using growth additives or something to intiate exponential cell production.

Also, do stem cells have a long shelf life? A long shell life makes it possible for world wide transportation of stem cells from a central source.

Unlike most body cells, stem cells are capable of replicating indefinitely, and I believe they are capable of fairly rapid division.  There would be a place in the chemical industry for designing the different horomones and other regulators which stimulate or inhibit the differentiation of stem cells into specific cell types, but currently the differentiation of stem cells is poorly understood.  It will probably be a long time (at least a decade) before we understand and characterize the factors which cause the differentiation of stem cells.

As for shelf life, I think you can stably store stem cells in -80C freezers, but at normal temperatures, you would need to continually passage the cells every few days in order to keep them from overgrowing and differentiating on their own.

I'm not sure if mass producing a single stem cell line for therapeutic uses would be useful.  Like most transplantations, stem cells would have to be matched to their donor in order to prevent rejection by the patient.  Ideally, doctors would clone the patient in order to create an embryo from which they could extract stem cells which are genetically identical to the patient's cells.  However, it would be useful to mass produce stem cell lines for use by researchers.

[billnotgatez]

Is it possible that research into embryonic stem cells will teach us how to modify non-embryonic stem cells to give us the same results as in the former?

[constant thinker]

The non-embryonic stem cells are generally called Adult Stem Cells. Bone marrow is a good example of this. I attended a seminar about genetic engineering and the guy speaking mentioned that some scientists had taken a small amount of a pig's bone marrow and put it on a hole in its heart. The bone marrow grew grew into heart tissue closing up the whole.

Adult stem cells are present in our bodies as we speak. They have a limited life span though unlike the embryonic stem cells. There are 5 types of adult stem cells: Hematopoietic, which become all types of blood cells; Mesenchymal, which become bone cells, cartilage, fat cells, and other conective tissue; Neural, nerve cells and 2 types of non-nerve cells the astrocytes and oligodendrocytes; Epithelial, which are digestive tract cells like intestines, live, stomach, etc.; Skin stem cells, which become skin and hair roots.

I have to note though that some research has suggested that adult stem cells are pluripotent and some research suggests that they are only multipotent. Pluripotent cells have the ability to become any cell in the body. Multipotent cells can only give rise to several cell types but not all.

Also it must be noted that this field is still somewhat in its infancy.

[Yggdrasil]

Adult stem cells present some challenges.  One of the main advantages of using embryonic (pleuripotent) stem cells is that the differentiation of the ESCs into body tissues of all types is a natural process.  In order to obtain tissues and organs from ESCs, scientists would just have to mimic the natural processes which normally convert these ESCs into the tissue of interest.

Adult  (multipotent) stem cells, on the other hand, are not naturally programmed to dedifferentiate and become pleuripotent.  Furthermore, they are not naturally able to replicate indefinitely (a problem for research and therapeutics because it makes it difficult to culture large amounts of adult stem cells from the small amount biopsied from the patient).  Therefore, in order to obtain therapeutically useful stem cells from adult tissue, scientists would have to invent an unnatural process to convert the multipotent adult stem cells into pleuripotent tissue, which is a whole lot harder than just mimicking natural processes.

Adult stem cells do hold a lot of promise.  However, adult stem cells will not be useful for all purposes.  For example, while some (e.g. hematopoteic) stem cells are easily accessible, other adult stem cells aren't (e.g. neuripotent).

[Donaldson Tan]

Currently, the main method of obtaining pleuripotent embryonic human stem cells is from the inner cell mass of ~8 day old embryos.  At this point the embryos are in a stage of development called the blastula or blastocyst, which consists of the an outer layer of cells, the trophoblast (which will eventually become the placenta and amniotic sac), surrounding a mass of cells which will eventually develop into a  fetus.  This inner cell mass is what researchers isolate in order to obtain stem cells.

The current method of obtaining stem cells extract the core of what almost become a human life. It's not hard to understand why stem cell research had warranted alot of opposition from human rights and religious movements. If we could mass produce stem cells from several stem cell lines and distribute these stem cell lines, the number of live embryos used can be minimised. This is a good ethical reason to mass manufacture stem cells to allow stem cell research.

[cbelover]

I think mass manufacturing of stem cells is still in its infancy and no significant large scale production techniques has started. In pharma industries as far I have researched, they still have it in pilot plant stage. Most of research in chemical and biological engineering departments which work on stem cells are trying to achieve this. Lots of us confuse laboratory use of stem cells for understanding the mechanisms of differentiation and other such issues which happen in industry to mass manufacturing of stem cells. Mass manufacturing would be of interest to make available a lot of cells so that it could be used for business reasons and also act as a source for lab stem cells in a large scale. This has very less to do with molecular biology area and more to do with biochemical engineering. That is something I am interested in too.