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Stem cell tourism is the part of the medical tourism industry in which patients travel to obtain stem cell procedures. [109] The United States has had an explosion of "stem cell clinics". [110] Stem cell procedures are highly profitable for clinics. The advertising sounds authoritative but the efficacy and safety of the procedures is unproven.
Stem-cell therapy uses stem cells to treat or prevent a disease or condition. [1] As of 2024, the only FDA-approved therapy using stem cells is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. [2] [3] This usually takes the form of a bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, but the cells can also be derived from umbilical cord blood.
A stem cell possesses two properties: . Self-renewal is the ability to go through numerous cycles of cell division while still maintaining its undifferentiated state. Stem cells can replicate several times and can result in the formation of two stem cells, one stem cell more differentiated than the other, or two differentiated cells.
Embryonic stem cells make up a significant proportion of a developing embryo, while adult stem cells exist as minor populations within a mature individual (e.g. in every 1,000 cells of the bone marrow, only one will be a usable stem cell). Thus, embryonic stem cells are likely to be easier to isolate and grow ex vivo than adult stem cells. [36]
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage pre-implantation embryo. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization , at which time they consist of 50–150 cells.
Neural stem cells differentiating to astrocytes (green) and sites of growth hormone receptor shown in red. There are two basic types of stem cell: adult stem cells, which are limited in their ability to differentiate, and embryonic stem cells (ESCs), which are pluripotent and have the capability of differentiating into any cell type.
A stem cell line is a group of stem cells that is cultured in vitro and can be propagated indefinitely. Stem cell lines are derived from either animal or human tissues and come from one of three sources: embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, or induced pluripotent stem cells. They are commonly used in research and regenerative medicine.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), also known as mesenchymal stromal cells or medicinal signaling cells, are multipotent stromal cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types, including osteoblasts (bone cells), chondrocytes (cartilage cells), myocytes (muscle cells) and adipocytes (fat cells which give rise to marrow adipose tissue).