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Stem Cell Techniques

There are several types of techniques for harvesting, altering and using stem cells to treat persons afflicted with conditions or diseases. Some of these techniques are simple chemistry operations that have been done for years and other techniques have controversial processes that have the religious and politically motivated lobbying for either extension of research, reform or complete shut down of the operations.

  1. Types of Harvesting

    • It all depends on what kind of stem cells are used. Stem cells can be obtained from embryos, which is essentially, an egg and a sperm that have united. Stem cells can also be obtained from cord blood, which is the blood that is gathered from the umbilical cord of a newborn baby. Another new technique doesn't even use the stem cells directly, which will be discussed later.

    Altered Nuclear Transfer

    • The first technique that brought all the controversy was when a embryo was formed and then stopped from growing in order to harvest stem cells. Religious groups looked at the action as playing God and playing with a life or killing it. A newer technique that falls along those lines is called altered nuclear transfer. Altered nuclear transfer takes DNA from the cell of an adult and inserts it into the egg, which creates an embryo. Then, the process stops the embryo from growing in order to obtain stem cells. It doesn't use sperm, but it still is controversial

    Therapeutic Cloning

    • Another technique is called therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer. This process involves taking a woman's egg and removing the nucleus. Then, the nucleus of an adult cell is put into that same woman's egg. The result is something resembling an embryo but without the use of sperm; stem cells can be harvested from the mass of cells. This technique is a little easier to deal with in the religious and political arena, because a life isn't really created, only multiplying cells.

    IPS Cells

    • There is a technique that is easier than nuclear transfer. It was attempted on mice with much success. It involves taking four genes from a tissue cell and inserting them into a special skin cell called an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell. This stem cell is derived from skin; no eggs or sperm are joined and none are used. This is a technique that has promise for generating new, healthy cells, tissue or organs for the body.

    Nucleofection

    • A new technique for researching stem cell activities is called nucleofection. Tiny holes are perforated through the cell layer by electrical pulses. Then DNA can be inserted through the holes and a special light x-ray illuminates the DNA and tracks its movements and processes. This helps scientists understand which techniques are working and which ones do not work.

    Cure Sickle Cell

    • Some techniques involve taking damaged parts of DNA from skin cells and inserting healthy DNA parts from IPS cells. This technique has helped cure sickle cell anemia in mice, has grown healthy bone marrow cells and also encouraged multiplication of normal blood cells. These are promising steps in the field of stem cell research and implementation.

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