Pham Dinh Vien

As it is easy to understand from their name, embryonic stem cells come from embryos. They are extracted from microscopic balls of cells that represent the initial stage of embryo formation. The main source is from eggs fertilized in vitro and don’t get transferred to a woman’s womb. Such biological material can be disposed of for research purposes only with the consent of the rightful owner. It is also possible to grow embryonic stem cells in the laboratory in what is known as cell culture. All sorts of difficulties and challenges appear in the artificial creation of embryonic stem cells, and many experts often talk about the inefficiency of an embryonic cell line.

Passing through all sorts of stages of cultures and subcultures, embryonic stem cells proliferate over more than six months while preserving their undifferentiated status. Specialists talk of an embryonic stem cell line, when all the cells have proliferated in the culture while remaining unspecialized and genetically normal. Further experimentation can be carried on from such stages in other facilities, but only after freezing the cell batches. How are embryonic stem cells identified? Although tests are conducted both on animal and human embryonic stem cells, the characterization procedure cannot be limited to a standard group of tests for the measuring of the fundamental features of human cell groups.

Normal microscopic analysis is usually sufficient to determine whether the embryonic stem cells preserve the long term growth and self-renewal properties. Further investigations concern the presence of specific proteins that are normally produced by unspecialized or undifferentiated cells. The analysis of the chromosomes is equally important to reveal the genetic health of the embryonic stem cells. There is no other form in fact to detect genetic mutations in the cells and establish whether the evolution is normal or not. Thus, very complex operations are involved in the regular lab procedure specific to the growth of embryonic stem cells.

The possibility to use embryonic stem cells for the regeneration of organs or body tissues comes from the scientific possibility to manipulate the biological material and make the cells differentiate according to the needs. Thus, the chemical composition of the culture medium, the insertion of special genes and the alteration of the culture dish represent methods of controlling and triggering the differentiation. For the moment, research is still in progress and results are still not conclusive enough to allow the transplant of artificially grown cells into the human body for the treatment of various diseases but the future seems to be bright in this direction.

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