What are Stem Cells?
Stem cells are characterized as cells that can replicate (make more of themselves) and differentiate (become different types of cells). Stem cells are the basis for most life, certainly all multicellular organisms, and they exist all throughout the human body. As mentioned below, embryonic stem cells are totipotent, meaning they can become any cell type in the body. Adult stem cells are multipotent, meaning that they can become many cell types in the body, but not all. However, researchers are consistently demonstrating that given the right signaling, multipotent adult stem cells are capable of differentiating into many more cell types than once believed.
Stem Cell Banking & Its Benefits
Stem cell banking is the process by which tissue is harvested, cells are isolated and processed (which can include culture expansion), and then cryogenically frozen to be preserved. As the medical and scientific fields continue to make strides in regenerative medicine discovering how to repair injured tissues, whether muscle, cartilage, bone or nerve, stem cells look to be one of the most promising areas of research. American Cell Technology is a leading cGMP FDA-registered stem cell laboratory that allows people to safely isolate, expand and preserve their stem cells for potential future use. Having access to your own personal cells with your own personal DNA one day could be the best form of bio-insurance available. And as our cells are aging on a daily basis, the best time to bank your cells is now.
Bank Your Newborn & Family’s Cord Blood/Tissue
Adult stem cells can be easily isolated from your adipose (fat) tissue or bone marrow as a grown adult, but they can also be isolated from a child’s umbilical cord. These cells are some of the youngest adult stem cells ever available. While the procedure to harvest your adult stem cells is very quick and virtually painless, collecting your child’s valuable stem cells requires nothing more than saving the umbilical cord tissue instead of discarding it, as is typically done. American Cell Technology can isolate the adult stem cells from your child’s umbilical cord and cryopreserve these cells, making sure your child has access to hundreds of millions, even billions of their youngest, healthiest stem cells should they want them later in life, without having to undergo another tissue harvest.
More on the History of Stem Cells
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the potential to become mature cell lines in the body like skin, muscle, bone, and neurons. The stem cell is the basis for life and was first described by the great pathologist Rudolf Virchow who noted, “All cells come from cells.” Embryonic stem cells originally received the most attention in the scientific world. These cells are the result of a fertilized egg and once assumed to be the only source of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are totipotent, meaning they have the ability to differentiate into any cell type in the body, which is exactly what they do during gestation developing the endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm, and all the cell types associated with the different layers of the body. As science progressed, it was discovered that adult stem cells existed amongst the different layers and tissues of the body and that these adult stem cells also had the ability to differentiate into various different cell types depending on the type of signals they are given.
These newfound adult stem cells proved important to tissue regeneration. When mature cells die or are injured, they need to be replaced by nearby resident stem cells. For instance, when you get a cold, your immune system (white blood cells) respond. To amplify this response and repair the injured white blood cells, the hematopoietic stem cells in your bone marrow begin to replicate and differentiate into more white blood cells. Without these native hematopoietic stem cells, our immune responses and ultimately our lives themselves would be quite short!
As scientists began to work with embryonic stem cells, they discovered that these totipotent cells didn’t just have the ability to turn into nerve, muscle and bone, but they were also tumorigenic and grow uncontrollably. Decades and billions of dollars were spent researching how to manipulate the genetic makeup of embryonic stem cell lines to prevent this, while a fierce moral and ethical debate raged. Government regulation seemed to stifle stem cell research in the early 2000’s, however one of the consequences of this was further discoveries with adult stem cells, which are not derived from embryos and happen to not be tumorigenic.
