Topic > The use of stem cells in the treatment of diseases

Stem cells are the undifferentiated biological cells that can develop too many different cell types in the body during the early stages of life and growth. For our body, stem cells are like an internal repair system. A stem cell divides and each new cell can remain the same, a stem cell or a new cell can become another type of cell with a more specialized function. Examples of this are a muscle cell, a red blood cell, or a brain cell. Stem cells are different and distinguish themselves from other cell types by two important characteristics. The first characteristic is that stem cells are unspecialized cells capable of restarting or renewing themselves through cell division. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The second characteristic is that stem cells, under certain physiological or experimental conditions, can be transformed into specific tissue or organ cells. Furthermore, they are made to have some special functions. In the intestine and bone marrow, stem cells are responsible for dividing to repair and replace damaged or expired tissue. However, in the pancreas and heart, stem cells do not divide randomly, but only under particular conditions. Since stem cells have the ability to regenerate, this allows them to cure diseases. Some of the diseases that can be treated with stem cells are diabetes or heart disease. This is still a big question mark for scientists who need to do a lot more research to know what exactly happens and how cells treat these diseases. The research that scientists are currently doing gives us information about how our cells are able to replace old cells with new ones and keep us healthy. To explain the application of stem cells in the treatment of some diseases, I will use stem cells in leukemia. Leukemia is a kind of blood cancer that also affects the bone marrow and lymphatic system. The blood cells involved in leukemia are, most often, white blood cells. The reason is that white blood cells protect our body from many types of infections. The problem of people with leukemia is in the bone marrow which produces abnormal quantities of white blood cells that do not work as they should and therefore the body gets messed up. Leukemia occurs when blood cells contain mutations in the DNA of those blood cells. There are abnormalities that cause cells to grow and divide faster and continue their lives even though normal cells would have died. However, these abnormal cells are clearly not meant to survive, but they do and this is why healthy blood cells take care of the damaged blood cells that cause the symptoms of this disease. Symptoms of leukemia vary and depend on the type of leukemia, but the most common symptoms are: fever or chills, fatigue, weakness, infections, weight loss, but not intentional, swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver or spleen, easy bleeding or bruising , nosebleeds, red spots on the skin that look like chickenpox, sweating and bone pain. The main and most common types of this disease are acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). There are some factors that influence the people targeted for leukemia to occur. These people are people who have already undergone chemotherapy and radiation for tumors”.