Embryonic Stem Cells and Disease Part 4 of 6

Brought to you by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, this lecture by Dr. Douglas A. Melton is part of a series of lectures devoted to a discussion about the nature of embryonic stem cells and their potential use in the treatment of human disease. Understanding the mechanisms by which particular cell types are generated are of primary concern to be able to fully harness the medicinal potential of embryonic stem cells.

HHMI description:
There are two main approaches to using stem cells to fight human diseases: develop stem cells to produce therapeutic replacement cells and study stem cells as a model for understanding the biology of a disease. Significant progress has been made in producing stem cell lines that, for example, participate in the regeneration of damaged nervous tissue. Many human diseases, such as juvenile diabetes (type 1 diabetes), involve malfunctioning genes and environmental triggers. Usually, a specific type of cell is primarily affected by the disease, and the cellular dysfunction produces the symptoms. In juvenile diabetes, the insulin-producing islet cells of the pancreas are destroyed. Insulin is critical to the proper regulation of sugar by the body, and its absence causes the severe condition called diabetes. Researchers want to coax embryonic stem cells into becoming healthy insulin-producing cells. These cells might then be transplanted into people with diabetes to produce the insulin they lack. Researchers are also interested in producing stem cells that malfunction exactly like the diseased cells in order to understand fundamental aspects of the disease and also to test treatments.

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• adult
• stem
• cells
• HHMI
• health
• medicine
• biologay
• embryonic
• development
• regeneration
• disease
• treatment
• parkinson's

[huangfei]

I am so amazed that he can talk for so long without drinking a glass of water.

[Junije1]

1:00 LOL ROFL LMAO :DDD

[lighthouseshines]

you guys do not have a clue. what about the immunology? in diabetes the patient will continue the autoreactive response. duuhhh

autologous adult stem cells are much more advanced

[roidroid]

dimashqgal you earlier touched on a question i have also been wondering:

Why can't they just make slightly different (ie: disguised) beta cells that the immune system doesn't react to, and inject these instead?

[roidroid]

with type 2 diabetes the pancreas(etc) is the problem, however with Type 1 diabetes it is the immune system that is the problem.

This is why to diagnose Type 1 diabetes they test for specific antibodies.

If you inject new beta cells into type 1 diabetics, their immune systems does slowly kill the new cells.

[dimashqgal]

Ok, thanks makes more sense now. I love biology and I'm curious about things like this so thank you for answering my questions =)

[hlkolaya]

dimashggal, i know that it's the pancreas itself that's defective (diabetes runs in my family) not the immune system

[dimashqgal]

Well, that's true I guess the beta cells could have been damaged or something I made an assumption that it was the immune system that had a problem. Do you know for sure where the problem comes from because the immunse system can make mistakes and if that's the case I don't think beta cell injection would be sucessful.

[hlkolaya]

ah okay. i see what you're saying dimashggal, i'm not sure except that perhaps there was something wrong with the original beta cells and with new ones that are good, the immune system wouldn't attack them.

[dimashqgal]

No, but you wouldn't inject stem cells into the pancreas you would inject the specialized artifically made beta cell and that can't reapir the immune system. Even if you do inject stem cells in the pancreas, the cells won't become beta cells because the abilty to do that has been lost.