BS 161 1st Edition Lecture 40 Outline of Last Lecture I Biotechnology Outline of Current Lecture II Cells and tissues biotechnology Current Lecture stem cells rare undifferentiated cells which give rise to differentiated cells embryonic stem cells come from blastocyst totipotent can form all cell types of the body pluripotency can form a subset of the cell types of the body three types of stem cells ES cells derived from blastocyst then cultured almost totipotent adult stem cell derived from various tissues and giving rise to a small set of cell types induced pluripotent stem cells adult non stem cells genetically engineered to be like ES cells use of stem cells in research and therapy to study differentiation in culture with the goal to understand differentiation so in therapy diseased or lost tissue can be replaced controlling amount type of cell in correct arrangement for differentiation is a major challenge teratomas tumors with disorganized collections of differentiated cells mixed with cancer cells arising from implanted stem cells all the genes in somatic cell are still there and can be re expressed correctly sometimes stem cell technology must overcome problems before it can be useful cloning technology also has severe problems to solve but is already used in agriculture transgenic organisms are used a lot in research but their potential in gene therapy is so far limited There is political pressure in Europe not to use GMOs genetically modified plants or animals
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