BS 161 1st Edition Lecture 40 Outline of Last Lecture I. BiotechnologyOutline of Current Lecture II. Cells and tissues biotechnologyCurrent 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
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