This a picture of the skin cell stucture. Picture found at: http://www.health-pictures.com/skin/skin-cell.htm
Watts, Chris. "Using own skin cells to repair hearts on horizon." Physorg. Physorg, 02 Mar 2010. Web. 10 Mar 2010.
- Advancement in stem cell research: Skin cells engineered to function as early stage heart cells by Doctor Robert Schwartz.
- Skin cells similar to embryonic stem cells, so it is possible to change the skin cells.
- This advancement may lead to treatment of Alzheimer's, diabetes, and many other diseases.
- Even though Schwartz is not the first to turn adult cells into stem cells, his discovery is the most groundbreaking.
- This method requires less steps and the result has more stem cells.
Reflection
I chose this story because it seemed very interesting that specialized cells can be turned back into stem cells. We learned that specialized cells cannot be changed into stem cells, but I guess skin cells aren't really specialized. Also, advancements are being made everyday and new theories are replacing and proving old theories wrong. This also shows that everything in the body, no matter how small, has potential to become important. This is comparable to having a normal worker become an executive director in a small period of time. I hope that this research is successful one day, because it is very possible that this will save many lives one day. This topic interests me greatly, because it seems like a "gravity-defying" moment in stem cell research. This would definitely be a topic I would like to research further on another day. It has revealed to me that old theories are being proven wrong and that new advances change the basis of modern biology today.
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