Stem cells are just undifferentiated cells( meaning they haven't been made into any one specific cell yet such as a hair skin or nerve cell. If they have th possibility of becoming any cell then doesn't it have the possibility of becoming a cancer cell and replicating and producing more cancer cells. The paragraph titled "the long road ahead" in the Super Cell article discusses the control of these cells. Like your brain tells your body what to do stem cells need instruction too.
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| Look at the potential for these cells |
They need to receive signals telling them when to grow when to stop etc. Imagine being on a road trip and taking one false turn, there is always the possibility of finding another route. What if the stem cell receives a wrong direction? Then the cells can uncontrollably divide and grow. Making matters even worse if the stem cells are undifferentiated the will be clumps of different types of cells. This is called a teratoma, like a tumor of cell types.
Questions:
1.)Is there possible that in future research there could be a way for stem cells to automatically make right a wrong in the programming?
2.)could there possibly be an enzyme or something created to break up teratomas?
3.)How many if any times has this occurred in stem cell therapy patients?
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