The human body - Part two - Stem-cells

andreajane (58)in #steemiteducation • 6 years ago (edited)

In my last post I wrote about the different specialized cells in the human body. Please see the link here.

We all dream about our future and what we want to become one day. Not everyone is good at everything. We have hopes and dreams of becoming something, and to land a job where we can mean something to someone else.

What if you had the opportunity to become anything that you want. Wouldn't that be a wonderful experience?

These thoughts made me think of stem-cells. Stem cells are basically cells without a specific job description, and guess what? Stem cells can literally turn into any type of cell in the body. Let me tell you more.

What is a stem cell and why are they so important?

Stem-cells are unspecialized cells that often replaces damaged tissue in the body, but under certain conditions,these wonderful cells could be manipulated to become tissue or even organ specific cells.
Due to regenerative abilities, stem cells could potentially treat diseases like diabetes or even heart disease.
Stem cells repair damaged parts of the body, like bone marrow, muscles and even brain cells.
Stem cell research could potentially help in the cloning of certain body parts for transplants and for damaged parts of the body that needs to be replace.

Image source

What is cloning?

Ever heard of cloning? We have all seen movies where humans are cloned and lead double lives, but is this really what cloning is? Some religious cultures kick totally against the idea of cloning but have you ever really thought about the positive impact it could make to our lives?

Nearly thirty six years ago, scientists discovered a way to extract embryonic stem cells from early mouse embryos.

Embryo- an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, in particular a human offspring during the period from approximately the second to the eighth week after fertilization (after which it is usually termed a fetus).

This led to a discovery in 1998 where scientists can now extract stem cells from human embryos and grow the cells in a laboratory. Although cloning a person might be more of a playing God ritual, it also has many advantages and there are always two sides of a coin. Because of the nature of the case, no human that we know of, has ever been cloned. Although anything is possible. In 2003 the first sheep was successfully cloned. Her name was Dolly and she was cloned like shown in the picture below. Ever since Dolly, many other animals have been successfully cloned.