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Front 1

what are some of the important things about adult stem cells (ASCs)

Back 1

they are ethically uncontroversial or at least less so than Embryonic Stem Cells (ESCs). Remember that the main ethical issue surrounding the use of stem cells is not that stem cells could potentially be used to create a human (this is something that can’t yet be done), but instead that in order to generate some types of stem cells you have to destroy an otherwise viable embryo. ASCs are already differentiated cells and because their extraction does not require the destruction of an embryo they avoid this problem.
ASC therapies it is important to note that an advantage to the general use of the ASCs is that they are non-tumorigenic, while ESCs are tumorigenic

Front 2

what are the three ways we can use ASCs? Give advantages and disadvantages

Back 2

1. The most common and simplest way involves the direct implantation of donor ASCs into a sick patient. This is currently done with bone marrow transplants that are used to cure leukemias. The advantage of this specific use of ASCs is that they can be used therapeutically. There are also significant disadvantages. First because you are using stem cells from donor (foreign) patients you are going to risk rejection within sick patients and consequently will need some sort of immunosupression. Additionally there are limited available donors. This is especially a problem with regard to bone marrow transplantation as the procedure is painful and donor matches are difficult to find.

2.he crucial part of this procedure involves AS cells being harvested from a sick patient and a de- differentiated into cells that act similar to Embryonic Stem Cells. These ES-like cells can then undergo gene correction (correcting for the problem), culture and expansion and ultimately differentiation into healthy tissue. The benefits of this therapy is that it involves the patient’s own cells so there are less concerns about rejection and no immunosuppressant is needed. Additionally, because only a small number of cells from a biopsy would be necessary for this method we avoid the problems of finding appropriate donors.

3. utilized the ability of adult stem cells to undergo transdifferentiation. This process involves the conversion of ASCs from a healthy part of the patient be converted into tissue types found in another part of the body. An example of this is the conversion of Adipocyte stem cells into Beta Cells that produce insulin. This therapy would have similar benefits to the de-differentiation of ASC in that there would be no concern over rejection or donor availability.

Front 3

what are the three questions that must be answered in order to approve a ASC therapy

Back 3

1) What is the best source for the ASC?
2) Do they differentiate like the surrounding tissue?
3) What conditions or signals cause them to proliferate or differentiate?

Front 4

What does adding cardiac stem cels to a MI heart do and not do

Back 4

One of the main issue patients suffer from after a Myocardial Infarction is that the infarct will grow over time leading to more significant heart problems down the road. However, if you insert Cardiac ASCs in the
affected area of the heart you will stop the growth of the infarct through paracrine factors. A major caveat to this is that ASCs will not increase the function of the heart in the process. Plus increases chances of cancer

Front 5

what are the 5 ways we can inject ASCs into the heart and which is the best

Back 5

1) Intravenously (b/c the cardiac ASCs will hone to the appropriate region of the heart)
2) Intracoronary
3) Direct Epicardial (through the outside of the heart)
4) Direct Endocardial (through the inside of the heart)
5) Coronary Sinus. Out of these options the Coronary Sinus is the best place to inject ASCs because the low pressure of the venous system allows for better congregation of the cells.

Front 6

how do you inject cardiac stem cells

Back 6

This specific procedure involves taking healthy tissue from the ventricle, culturing the tissue and then injecting the cells back into the patient. This particular procedure was effective at stopping the growth of the infarct.

Front 7

how do you make induced pluripotent stem cells

Back 7

In this process you take a fully differentiated cells (fibroblast) and virally inject it with four different kinds of genes (Lin28, Klf4, Sox2, Oct4 --> not important to memorize). Once injected these fibroblast will become similar to embryonic stem cells and can be converted into neurons, Beta Cells, and Cardiomyocytes.

Front 8

what are the problems with iPS

Back 8

The main problem with this process is that it can lead to cancer in three ways: 1) Genes that put in could cause cancer (if they are oncogenes)
2) Genes could be incorporated into a Tumor suppressing gene
3) they could form teratomas

Front 9

how do you make spermataogonial stem cells

Back 9

created from taking sperm out of the body and placing them in the appropriate media. cells could be differentiated into neurons, Beta Cells, and Cardiomyocytes. Again because the controversy surrounding stem cells relates to the destruction of the embryo both of these practices present an ethical alternative to Embryonic Stem Cells.

Front 10

how do we make clones?

Back 10

he procedure
involves the removal of DNA from an egg and the insertion of the patient’s full complement of DNA into that egg. This egg will then eventually form a blastocyst and the inner cell mass can be removed and utilized as the Embryonic Stem Cells.

Front 11

what are the advantages and disadvantageous of cloning

Back 11

he procedure
involves the removal of DNA from an egg and the insertion of the patient’s full complement of DNA into that egg. This egg will then eventually form a blastocyst and the inner cell mass can be removed and utilized as the Embryonic Stem Cells. The obvious advantage to this procedure is that you are creating completely pluripotent stem cells from the DNA of the patient and consequently rejection will be unlikely (and immunosuppression will be unnecessary).

Main problem is that we can't do it on humans yet and the ethical dilemma

Front 12

policy isnt important but i'll just put here the mildly important stuff.

Back 12

Obama administration allowed for federal money to be used to generate new ESC from frozen IVF embryos. However the Obama administration added an important stipulation, limiting federal funds to embryonic stem cell research where the parents gave permission. This is problematic as many of the existing ESC lines, which were established before 2001 did not have prior parental permission. Because of this and because it takes a long time to create an effective embryonic stem cell line, there are less lines currently in use then would be expected