2007-11-28 07:29:53 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
To form a body part.
Each stem cell has all the basic instructions; DNA to form ANY part of the creature, it just hasn't started to do so. This what makes them so important you can take one stem cell and grow any body part form it; a heart, a lung, a kidney etc.
A discovery reported just this week is that scientists have been able to create stem cells our of normal skin cells. Until now the only way to get stem cells was to fertilize an egg with sperm, let the new life form grow a little and then harvest the stem cells. To many people the moment of the creation of life is when the sperm first meets the egg; so this is abortion and that is murder. This is what makes stem cell research so much of a problem and why the US government won't support it. With the discovery of the ability to get stem cells from skin it is possible to create stem cells without creating and killing a life. That will open up the research and make it possible to build custom organs.
Imagine growing a person a new heart to transplant and replace their old heart damaged. There will be no chance of rejection and no wait for someone to die and donate their heart. This will be a revolution in medical science.
2007-11-28 07:38:32 · answer #1 · answered by Dan S 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Stem cells are the base cell from which other cells arise. An example would be an erythroblast. It lives in the bone marrow. It divides, one daughter cell staying a stem cell while the other daughter cell begins to change into a red blood cell. The daughter cells becomes an erythrocyte and divides again. those daughter cells start making hemoglobin and end up the red blood cells you see in a drop of blood. Without erythroblasts, you would get one shot at doing blood and then die.
2007-11-28 15:44:31 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋