This presentation has been prepared for a competition to college and primary school students with the purpose of explaining the role and the use of stem cells in an understandable, but humorous way - focusing on their use but presenting their disadvantages. #scichallenge2017
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Ez a prezentáció egy általános és középiskolásoknak szóló versenyre készült azzal a céllal, hogy humorosan, de közérthetően megmagyarázza az őssejtek felhasználásának lehetőségeit, bemutatva előnyeit és hátrányait.#scichallenge2017
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Ce powerpoint a été préparé pour un concours pour des éleves de l'enseignement primaire et secondaire afin de leur expliquer l'usage et les avantages et désavantages des cellules souche. #scichallenge2017
2. How to save your kid’s life
Step 1.: Isolate your (future) baby’s stem cells when it’s
born (or even before) and put it in a stem cell bank
Step 2.: Congrats! You’re surely going to protect your
baby’s life
Step 3.: If your child gets ill,use the stem cells
Step 4.: Congrats! You saved your child’s life
(it’s not that simple)
3. What are stem cells?
Stem cells, in Hungarian „őssejt” which literally means „prehistorical”
or „ancient” cells are primitive, they wear animal fur, instead of
speaking they make animal-like sounds, and in their freetime they draw
funny pictures on the blood vessels(just kidding)
• Stem cells are non-specialized cells with the potential to make a
tissue or something else,they exist in almost every multicellular being.
It’s easy to think of stem cells as high school students: They can
become anything, but they don’t know what to do.
4. Stem cells have 4 types
Stem cells that can make up almost every tissues are called
totipotent stem cells. As an example we can mention the embryonic
stem cells.
Pluripotent cells can divide into almost all types of cells. Examples
include embryonic stem cells.
Multipotent stem cells are able to become closely related cells. For
example stem cells in the blood can become red and white blood
cells or platelets.
Unipotent stem cells can become only one type of cells.
5. Let’s see an example
Embryonic stem cell- they are
totipotent, they are going to
make up the babies all organs
and tissues
Stem cells have the choice to specialize themselves into any type
of cell they can become or divide through mitosis staying a stem
cell
Depending on the place where they can be found there are 2 stem
cell types: embryonic and adult stem cells
Adult stem cell- it can be
multipotent or
pluripotent( or
unipotent)
6. Embryonic stem cells
Embryonic stem (ES) cells can be found approximately 6-7 days old
blastocystes
Blastocyste is a stage of the developement of the baby
Most of the embryonic stem cells can become one of more than 200
different types of cells.
7. About iPS( induced pluripotent stem cells)
Induced pluripotent stem cells are made artificially from somatic stem cells, and
they have the same characteristics as ES
Their story in a nutshell:
● First induced stem cells were made from mouse cells in 2006, and one year later with human
cells by Yamanaka, who got a Nobel-price for the discovery
How Yamanaka’s research group made them:
They reprogrammed the cells to make iPS, then they used retroviruses to implate the genes
to the cells
Later they found out how to put the genes to the cells without viruses
Advantages:
• It’s not an ethical issue anymore , because they use the patients’ own cells, and they are less
likely to be rejected than transplants
But: if they grow uncontrollably, they can become tumors
8. Adult stem cells
Adult or somatic stem cells can be found in the body of adults and
children
They can still specialize into a lot of other cell types, but not as many
as an ES
The main source of the somatic stem cells is the bone narrow, but
they can be found in the liver and in the blood too.
9. Why are stem cells so important?
Stem cells not only can specialize themselves into many other type
of cells,but they can also renew themselves even if they were inactive
for a long time
They play a huge role in the organ system’s regeneration
Studying stem cells we could learn more about the developement of
life and how the body regenerates itself
10. Applications
• Thanks to their ability to regenerate themselves, stem cells can be
used to treat diseases in the hope of replacing the dead cells
• Examples of diseases which can be treated by stem cells:
cancer,leukemia, Alzheimer or even diabetes
• The most well-known application of stem cells is the „life insurance”
of our generation in which they isolate the embryonic stem cells.
• They can be used to test drugs too
• They can be an alternative of animal tests and organ transplant
11. What are the disadvantages?
• isolation of embryonic stem cells is expensive
• Taking the baby’s embryonic stem cells before birth is a big risk
• isolated embryonic stem cells from the umbilical cord are not enough
after the child is grown
• The use of ES is controversial: aborted babies are used to harvest
stem cells
• Other person’s stem cells rejection is possible just like organ
transplants
12. What about the future?
• Using stem cells nowadays is becoming more and more common in
medical applications as an alternative of chemothrapy…
• And it works! (just think of blood cell donors)
What is the problem with that?
It is hard to find a donor
Stem cells of another organism can be rejected
Idea: Scientists are already trying to make the human body heal itself
13. Using their ability to renew themselves, stem cells could be used to
promote healing of the body in some cases
At the moment all stem cell related studies are considered as an
experiment
Interesting facts about stem cell researches:
In 2016 two researchers got a prize in a competition for developing a
synthetic biomaterial which promotes stem cell growth in teeth
In a research scientists involved patient’s who have had heart attack. Those
who received stem cells were healing more quickly
So what is the next step?
• Self-healing bodies?
• „fried stem cells” instead of meat?
• Artificially made tissues for experiments?
14. Conclusion
Even though the use of embryonic stem cell is an ethical issue and it is
controversial, stem cells have a big potential. Maybe cell therapy and
the use of stem cells will become a common method in the future
