Cord Blood Stem Cells Information

Is There A Difference Between Embryonic Stem Cells and Those Found In Adults?

I read something about how red blood cells or lymphocytes (i am drunk, so i can't quite remember) come from stem cells. If adult humans have stem cells, why can't we use those instead of embryonic stem cells for research (since Bush is a dick about the subject)?

Public Comments

1. The difference is "potency." (See wikipedia entry, it's pretty good.) Embryonic stem cells are the only pluripotent cells that can differentiate into every other cell in the body. Red blood cells (erythrocytes) come from bone marrow, which are actually an example of stem cells already being used (and of course, have been used for decades). They are "multipotent" which means their potency is limited to the various blood cells.
2. The problem is that we can do a lot more with embryonic stem cells. In an early embryo, the cells have not yet been "assigned" to become a particular family of cells. Science is getting increasingly better at understanding what chemical signals tell which cells to become which. The whole idea is that we can use our knowledge of those pathways to get these cells to become whatever we need them to become to treat disease. When you're talking about adult stem cells-- say ones in the blood-- those cells are already committed to being in one particular line of cells (in this case, cells of the blood family). They might not be white blood cells or red blood cells yet, but they can only become blood cells. Therefore, we can't do as much with them as we could with early embryonic stem cells whose fates are still so up in the air. They just don't have the same potential.