Stem Cells are not All Equal: Response Ch.1 6

I found Stem Cell Research by Joseph Panno, Ph.D in the school's library. This book provided straight forward information as well as pictures and diagrams that helped me to understand a lot of the terminology in the articles I've been reading.

What I found most interesting was that embryonic stem cells have more plasticity that adult stem cells. This means that the cell can be manipulated without be destroyed. Using this book as my source of background information is going to be very helpful to me in the future.

The articles that I've been choosing to read are becoming more and more dense. What I mean by this is that the articles have a lot of terminology that I don't understand, at all. The book has already cleared up some of the lingering questions and confusion that I have when reading challenging articles.

Stem Cell Research reminds me of a text book for exactly what I'm learning about. This book gives me both history on the subject (where it originated, dates of first discoveries, etc.) as well as definitions and examples of how the definitions relate back to stem cells in real situation.

Stem Cells are not All Equal: Notes Ch.1 6

the plasticity of a cell depends on if the cell originated in the embryo or from an adult.

stem cells from embryos tend to have greater plasticity

stem cells from adult organisms have less

most of what we know about embryonic stem cells comes from mice.

rodent stem cells were tested on and manipulated throughout the 1990's

in vito stem cells are cells in a living organism

in vitro stem cells are cells in cell culture

it's important for in vetro cells to grow and divide. also important for a cell to maintain it's observable characteristics during it's time while it grows and divides.

glycocalyx- "molecular forest that covers the surface of all cells" (Panno, p. 1).

"The ultimate stem cell is the fertilized egg..." (Panno, p.5)

scientists demonstrated the plasticity of embryonic stem cells in the 1980s for the first time.

cardiomyocyte - cells that make the heart

keratinocyte - cells that make hair and nails

neuron - cells that make the brain, spinal cords and peripheral nervous system.

the plasticity of adult stem cells is less than that of embryonic stem cells