Different Types Of Stem Cells and how they can be used in Stem Cell Research

This post will further explain stem cells and what different types of stem cells there are. Enjoy: 

Embrionic Stem Cells: They are undifferentiated stem cells in the early stages of the embryo (when the abay is still a bunch of cells) and appear to have the ability to evolve to any type of cell in the body. Also, once they are evolving to become a certain body cell, they can still be relocated and change into another cell. When the zygote is 7 days old, it forms a structure called blastocyst, which is a mass of cells that will later become the fetus and the trophoblastic tissue , which will later become the placenta. If cells are taken from that structure, they can be pluripotent, meaning that they can become many different cell types in the human body. While the fact that embryonic cells can become every cell in the body might seem promising for therapeutically purposes, these types of stem cells are not used in any type of treatment because they might become cancerous tissue, by evolving to a different type of tissue as needed. It might happen, for example, that bone tissue would grow on a muscle, which would cause cancer. Therefore, in order to be therapeutically effective, these stem cells would have to be at a more advanced stage of development.. Fetal Stem Cells: After the 8th- 10th week of development, the stem cells are still pluripotent. Most of the cells of the fetus at this point are destined to make it grow fast and start developing towards a specific type of cell. 

Umbilical Chord Stem Cells: The stem cells present in the umbilical cord blood are genetically identical to the newborn and are able to differentiate into certain types of cells, but not all. Mostly, they are able to differentiate into blood cells and are therefore kept in case the newborn needs them to replace blood cells after a cancer, for example. These cells are tissue specific, meaning they are found in a tissue of the body (the umbilical cord) and develop the mature cell within that tissue or organ.

Adult Stem Cells: The adult stem cell is located in every one of us in the bone marrow and produces tissue-specific stem cells for intestine, muscles and skin. They are, therefore, referred to as multipotent cells.  Alongside with the Umbilical Cord Stem Cell, this type of cell can be used for medical treatment. Adult Stem Cells from the bone marrow, for example, can produce blood cells and cure cancers, just like the Umbilical Cord Stem Cell. It was believed until recently that these types of Stem Cells only repair the tissue they originally came from and that, for example,  a bone marrow stem cell could only turn into a blood cell. However, this was contradicted by recent findings, where a mouse with liver problems experienced better results after receiving bone marrow transplant, suggesting that even bone marrow stem cells can evolve to another type of cell, suggesting that they might also be pluripotent cells. Another type of adult stem cell is the mesenchymal stem cells, which are able to produce cartilage and bone marrow. The study of these stem cells could be beneficial to people suffering from arthritis for example.

iPS Cells: cells  which were usually tissue-specific (mostly skin cells)  and have been manipulated to adopt the same characteristics as embryonic stem cells. In this very complicated process, the use of lent virus was originally required, which could have lead to complications with the DNA.  Now, with a recent discovery, reagents bring epigenetic changes to the cell and reprogram it to pluripotency.