How embryonic stem cell lines are made
Embryonic stem cells are a highly sought after form of stem cell with the capability to be used in a number of different medical processes (though unfortunately they also carry with them a hefty ethical debate that prevents them from being widely studied and used at this time as well). The reason for the highly effectiveness of embryonic stem cells lies in the fact that they have not differentiated into any particular tissue or function as of yet and therefore are totipotent (also known as omnipotent), or otherwise capable of becoming virtually any biological structure they are encouraged to develop into.
In order to allow this differentiation into desired structures to occur embryonic stem cells must first be harvested from a developing blastocyst, or newly forming embryonic cell structure that forms approximately one week after a sperm successfully fertilizes an egg. These are removed from the center of the blastocyst and deposited into a growth tray for nurturing and culturing into a desired cell structure. Until the culture material is adjusted to encourage growth of a particular cell, however, the harvested cells will continue to grow and under ideal conditions will do so indefinitely so long as they never differentiate into a specific cell structure – such is the nature of stem cells as their basic function is to replicate in order to allow for other cell structures to form and differentiate into more durable structures that our body needs to function (such as tissue, nerve and bone cells).
Once the desired cell structure has been chosen for the cells to form into the nutrient content and growth conditions of the culture dish are altered in order to encourage growth to a particular cellular structure. Sometimes this can also involve the direct modification of the cell’s DNA to create a dedicated cellular structure base upon a set DNA strand (such as brain tissue or blood vessels) to specify a growth structure. By doing this the embryonic cells can be forced to differentiate into any number of cellular forms necessary for a body to function and be applied medically to treat a number of ailments, in particular any tissues or systems that may have been damaged due to trauma or other cellular disorder that damages cells and renders them unable to repair themselves (such as the case with nerve damage due to the highly differentiated nature of nerve cells and their inability to actively repair themselves like skin or other tissue cells).
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