Stem cells have been a buzzing topic in the scientific community for some time now. As many number of researchers are in favour of Stem cell research as there are against any development related to the subject. What makes Stem cells such a hot topic among intellects? Well, we first need to understand what stem cells are, and what effect can they have on us and our lives.

In a layman’s language, stem cells are cells that are produced in our bodies which are capable of differentiating(developing into) any of the type of cells. That means, a stem cell can, under different or specific growth conditions, made to develop into a neuron(brain cell), cardiac(heart) cell, or your muscle cell or your kidney cell and so on.You can compare stem cells with a tree. A tree has a backbone,”stem” which supports all the branches,which in turn support all the leaves and flowers. A stem is from where everything originates in a tree. Similarly, our stem cells are the backbone of all the cells in our body. All other cells in our body originate from stem cells.

This is how your whole body is formed, from stem cells.

Stem cells on the basis of there ability to form different types of cells can be divided into 4 classes: (more…)