While the use of stem cells hold lots of promise for future clinical treatments, it is in research laboratories that stem cells are already making their mark. Research scientists around the world are using different types of stem cells to better understand how stem cells ‘decide’ what to become and how they can influence and control these processes. We need answers to these important questions if the promise of stem cells in regenerative medicine is to be fully realised.
Researchers are also using stem cells to speed up the process of developing new drugs and to learn more about how different diseases develop and what happens to our cells during an illness or after an injury.
Understanding Diseases
Scientists are able to take diseased cells from patients, and study them in the lab to gain more insight into how diseased cells behave, how the disease progresses, and what happens to healthy cells during the course of the disease. They can also study the role and function of stem cells within tissues to work out what happens during disease or following injury.
More recently, researchers have been able to use stem cells to grow small organs in the lab, known as ‘organoids,’ that help them study both normal development, and disease. With this knowledge, scientists understand a disease better, and can use that information to eventually develop treatments including new drugs to target different aspects or stages of the disease.
Developing New Drugs
Studying stem cells in the lab may help to speed up the process of developing new drugs. Drug companies usually first test drugs in animals, and if successful, can then proceed to test them in humans.
Through the use of stem cells, scientists can directly test a drug’s likely effects on humans by using diseased human cells or miniature organs rather than just relying solely on animal testing. Drugs can also be tested more quickly, which will hopefully speed up the drug discovery process and decrease costs.
Replacing Lost Cells
Growing new, healthy cells in the lab to replace those lost or damaged through disease is another way stem cells may be able to help patients. Growing the cells is only a small part of the process, however.
Researchers still need to make sure the healthy cells are able to get to where they are needed, and once there, integrate themselves into the complex cell and tissue networks found within the human body.
