• Question: how are cells obtained

    Asked by luiswalker to Dave, Tomasz, Matt on 21 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by benlolplaster13.
    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 21 Nov 2013:

      Hi luis

      The cells I use come from the wisdom teeth of people who have had them taken out for dental reasons, we take the soft part of the tooth out and break it down into cells, we then put these cells in the incubator and the cells we are interested in start to grow. The other cells I use come from the bone marrow of people who are having operations to fix broken bones. With these we get rid of all the cells we don’t want, like the red blood cells, and again put the remaining cells in the incubator for about 2 weeks.

      Embryonic stem cells come from a slightly different route, these are taken from embryos developed for IVF treatment for people trying to have a baby. With IVF a lot of embryos are made, so quite a lot aren’t used for implantation, the cells are taken from these and grown in the lab, rather than being disposed of.

      I hope that answers your question!

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