• Question: If you are growing stem cells, how do you get them to be what you want and look like you want them to do?

    Asked by eillim to Anzy, Aoife, Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 14 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by cookiejayden, muffinmegan2002, meatonhall2002.
    • Photo: Anzy Miller

      Anzy Miller answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      Hi Ellim
      I am working with embryonic stem cells, and scientists have worked out what these cells need to stay as stem cells. So I can keep growing my cells in this media (like food for the cells) and they won’t turn into any other types of cells.

      But we also know what other cell types need, so if i did want to turn my embryonic stem cells into e.g. brain cells, I would give some factors to my embryonic stem cells and they would change into brain cells. To find out what the cells need, we study what happens normally in the embryo when the embryo wants to make a brain – we look to see what the cells normally are surrounded by, and what factors they would need.

      We can’t make all cells yet in the lab, but this is ongoing work by many scientists – to be able to make any type of cell and make it efficiently. Hopefully we will then be able to make cells that patients with diseases need – like the specific brain cells that people with Alzheimers disease need.

    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Hi, this is a really tough question and something that a lot of scientists are still trying to find out, so I’ll try to tell you a bit about what we are trying to do!

      Basically the way to get stem cells to differentiate into what you want them to be is to treat them with chemicals. Some scientists have given chemicals to stem cells and just looked to see what happened and then found out that particular combinations of chemicals work to make stem cells become particular cells. Gradually we can improve how well we can target this to make only a cell type that we want. We have also learn a lot about this from studying how development works in a growing embryo and fetus. If we find out that signals sent between cells can make them become different cell types during development, we can then try to use those signals in a lab to try to make the same cell type.

      Also, you asked about making them look like we want. Actually, what a cell looks like is the first way that a scientist uses to try to see if the cells are what we want to be. I work with embryonic stem cells and the cells are normally very round. If I see the cells in my experiment start to become longer and thinner then I know they have started to differentiate into a different cell type. So, if we treat the cells with a chemical and then look for a change in shape, we will often see the shape change that we want to see, if the chemicals have worked as hoped.

      If a scientist is trying to use the stem cells to make an organ like a heart or a bone, then they can grow the cells on a scaffold, which is just a base structure of the right shape so that the cells grow around that scaffold to form a 3D thing which is heart-shaped or bone-shaped or any shape you want.

      I hope this answers your questions! Thanks guys. It was a good question!

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