• Question: If you make a transplant using stem cells will the part being transplanted be fully functioning? Will it have nerves and senses in like that certain part of the body usually would?

    Asked by charlocked to Anzy, Aoife, Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 13 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Transplants using stem cells will only be made if they can give good function to the patient receiving the transplant. At the moment, this is not possible, so a lot of research needs to be done to understand how we can make stem cell transplants work and how to make sure the nerves are connected up properly, if that is necessary.

    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Hi charlocked

      At the moment we can’t make a fully functioning organ in the lab from stem cells, the problem is mostly due to blood supply because without that the cells will die. Nerve cells are also very important and can be difficult because they are quite hard to grow, although we are working at trying to improve this.

      There are some examples where people have received treatments based on their own cells, for example around 7 or 8 years ago some patients received artificial bladders which had been grown in the lab. These bladders had reasonable function, and were better than what the patient had, but they were not exactly like the real thing. At the moment most treatments to create transplants use the bodies own regenerative ability, by putting scaffolds into patients that make the body produce new cells and tissue to replace the damaged tissue. This was most famously done on the windpipe of a woman from Barcelona 5 years ago or so and she is apparently doing well.

      I hope that answers your question.

    • Photo: Anzy Miller

      Anzy Miller answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      Just to add to this question:
      Stem cells are cells that are able to make other types of cells. Especially embryonic stem cells, as these cells can make ANY type of cell in the body.
      So one of the hopes we have with stem cells, is that the stem cells will make the cells needed for a particular disease, and these would be fully functioning and act as normal in the body when transplanted. But as David and Matt have said, we are still a while off this yet!

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