• Question: Is there a certain place on the body where stem cells are strongest?

    Asked by miniguy99 to Anzy, Aoife, Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 14 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      I guess the stem cells in your muscles might be strongest!

      Sorry that was sort of a joke.

      I don’t really know what you mean by strongest here. In general stem cells are quite strong and can survive for a long time.

    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      Hi miniguy99

      There are a lot of stem cells in the bone marrow, some that make blood and some that make bones and cartilage. There are also a lot stem cells in fat believe it or not!

    • Photo: Anzy Miller

      Anzy Miller answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      I’m not sure strongest… but there are definitely some stem cells work harder than others. Like in the skin, intestine (gut) or blood. We know that the cells that do all the hard work don’t live for very long, and the stem cells need to be able to produce more of these cells quickly. In fact in the blood, its takes the body 1 second to make 2 MILLLION red blood cells. Incredible, huh?
      While I’m guessing that other stem cells which don’t need to make so many cells very quickly will not be doing as much as the others… my guess though!

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