• Question: is there a place a stem cell can not go

    Asked by alexleemartin2001 to Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 21 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 21 Nov 2013:

      There are stem cells all through the body, so I don’t think so. It’s an interesting question though. Some cell types don’t contain stem cells, for example red blood cells, but they are made from stem cells in the bone marrow and there are stem cells in the blood. The one example I can think of may be cartilage, which is the spongy stuff in your knee which acts like a shock absorber. This doesn’t have many cells in it, so I would think this might be a place without stem cells.

    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 22 Nov 2013:

      Stem cells normally sit in a particular place in the body to try to protect themselves from harm. For example the stem cells in the intestine are deep in the walls of the intestine so that they don’t go anywhere near the food in case there might be an infection. Similarly stem cells in the brain and bone marrow also keep hidden away to try to protect themselves.

      I’d say then that although there are stem cells in many of our organs, there are many parts of the body that the stem cells do not go to, because mostly they do not move around.

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