• Question: What interests you the most about stem cells?

    Asked by battleborn to Anzy, Aoife, Dave, Matt, Tomasz on 15 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by alewis7.
    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      In general, stem cells are interesting to scientists because we want to know how they work and how we can use them to treat lots of different diseases. In particular, I find it interesting how similar stem cells are to cancer cells. My work is looking at how they use nutrients to help them grow and divide quickly. It’s interesting to see how they respond to their environment that they grow in to use nutrients differently.

    • Photo: Aoife O'Shaughnessy-Kirwan

      Aoife O'Shaughnessy-Kirwan answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      The fact that we have figured out how to take some cells from an embryo and grow them in conditions which keep them in that state is pretty special. I am still impressed by that every day.

    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      For me it is how we can use them to replace diseased and damaged tissue. I am mostly interested in how we can replace broken bones and I use dental and bone marrow stem cells to do this. I also like the idea of using stem cells from fat to help repair tissues like nerves, but this is not something I’ve done.

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