• Question: what is your science about stem cells like ?

    Asked by errin123brady to Tomasz, Matt, Dave, Aoife, Anzy on 17 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 17 Nov 2013:

      My research is on embryonic stem cells, the nutrients that they use and how the environment affects this. We and other researchers have found that embryonic stem cells grown with less oxygen in their environment grow faster and are more stem cell-like. Also these stem cells use more sugar. We are trying to find out how and why they eat more sugar and how they control how much sugar they eat. I hope this answers your question!

    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      I work on stem cells from wisdom teeth, these cells help make dentin in teeth (the hard part underneath the enamel) in the body. We are interested in these cells because they are able to grow very quickly in the lab and are able to make bone like cells. We hope to use these cells to regrow new bone in people who have had things like mouth cancer who then need facial reconstructions and people who have broken bones which don’t heal naturally. I also work on stem cells from bone marrow which are also very good at making new bone in the lab.

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