Stem cells: general information and perspectives

Yong Joon Huh; Dong-Wook Kim

doi:10.5124/jkma.2011.54.5.450

J Korean Med Assoc > Volume 54(5); 2011 > Article

Huh and Kim: Stem cells: general information and perspectives

Focused Issue of This Month

Stem Cells

Journal of the Korean Medical Association

Journal of the Korean Medical Association 2011; 54(5): 450-453.

Published online: May 11, 2011

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2011.54.5.450

Stem cells: general information and perspectives

Yong Joon Huh^1,², Dong-Wook Kim, PhD^1,^2,³

¹Department of Physiology, Brain Korea 21 Project for Medical Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

²Severance Biomedical Science Institute, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

³Stem Cell Research Center, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Dong-Wook Kim, dwkim2@yuhs.ac

Received February 22, 2011 Accepted March 10, 2011

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

We are now in the middle of stem cell war. Each country is trying to invest a large amount of funds into stem cell research. This is due to a potentiality of stem cells. Stem cells are capable of proliferating in an undifferentiated manner and are able to differentiate into a desired cell lineage under certain conditions. These abilities make stem cells an appealing source for cell replacement therapies (regenerative medicine), the study of developmental biology and drug/toxin screening. In addition to embryonic and adult stem cells, induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells has been recently generated through reprogramming from adult tissue cells such as fibroblasts. This technique has opened up new avenues to generate patient- and disease-specific pluripotent stem cells. Human iPS cells may be useful for gaining valuable insight into the pathophysiology of disease, as well as for discovering for new prognostic biomarkers and drug screening. Moreover, the iPS cell technology may play a major role in immune-matched clinical application in the future. In this chapter, we introduce general characteristics of various stem cells, clinical application of stem cells and future perspectives.

Stem cells; Embryonic stem cells; Adult stem cells; Induced pluripotent stem cells; Regenerative medicine

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a grant (SC1110) from the Stem Cell Research Center of the 21st Century Frontier Research Program funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Republic of Korea.

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Figure 1

Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) and adult stem cells.

Figure 2

Generation of patient specific-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) and their applications.