Regenerative Medicine
What Is Stem Cell Therapy?
Stem Cell Therapy has emerged as a viable option for millions of patients living with debilitating symptoms of chronic orthopedic and neurological injuries. Treating physicians have seen great success in relieving pain and often times resolving medical conditions altogether.
History
Ever since the 1800s with the advent of magnifying optical instruments, such as the microscope, scientists have shown interest in cell biology. For the first time, they were able to witness the propagation of cells and their differentiation. It was then that cells got viewed as life’s building blocks. Scientists saw the capacity of cells to give rise to other cells and continued study and observations of the cells provided a key for them to understand human development better.
Timeline of the evolution and advancement of stem cell therapy
- The early 1900s – Researchers in Europe recognized how red and white blood cells and platelets got derived from a specific stem cell.
- The 1950s – Adult stem cells got used in bone marrow transplants for patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation
- 1963 – Ernest A. McCulloch, a hematologist, and James E. Till, a biophysicist, both from the University of Toronto, provided quantitative explications of the self-renewal of mouse bone marrow cells.
- The 1980s & 1990s – Biotechnological advancements brought forth techniques and methodology for targeting genetic material for alteration and germinating human cells in a laboratory.
- 1998 – James Thomson, a scientist from the University of Wisconsin, propelled stem cell research with the world’s first line of the human stem cell which he removed from the discarded embryos of fertility clinics and then fructified in his laboratory. Thomson’s success gave impetus to stem cell research which has resulted in thousands upon thousands of research papers published in reputable journals in the science community each year.
