Why are stem cells of such importance in medicine?
Many researchers believe that stem cells may revolutionise human medicine through their ability to make new cells to replace a patient’s diseased or damaged cells. The most promising use of stem cells may be to treat patients where the disease condition results from a loss of cells, and the patient is unable to repair or replace the poorly functioning cells on its own. Currently incurable diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, heart attack, stroke and traumatic brain injury could all be treated by transferring new cells, generated from stem cells, to the patient. A very important benefit of stem cell therapy is that it is expected to provide a cure. For example, transplanted insulin-producing cells will continue to produce insulin for the life of a diabetic.
