Stem Cell Differentiation | Joseph Zhang | TEDxClearLakeHighSchool
all right so my presentation will have a lot of different scientific terms that you might not understand but don't worry I'll try my best to explain them so a while back I read a book in Middle School actually seventh grade and actually I didn't really read that book because that book looks looking like this yeah you take one glance at it and you see there are many complicated terms it looks very boring and it looks very annoying to read but I started reading it anyways and after two pages I was done instead I decided to skim the ideas of the book to see what I can find so basically this book was titled micrographia and was written by a scientist named Robert Hook and basically what he summarized in the book was that he looked under a microscope hence the name micrographia and describe what he saw and what he saw were bugs but because he was the first person to see what bugs look like up close he had the Liberty to describe them for however he wanted to so when you looked under the microscope and looked at a flea he described it as a little soldier adorned with curiosity polished suit of fable armor awaiting his next journey and if you take a picture look at this picture of the fleet from that book He's not wrong and the flea looks kind of daunting and he described it in such a good light which made the flee seem like a good thing which the flea is not a good thing but he had no choice but to describe for however he wanted to so next he looked at a tree cork same concept he put that Tree Court under that microscope and took a look at it and this is what he saw pretty boring right cells he called them because they reminded him of the box-like cell structures and monasteries that he went to and to this day that is still what we call them cells not because they look like boxes anymore well kinda but because we like the name I guess but just like hook we are still discovering new ideas new Concepts and new things that we have never seen before so what do we do when we see new things for the discovery of stem cells it was promising surprising but not well received much like in vitro fertilization which is the birth of a baby through laboratory procedures it was challenged financially politically ethically and medically until the birth of a healthy child instead of encouraging research that should be explored critical research is challenged but I'm not here to talk to you about human embryonic stem cells which is the heart of the stem cell debate I'm here to talk to you about a lesser-known field known as human adipose stem cells which has lesser ethical concerns than human embryonic stem cells Inception with ideas nowadays is that if one aspect of an idea is controversial the entire idea itself becomes controversial and we kind of put a label on it but it's important that we do not judge a book by its cover and instead investigate that lesser known topic to see what light it can possess so for stem cells it is important for me to First describe what a stem cell is that is a very broad topic so a stem cell is a specialized type of cell that can then turn into different types of cells and it does this through two different procedures self-renewal and differentiation self renewal refers to the ability of stem cells to divide and reproduce multiple of itself so you can see how that stem cells are producing into a different stem cell and so on and so forth indefinitely well kinda but and then the second type is known as differentiation as this is when the stem cell can turn to different types of cells so such as fat cells and muscle cells and again there are many different types of stem cells the most controversial one again Being Human embrydex stem cells but in more interesting form of stem cells in my opinion are adult stem cells specifically human adipose stem cells so what are human adipose stem cells well human adipose stem cells are stem cells taken from the adipose which is the fat of the human body and then these fat stem cells can then be turned into different types of cells such as bone marrow nerve cells and muscle cells and the first unique identity the human Apple stem cells possess is their location and ease of isolation because human output stem cells are taken from the fat of the human body it does not pose any harm to the body or the area that is taken from we all have fat removing a small chunk of fat from that area does not overall harm the area of isolation and this can be done through very minimally invasive procedures such as liposuction making human adipose stem cells easier to obtain than other types of stem cells and this is very important for forms of treatment to have this type of ability to move from an area without damaging the surrounding organs because of removing the risk of donor site complications so for example lymphedema is a condition in which the arms or the legs begin to swell because of the blockage of fluid and 25 000 to 50 000 new cases of Olympian DMR are found every single year and there are only two current types of treatment for Lymphedema both of which are far from ideal and are very expensive especially for people who cannot afford them so the first type of treatment for Lymphedema is lymph venous bypass and this is basically applicable for the earlier stages of Lymphedema but does not work for later stages and does not have a huge successory either and the second form is vascularized lymph node transfer which does work for later stages of the condition but comes with a huge risk which is donor side complication so basically let's say I have lymphedema and I have a very severe form of lymphedema and I have it in my arm which is the area of swelling so I need to remove the area of swelling so let's take I take a lymph node from my armpit and then I take it and I implant it in my arm well my arm may be reduced to the swelling but then the area that I took it from may not be susceptible to disease and infection so that is the risk of genocide complication and that is of in many types of forms of treatment it has that type of risk so when it comes to this we need to find forms that does not require the removal of donor side organs and human output stem cells does provide that potential for example I'm currently working as a local intern for a local hospital in which I'm trying to examine how human output stem cells can be implemented with a matrix to form a kind of Niche that can be directly injected into areas of swelling or infection so if you're directly injecting into that area you are not removing other organs and you can see how we have some kind of success with that if you take a look at the diagram on the left side you can see how those are basically lymphatic cells just by themselves you can see how they're growing as the cells do they just grow but as soon as we add human adipose stem cells on the right side of the picture you can see how straight from day seven they are already forming like vessel-like structures because this is tissue engineering we need to want to rim it to mimic the type of structure as close as we can so vessels mimic veins and blood arteries and you can see how that is having huge success because human app stem cells provide that but why can't they do this in the first place well this brings us to the second point which is the regenerative properties and the pro-angiogenic growth factors of human Apple stem cells so angiogenesis refers to the ability to develop new blood vessels So Pro angiogen the growth factors are basically factors that help the development of new blood cells and because human Apple sensors are so abundant throughout the body again because we all have fat and that is the most abundant tissue a smaller number of human Apple stem cells can produce a larger population of functional cells so you can take maybe a small population of human output stem cells and then create a lot of nerve cells or a lot of muscle cells thus making human Apple stem cells more effective forms of treatment but why can't do this in the first place well just in general stem cells are known as Tropic cells which means they are very happy cells they love to reproduce they love to differentiate and they love to divide so no they're kind of always like that friend who's always trying to see things in a positive light it's like dude I just failed this test well don't worry I'm sure you did fine that's what stem cells are no matter the environment around them they're always trying to reproduce and see things in a positive light so for human output stem cells they do this through um secreting a bunch of growth factors so as soon as they're injected into an area of swelling and white blood cells are fighting for their lives they're just happy to be there so when they do that they kind of just go I secrete bfgf I agree another growth factor and I see create another growth factor and then basically this all promotes the development of new blood cells which is angiogenesis and then overall these factors all help again with tissue regeneration and you have to remember that this is just the Baseline of what we know so far we are still in the premiere stages of research for human Alpha stem cells because again critical research is challenged just imagine the implications if it was incursion instead it goes beyond just Medical Treatments but into economic remedies as well so for in terms of chronic wound healing over 20 billion dollars is spent annually on the treatment for chronic wound healing and thirty thousand to fifty thousand is spent on diabetic foot ulcers in the US which is the most common most common form of chronic wound and in terms of live edema three to five million people annually have this condition and with current treatments far from ideal human opposite influence can only help this so continuing on the talk of chronic wound healing human output stem cells can actually help this process so inflammation is a very important healing process for any wound you have but chronic inflammation can actually stop this process which then can lead to a chronic wound which condensate leads to underlying conditions so when implementing human output stem cells that can actually block that procedure from the formation of a chronic wound and instead regulate the immune response which then leads to tissue regeneration but of course there are also clinical studies that have proven this now the first study above a randomized trial of human Apple stem cells has been proven to be more effective in diabetic foot ulcers than standard treatments and then the bottom study over here another form of treatment with human Alpha stem cells have been shown to be more effective in venous leg ulcer treatment so again you can see how Clinic you can tell see how clinical trials have proven that human Apple stem cells do have success but then there are not without limitations of human Alpha stem cell research again this is only in the preliminary stages as we have not Advanced further into this type of field probably because the stereotypes have been placed on stem cells as a whole there have been many safety concerns with human epicent cells in larger clinical trials that still need to be conducted but nonetheless the potential of human epistem cells is still very encouraging even with the base preliminary research human output stem cells have been shown to be more unique than other types of stem cells so with the right mindset and with the right encouragement human opposition cells can truly change the field of regenerative medicine so I see human output stem cells as a light in the field of controversy despite all these controversies with stem cell topic I still chose to explore human Apple stem cells because I have passion for it and even despite the potential negative results human embrydex stem cell research was challenged when it was first encountered but science has no choice but to look under that microscope and describe it for what it is however scientists have yet to put a label on human epilepsy research and I like to contribute to this to help it put in a positive light rather than a negative light because of the forms of treatment that it could provide so for all of you guys who do have ideas that you think are stupid or maybe just don't have much support for it I say just go for it oftentimes you can look under that microscope and describe it for what it is rather than what others see it as thank you