Stem cells have many applications now, and there are many more that are still being developed. However, one such use of stem cells that has already been established is the use of stem cells in testing the toxicity of pharmaceutical drugs.
Previously, drugs were tested in rats before they were administered to humans. This process is somewhat flawed in that drugs have been known to act differently in humans that in the lab animals that they were previously tested on. So, a woman named Gabriella Cezar came up with a way of using embryonic stem cells to test drug toxicity. She exposed these stem cells to the drug that was being tested and then let them react. These stem cells react with drugs like a human would, eliminating the chance of poisoning a human by accident. These stem cells produce a molecule that help metabolism. Cezar hypothesized that if the drug were toxic, then there would be different amounts of that metabolic compound in the stem cells than normally.
Cezar ran another test with valproate, a drug supposed to help and epileptic patient, which has been linked with causing autism. Cezar gave different dosages to different samples of stem cells while keeping some control groups to compare to. She found that the stem cell environments with the most valproate produced the most glutamate and kynurenin; both are used in brain development.
Even though this method of using stem cells is not an exact science yet, it is up and coming application of stem cells.
1 comment:
i've never heard of this before! this actually sounds like a really cool area of research and i'm sure the animal rights people would appreciate scientists not testing drugs on animals. it's also useful because you could test the effect of drugs that pregnant women are taking on their fetuses since that that is where we get stem cells from.
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