In: Biology
Stem cells are special human cells that are able to develop into many different cell types. This can range from muscle cells to brain cells. In some cases, they can also fix damaged tissues. Researchers believe that stem cell-based therapies may one day be used to treat serious illnesses such as paralysis and Alzheimer disease.
Pluripotent cells can give rise to all of the cell types that make up the body; embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent. Multipotent cells can develop into more than one cell type, but are more limited than pluripotent cells; adult stem cells and cord blood stem cells are considered multipotent
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage pre-implantation embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells Human pluripotent stem cell: One of the "cells that are self-replicating, are derived from human embryos or human fetal tissue, and are known to develop into cells and tissues of the three primary germ layers. ... Human pluripotent stem cells are also known as human embryonic stem cells..
First, by their nature, pluripotent stem cells can potentially be used to create any cell or tissue the body might need to counter a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to spinal cord injury, to childhood leukemia, to heart disease.
Pluripotency
Pluripotency describes the ability of a cell to develop into the three primary germ cell layers of the early embryo and therefore into all cells of the adult body, but not extra-embryonic tissues such as the placenta.
Just like embryonic stem cells, these reprogrammed cells seemed capable of becoming any of the 200-plus cell types in the human body, an ability called pluripotency, or it has been defined as pluripotency has long been the elusive core of germinal development that, if properly controlled, could lead to organ and tissue regeneration in humans.