Stem Cell Concepts: intro & What is Stem Cell?

Here's is another series of posts I am starting about random concepts about Stem Cells.
I will be writing about different kinds of Stem Cells, and about the concepts behind some of the conventional procedures like PCRs and molecular tagging and such.

I found it appropriate that I should start this series by clarifying what Stem Cell really is. :D

What is Stem Cell?
There are some misconception among popular culture that stem cells are type of cells that can give rise to all the cells in human body. Most of them often believe also that there is just one kind of stem cells. This is not entirely wrong, as there is one type of stem cell that give rise to all kinds of cells in human (well not necessarily just humans) body, the fertilized egg :D

There are two main ways in which the stem cells are categorized. They are categorized by their origin, (What I mean by the 'origin' is simply where the cells are found. For example, Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells (BMMSC), are extracted from one's bone marrow.)
or their potency.
Potency specifies the differentiation potential (the potential to differentiate into different cell types) of the stem cell.[1] Which means that different stem cells can only differentiate into certain kinds or number of daughter cells. There are a lot of research done on the matter of cells' potency, so it is not absolute, but I think this definition will suffice here.

Here is the list of different types of Stem Cell potency:
Totipotent: Totipotent cells are fertilized eggs are cells within couple divisions since the fertilization. They can differentiate into both embryonic and extraembryonic cell types. This is what is different between totipotent and pluripotent stem cells. Embroyonic cell types are the ones that differentiate into one's body and extraembryonic cell types are the ones that differentiate into cells that support the bady in the womb.

Pluripotent: Pluripotent cells are decendents of totipotent cells and can differentiate into nearly all cell types, such as Embrynoic Stem Cells (ES cells) which can differentiate into all embryonic cell types. I will write more in depth about ES cells in the future

Multipotent: Multipotent stem cells can differentiate into few different cell types, but only those of a closely related family of cells. Much of the Adult stem cells are multipotent. Example of mulipotent cellss are BMMSC and WJ cells.

Oligopotent: stem cells can differentiate into only a few cells, such as lymphoid or myeloid stem cells. (from wikipedia)

Unipotent: cells can produce only one cell type, their own, but have the property of self-renewal which distinguishes them from non-stem cells (e.g. muscle stem cells). (from wikipedia)

Didn't learn about Oligopotent or Unipotent cells at my internship yet, so I paid wikipedia a visit ;)

If you didn't know already, Stem Cell research is one of the hottest field in Bio-medial research because it has a great number of possible usage and potential. It has been proven, though, that it is not easy to control stem cells as we want to, but number of stemcell treatments already exist and with time, stem cell will change the medical field greatly, as invention of medical imaging once did.




[1] - Hans R. Schöler (2007). "The Potential of Stem Cells: An Inventory". in Nikolaus Knoepffler, Dagmar Schipanski, and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Humanbiotechnology as Social Challenge. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 28. ISBN 0754657558.

Basic Lab Procedures: Intro and Medium Preparation

I'll be uploading various procedures that I encounter during my internship for future reference and for anyone interested. This is the first of its series. I cannot guarantee that these posts will be in logical order, but these procedures are all very basic so the order might not be a big issue.

Medium Preparation

Culture Medium is a liquid or solidified nutrient material suitable for the cultivation of microorganisms

Different cells or bacteria need different kinds of media, and there are certain guidelines that different media should follow. I have not learned so much about them yet, so I will later post another, more in-depth post about media.

For now I will focus on the most basic kind of media used in MIRM lab, the Knock Out Media.

I can't really say this is much of a tutorial or anything, but its the first one, so i see no harm ;)

What You Need: (to prepare 50ml of KO media)

5ml of FBS
500ul of glutaMAX
250 ul of penstrep
45ml of Knock Out Media

In my lab, you can find them here :D
in the 4 'C fridge in the culture room.








Adding 5ml of FBS makes it a 10% FBS KO solution be sure to write that one the bottle.
Oh, and here's what you need to write on the bottle:
KO media - the name of the solution
+10% FBS - what is in the solution
+glutaMAX
+penstrep
0x/0x/0x -the date it was prepared
ASC - name of the group

Now here's a brief explanation of what FBS, glutamax and penstrep are:

FBS- FBS stands for Fetal Bovine Serum, is a serum widely used for culturing various kinds of cells as it contains a lot of growth factors and relatively low concentration of antibodies. It is important that during an experiment to keep the FBS from same stock.

GlutaMAX - is a commercial product that improves cell viability and growth, minimizes ammonia build up to keep the cells healthier.

Pen-Strep - is a mixture of Penicillin and Streptomycin used in cell cultures to as an antibiotic.

The media is already there, we just prepare it by adding supplements to provide an optimized environment for the cells.
This is the end product!








Oh, and make sure to keep the media in the water math before using it. 37.4'C

Intro: 2009 summer internship

Here's some basic info about my 2009 summer internship.

It's at a lab associated with the Manipal Hospital, the Manipal University and Stempeutics, which is referred to as Manipal Institute of Regenerative Medicine (MIRM for short)

Currently, this lab is the only place in India where stemcell research is being done.

The Group that took me in for the summer focuses on Adult Stem Cells, and especially with the Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSC) and Wharton's jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells (WJ-MSCs), at the moment.

Dr. Jyothi runs this team and Anoop and Shelpa (the senior research staffs) are conducting the research.

Here's Anoop and Shelpa :D

He looks really serious in this picture, but he's actually always happy. He has recently gotten his M. Phill, and has a great sense of humor. He teaches me all sorts of things related to stemcell, but more importantly, he shows me all the different restaurants near MIRM for lunch ;)

Shelpa Also has a degree in Bio-technology, and she teaches me a lot about actual procedures that are done in the lab. She allows me to try them by myself, which is helping me learn a lot faster.

Dr. Jyothi has provided me with essential information about stem cells and in general and about the adult stem cells so I could tag along with Anoop and Shelpa. Since I have only just completed my fisrt year of undergrad, I basically knew nothing. Dr. Jyothi was kind enough to explain most of the concepts herself :D

I couldn't get Dr. Jyothi's picture because she has not yet returned from her buisiness trip out of country. I'll be sure to upload her picture and introduce other staffs in the lab.

and this is me :D, all scrubbed up.

Intro: My Blog

To get this blog started, I think I'll post a little introduction about myself.
I'm a South Korean Male, currently attending Cornell University as a class of 2012.
I'm currently doing an internship at a stem cell research lab in India, and I'll start filling up this blog with my experiences there :D