How stem cells help treat cancer javier m zavala
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Transcript of How stem cells help treat cancer javier m zavala
How stem cells help treat cancer
1. Introduction:
This research project is about how we can eradicate cancerous cells by transplanting stem cells. It’s
important to know and investigate about this problem, because cancer is a common disease that affects
a significant amount of the population and there is no cure for it. The benefits of the stem cells
treatment are an area of science that has not been fully explored, and the scientists believe that this
treatment may be the cure for some of the common diseases now days. Cancers is a disease caused by
the abnormal cell growth in the body's organs and tissues. The type of cancer that we will treat with the
stem cell transplant is leukemia. Leukemia is a cancer of the blood cells.
2. Hypothesis:
The rats, with leukemia, that will be receiving the chemotherapy to kill the cancerous cells and the stem
cells transplant, will be the ones that are not going to have a relapse and will regenerate the white blood
cells quicker.
3. Objectives:
I want to prove the method of the stem cells transplant and see if the white blood cells regenerate
quicker than the ones who just used chemotherapy.
4. Background:
Stem cells are biological cells found in all multicellular organisms, which can divide (through mitosis) and
differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells. In
mammals, there are two broad types of stem cells: embryonic stem cells, which are isolated from the
inner cell mass of blastocysts, and adult stem cells, which are found in various tissues. In adult
organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, repairing adult tissues. In
a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into all the specialized cells but also maintain the
normal turnover of regenerative organs, such as blood, skin, or intestinal tissues. We will be working
with the leukemia that affects the white blood cells, which are the cells that protect your body from
diseases, and are produced in the bone marrow. Some symptoms are fatigue, fever, bleeding and
bruising.
5. Importance:
About 40 percent of children and up to 70 percent of adults in remission from acute myelogenous
leukemia (AML) will relapse. The stem cells transplant is a viable choice to prevent patients of leukemia
to relapse.
6. Methodology:
Extract the stem cells before receiving the cancer treatment (chemotherapy), and then the stem cells
are frozen. It is preferable if the transplant is autologous, which means that the cells are from you,
because there is no probability that your immune system will reject the transplanted cells. Some centers
clean or “purge” the stem cells before they are given back to the patient. This is done to remove any
cancer cells that might be mixed in with them. After you get high doses of chemo or radiation the stem
cells are thawed and given back to you. This experiment will be performed from two to three times to
compare the results. I will use two rats: control rat (does not receive the stem cells transplant but will
receive chemotherapy) and the experimental rat (will receive the stem cells transplant and the
chemotherapy). The model I will use will be “in vivo”.
7. Expected results and future studies:
My expected results are that the rat that received the stem cells transplant and the chemotherapy will
be the one that regenerates the white blood cells quicker and will have the less probability to relapse. If
my hypothesis is proven, we can use this method to treat leukemia and regenerate the white blood cells
quicker with less chance of getting another disease because of low count of white blood cells.