A stem cell can turn into any type of cell in the body, examples of this are muscle, brain, or liver cells. For this reason stem cells are often referred to as "master cells," and primarily reside in the bone marrow until they are needed to repair other damaged cells or tissues.
Organ generation, also known as organogenesis, refers to the process of development of a stem cell into an organ. It is a crucial concept especially in the field of organ transplantation—a procedure in which an organ is removed from a person’s body and put in the body of the patient, replacing the defective organ. An organ can be rendered so in the case of injury to the organ, or organ failure. However, due to a severe shortage of organ donors, scientists are looking to other methods of organ genesis. Specifically, growing human stem cells, which can specialize into any organ, in non-human primate embryos.
This method would be extremely advantageous as using a person’s own stem cells to grow organs would reduce the risk of organ rejection during organ transplantation because the organ would display the individual’s natural biological makeup.
Morteza Roodgar, DVM, PhD, conducted a study in which stem cells derived from blood cells taken from a chimpanzee were combined with an embryo of a rhesus macaque. After two days, the implanted cells were still alive.
While it’s still too early to know if the viability observed in this study will extend to personalized organ transplants, the proof-of-principle is exciting and promises great advancements in the field of organ transplantation.
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