Understanding Stem Cells: Types, Risks, and Benefits Explained

Overseas you could do embryonic stem cells. But those cells carry certain risks, which is the potential of forming new cancer, new tumor. So embryonic stem cells has that potential and induced pluripotent stem cells. It can cause this uncontrolled cancer growth, which is called teratoma. Hi, this is Dr. Joy Kong again today. I want to answer a question about how many kinds of stem cells are there? So some providers even are making a mistake I on social media that stem cells are these cells that can go anywhere, do anything and form, you know, cells of any tissue you need. And that's just not the case. We don't have those cells right now, at least not used clinically in this country, because those will be considered embryonic stem cells. Those are not really used clinically in this country, although research can be done under a clinical study. But it's not just given to anyone off the street as a. When you use stem cells these days, most of the time we're talking about mesenchymal stem cells. There are other cells as well. There are other cell types that can be obtained from the bone marrow, the fat, right, the umbilical cord tissue or cord blood. These are the major types. But you can get stem cells from different sources as well, like menstrual blood, dental pulp. So there are a lot of places you can get them because we as adults still contain a lot of stem cells in our body, even though the number drop drastically. Just example, we're talking about mesenchymal stem cells. These are specific cells that actually perform the function of regeneration all throughout your body. Anywhere you have blood vessels, you will have these mesenchymal stem cells. But they're just one type of stem cell that perform this regeneration type of function, provide a lot of signals throughout your body. Anywhere you have blood supply, these cells are there. But starting from a fertilized egg, all the way down to an organ specific stem cell like the heart muscle cell or a neuron or liver cell. That's the end stage functional cell that's performing a function in your body, right? Do its work. It's like a worker cell, but anywhere before it reaches the last step of a worker cell. All these are stem cells starting from when you were an embryo or fertilized egg and you become an embryo. And embryo day five to seven becomes a ball. Within the ball there are all these cells. It's called inner cell mass. You can take one of those cells out and that can form an entire human being. But as you start to develop and form different structures, all these early cells are different stages of stem cells, and they every time they divide and they gain function, they lose potentials. So initially, large potential, little function. As they develop, less potential to go wide, but more focused and deeper going into more functional route. So there are thousands of shades of these stem cells. So when we talk about stem cells, you can't just say, oh, we use stem cells. What kind of stem cel stage, where in the embryo are they? Are they ectoderm, germ layer or mesoderm or endoderm? Where are they? And so that will show us what kinds of potentials they have. So there's a lot of nuances to stem cells. Like I mentioned, these days, we utilize mesenchymal stem cells a lot because of the signaling benefits, because they're everywhere in the body. So they promote regeneration and talk to your immune system, talk to local environment, and they coordinate this regeneration. But there are other kinds of stem cells as well. We use, like cells from the bone marrow and cord blood. These two have very similar compositions. The cord blood, umbilical cord blood, of course, is a lot younger and more potent. The bone marrow is a lot older and less potent, but the composition is very similar. They have a lot of what's called mononuclear cells, so immature primitive immune cells. And they also have hematopoietic progenitor cells that can form the entire ilio progenitor cells that can form the lining of the blood vessel and some fibroblasts, et cetera. So various cell types, but very, very few mesenchymal stem cells in these sources. That's bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. But if you want more mesenchymal stem cells, then we're looking at the fat and umbilical cord tissue. Umbilical cord tissue, of course, contain very, very young cells. The fat, we're not dealing with the fat, really. We're trying to get the fat so we can spin them down and get rid of the fat cells, but obtain the stem cells that are lining the blood vessels that are supplying the fat. So that source actually is rich in mesenchymal stem cells. So these are the different cell sources, of course, we're also talking about, is it from your own body or from a donor? So if you are getting bone marrow extractions from yourself, of course you're giving it back to yourself. And if you're using the fat, you can also transfer it back to yourself. But, you know, we've seen bone marrow transplantations, right? That's actually the first stem cell treatment and that was back in 1960s. Even though at that time people didn't know that they were performing stem cell transplant, they thought it was bone marrow transplant. There's something, you know, incredible about bone marrow. Later on, they found out that there are stem cells in bone marrow. And then for quite a while, they still thought that the only stem cells that are in the body are in the bone marrow. They didn't know that they're everywhere. So we have a lot of various types of stem cells in the body, and we can utilize one type of cells or a combination of cells. So I believe in the benefit of synergistic interactions, and not only this is my belief, but also has been shown in clinical studies that if you use just, let's say, umbilical cord cells, if you just use umbilical cord blood cells, those are, you know, a lot of primitive immune cells, hematopoietic progenitor cells, et cetera, those may produce certain benefits, such as in autism. But if you use a combination of these cells plus the mesenchymal stem cells, then you get an elevation of benefits because the cells do work synergistically together, and you get added benefit. Um, this is why when I develop the product we use, I make sure that there are cells from the umbilical core blood and from the umbilical tissue and also from the amniotic membrane, which also contains a lot of mesenchymal stem cells. And those mesenchymal stem cells are just a little bit different from the mesenchymal stem cells in the core tissue and the cord blood. So they all have different differentiation pathways. Right. So when you talk about different differentiation pathways, that means different sets of genes are turned on and off. So there are different orientations for these cells because different genes are turned on and off. So when we bring them all together, then they can perform wider array of functions in the body, not to mention that they can work together. So that's kind of the very basic gist of it. Of course, I haven't mentioned the different sources, different types. I mentioned a little bit about embryonic stem cells. Those studies have, you know, have continued, but is not used clinically in this country unless it's under clinical study. And I don't know anyone that's participating in that. And overseas you could embryonic stem cells, but, you know, those cells carry certain risks, which is the potential of forming new cancer, new tumor, uncontrolled growth of a ball of cells of all types of tissues. So embryonic stem cells has that potential and induced Pluripotent stem cells have that potential. And those are the cells that was discovered by Japanese scientists that you can take a skin cell and basically giving them certain stimulation, triggering a reversion of their state back to the embryonic state. But those cells have the same problem as the embryonic stem cells, that it can cause this uncontrolled cancer growth, which is called teratoma. And of course there are other risks too, because they use viral vectors to change the cells. And there were also other concerns because of the viral factor. So there are different concerns with these different types of cells. Embryonic stem cells is from embryo, right? That's not from any existing human being. So that will be different from the recipient. So the genetic makeup will be different. But again, I think the biggest concern is the teratoma formation from embryonic stem cells and the induced pluripotent stem cells. So those are not really used clinically yet, but I have seen fetal stem cells being used. So that's from a fetus. And that can come from anywhere from nine weeks all the way to, I guess until close to birth. So that's the fetus. There are clinics such as in Ukraine that they can take, I guess, parts of the body off the fetus, certain organs, they can process that and give it to a person. But that is not done in the US for obvious reason, reasons because of ethical concerns. So in the United States, only cells that are used will be from your own body. That will be mostly from bone marrow or fat. Again, bone marrow is rich in mononuclear cells, hematopoietic progenitor cells, endothelial cells with a little bit of mesenchymal stem cell. So that's the bone marrow and the core blood. That's from your own body. And if you're using mesenchymal stem cells, if you're using from your own body, it'll be mostly from fat. If you're using it from the birth tissue, it will be from the umbilical cord TISS membrane. So I hope that helps clarify what kind of stem cells are there. What are we talking about? The mesenchymal stem cells has definitely become the gold standard, has so much research behind it. It has a multitude of functions including anti inflammatory function, immunomodulating properties, and anti fibrotic, you know, cell rescuing capabilities. They of course can have, you know, can help you get rid of cancer, anti cancer properties, help you originate blood vessel formation, and helping you with vasculature, neovasculature. So there's a whole multitude of benefits and it's immune privileged, which means it kind of undergoes the radar of the immune system, but also calm the immune system so allowing the immune system not to overreact. So those are a lot of the benefits advantages and you can also multiply them, you know, in culture, easily. There are problems with that. I've talked about it in other videos about cell expansion and what that means. It doesn't mean that you can grow the cells, you know, on trees and you just keep growing them and there's no consequence. So they do degrade and they can produce inflammatory molecules and they have genetic expressions, gene, genetic orientation changes and that can all cause problems. So. But you know, I want to stop here because I want to mainly talk about the different types of stem cells. So I hope you find this helpful and. And until next time, and if you think somebody may find this interesting or they really want to understand stem cells and is trying to figure out if they want to utilize this new exciting form of therapy, please share this video with them and I will chat with you next time. Thank you.