In the movie "The Mummy", O'Connor and Evelyn accidentally opened the seal of the evil high priest Immorton, and Imogen was reborn by releasing plague and absorbing human body tissue. This weird scene makes Yaojun still shudder when he thinks about it.
The resurrection of the high priest Immorton is the legendary result of ancient Egyptian magic, but there is something similar in the field of biology, which is stem cells .
Stem cells are used in a wide range of applications. They can be used to regenerate animal limbs, but when they first came into public view, they were mired in endless controversy over how they were obtained.
stem cells work their magic by functioning undifferentiated, which is the most common form of growth in embryos.
In the early stages of embryonic development, it is mainly composed of undifferentiated cells, which can grow into anything.
It is not until later stages of growth that they are fully developed and become part of any organ, bone, or many other tissues of a person.
Harvesting these undifferentiated cells opens up new therapies, but many people are uncomfortable with harvesting these cells from embryos, even if those embryos never grow.
In recent years, research has continued to discover other ways to obtain stem cells. These methods no longer require the use of embryos. Scientists have even discovered how to reverse the clock in some specialized cells so that they become pluripotent stem cells again.
Despite these incredible technological advances, when we need stem cells today, we still have to extract them from bone marrow or fat.
These surgeries are invasive, painful and uncomfortable for patients. However, if it means saving one person's life, it's worth it.
Now, the days of invasive surgery to harvest their stem cells may soon be over.
Scientists at Wake Forest University's Institute for Regenerative Medicine and colleagues discovered the presence of stem cells in human urine and confirmed that these stem cells also have regenerative potential.
Collecting stem cells from urine has very clear advantages over previous methods. The biggest one is eliminating the need for invasive surgery.
While peeing in a doctor's office or even using a catheter isn't the most comfortable experience, it's still much better than having to use a scalpel.
Researchers found that approximately 140 cloned stem cells could be extracted from urine collected within 24 hours. There aren't many of them, but they reproduce quickly.
In the laboratory, scientists watched 140 stem cells expand to more than 100 million in three weeks.
Their recent study investigated telomerase activity in urine-derived stem cells (USCs).
Telomerase is an important enzyme for cell regeneration and differentiation into other cell types. They confirmed that telomerase-positive USC has regenerative potential and the ability to differentiate into other cell types.
