Introduction: 

What is a stem cell?

A stem cell is a blank cell capable of becoming another cell type in the body, such as a skin cell, a muscle or a nervous cell.

Why are they important?

The stem cells have the potential to treat an enormous range of diseases and conditions that plague millions of people around the world. Their ability to treat so many diseases rest on their unique properties of:

• Self-renewal: stem cells can renew themselves almost indefinitely. This is also know  as proliferation.
• Differentiation: stem cell have the special ability to differentiate into cell with specialised characteristics and function.
• Unspecialised: stem cells themselves are largely unspecialised cells which then give rise to specialised cell.