How scientists discovered stem cells – 03/20/2024 – Science

The second video in the series A Culpa é da Ciência, produced by a partnership between Sheet and Sociedade Beneficente Israelita Brasileira Albert Einstein, shows how the attempt to discover how a single cell gives rise to the complexity of the organism of human beings and other animals led to discoveries with the potential to revolutionize medicine. This is the history of studies on stem cells, the most versatile cells in our body.

Speculation about the existence of this cell type began in the 19th century, when scientists used to think about the topic from an evolutionary point of view. This is because the idea is that current living beings arose from unicellular ancestors (this is still the consensus among scientists today).

The idea then arose that this evolutionary process could be recapitulated during the development of embryos. At the same time, scientists were trying to understand the variety of cell types present in organs like blood. The combination of these ideas and decades of experiments culminated in the discovery that some cells from the early embryonic stage were capable of giving rise to all the different tissues of the body, from brain cells to heart cells.

Today, researchers’ main goal is to discover how to control this process to produce tissues and organs tailored for transplants, without the risk of rejection.