Adult stem cell diagram

An illustration showing a stem cell giving rise to more stem cells or specialised cells. Image credit: Genome Research Limited. An illustration showing different types of stem cell in the body. A scientist here at the Wellcome Genome Campus working on induced pluripotant stem cells. These heart cells were grown from stem cells in a petri dish and can be used to study the beating rhythm of the heart.

Jump to navigation. For many years, researchers have been seeking to understand the body's ability to repair and replace the cells and tissues of some organs, but not others. After years of work pursuing the how and why of seemingly indiscriminant cell repair mechanisms, scientists have now focused their attention on adult stem cells. It has long been known that stem cells are capable of renewing themselves and that they can generate multiple cell types. Today, there is new evidence that stem cells are present in far more tissues and organs than once thought and that these cells are capable of developing into more kinds of cells than previously imagined.

Stem cells are the foundation for every organ and tissue in your body. There are many different types of stem cells that come from different places in the body or are formed at different times in our lives. These include embryonic stem cells that exist only at the earliest stages of development and various types of tissue-specific or adult stem cells that appear during fetal development and remain in our bodies throughout life.

ASCs are undifferentiated cells found living within specific differentiated tissues in our bodies that can renew themselves or generate new cells that can replenish dead or damaged tissue. ASCs are typically scarce in native tissues which have rendered them difficult to study and extract for research purposes. Resident in most tissues of the human body, discrete populations of ASCs generate cells to replace those that are lost through normal repair, disease, or injury.