Author: satchitananda

Back to Beginner’s Guide to Stem Cell Banking Moinam Pal is a 6 year old boy from Siliguri, West Bengal, who was diagnosed with HbE-Beta Thalassaemia and was successfully treated with stem cell therapy. His is an amazing medical story that has created a new hope in millions of parents across the country. This long awaited child was born on February 25, 2005 to Ashim Kumar and Manisha Pal, both of whom are teachers.  Their joy, however, was short-lived.  When Moinam was 7 months old, he started looking very pale and tired which made the worried parents rush him...

What are stem cells? The body consists of various organs that are made of different kinds of cells that are very specialized or differentiated.  Each specialized kind of cell performs a certain function e.g. the brain cells are very different from liver cells and cannot be used to replace each other.  All these different kind of cells arise from cells called the stem cells.  Types of Stem Cells Totipotent cells:  Some, like cells derived from the embryo during the early days after formation can differentiate into any and every kind of cell in the body.  However cells from one...