Hi everyone. My name is Amirmohammad Shafiee, and I'm here with our expert, Dr.
Rodriguez. Some background information about me.
I am a fourth-year honors Life Sciences student at McMaster University, and today
we'll be talking to Dr.
Rodriguez about stem cells.
So if you wouldn't mind, could you please tell us more about yourself?
My name is Veronica Rodriguez Moncalvo, in this case.
I have been teaching the Life Sciences, in the Life Sciences program many, many
different undergrad courses.
One of them that is LifeSci 2A03 research methods in life sciences, which has a focus
not only on research methods, but it does so with a focus or a theme that is stem cell
research. On the side I also supervise undergrad students, which do undergrad thesis
on the field of stem cells, in particular using Hydra, an aquatic invertebrate organism
that has a great capacity of regeneration and therefore undergrad thesis study stem
cells of hydra in different conditions.
Professor, could you tell us what stem cells are?
Stem cells are specific type of undifferentiated cells that all organisms
have that provide organisms with the capacity of regeneration, which means
replacing damaged tissue, and also allows organisms to replace damaged cells that occur
as a regular process that normal functioning of our organs and tissues.
I know you've introduced some information about your experience with them, but could
you tell us more about your experience with working with stem cells?
A Hydra has different types of stem cells, and we're looking into how stem cells allows
Hydra to regenerate with that high capacity, different ways in which students have been
studying stem cells and the function of stem cells in Hydra is by exposing Hydra, for
instance, to specific drugs, and see how those drugs affect the regeneration or the
replacement of missing tissues in Hydra.
Since you've been working with stem cells and have been doing stem cell research for a
while now, what are some myths and misconceptions that you commonly hear from
the general public surrounding the topic of stem cells?
That's a great question.
I think one of the common myths about stem cells, when people hear about stem cells and
the capacity of stem cells to replace missing tissues, probably many people wonder
why stem cells are not used more frequently to cure many different disorders or human
disease. The fact is that it's not that easy to work with stem cells.
It's very challenging.
There are many challenges that working with stem cells, that researchers working with
stem cells face.
And therefore, although ideally, it would be great to be able to use stem cells to cure
all kinds of disorders, human disease it's not as easy as one may think, given that stem
cells are very delicate.
They're not easy sometimes to isolate and grow in the lab.
So those are some of those challenges that researchers that work with stem cells face.
So what are some examples of other research that are associated with stem cells, maybe
some human stem cell research, like what is the current world of research regarding stem
cells?
That's also a great question.
Researchers have been using stem cells, for instance, to screen, so to look for potential
drugs that can be used as potential therapeutics for human disease.
So using specific stem cells in the lab to treat those stem cells with these particular
drugs, to find a suitable drug that can be used as a potential therapeutic tool.
Also, researchers have been using stem cells to better understand how organs and tissues
develop. But certainly one field of stem cell research that has been going on for
quite a while now.
And lately, as I mentioned before, stem cells can, if manipulated in certain way, can
be used to study or to model human disease.
So for the next question, what are your personal opinion or vision on the future that
this research of stem cell can potentially take?
For example, what are some of its implications?
Would there be any more clinical use or just where you see it going in general?
Yeah.
That's an interesting question and one that probably many, many of us are wondering, so,
as I mentioned earlier, researchers face many challenges when it comes to working with
stem cells, especially when looking at the potential of the use of stem cells for what
is called cell therapy.
So the replacement of damaged cells in human patients.
These days, researchers have been looking into new ways and better ways to manipulate
stem cells, either in the lab in a little petri dish or what we call in-situ in the
living organism.
So in this case, in the patient itself, to modify those stem cells in a way that could
better replace those damaged cells without any potential side effects, like
Tumorogenesis or any other kind of side effects.
Thank you, Dr. Rodriguez, for giving us this opportunity and this interview.
That was a very informative and interesting topic and wonderful answers.