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69 - Stem Cell Research
from PART IV - ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN FERTILITY AND ASSISTED REPRODUCTION
- By M. E. Poo, Carlos Simón
Edited by Botros R. M. B. Rizk, University of South Alabama, Juan A. Garcia-Velasco, Hassan N. Sallam, Antonis Makrigiannakis, University of Crete
Book:

Infertility and Assisted Reproduction

Published online:

04 August 2010

Print publication:

15 September 2008, pp 695-705
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Summary

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are invaluable research tools to study embryonic development and can serve as a platform to develop and test new therapies. The main sources of embryos for hESC derivation are those obtained from assisted reproductive techniques at the in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics. Supernumerary frozen embryos have been successfully used for the generation of hESC lines. An alternative xenobiotic-free feeder system for the growth of hESCs involves their growth on human foreskin cells obtained from newborn males following circumcision. The field of hESC research will center its efforts on overcoming three main obstacles in the hESC derivation process: the need to develop consistent "feeder-free and xeno-free systems, embryo-friendly approaches and the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) techniques which will seek to avoid immune rejection at the clinical level, with or without the use of oocytes as host cell.