Pancreatic Stem Cells
The aim of Pancreatic Stem Cells is to provide a broad overview of an intriguing model of organogenesis (the development of the pancreas) from the perspective of stem cell research. The tangible prospect of devising effective cell therapies for type I dia
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Juan Domínguez-Bendala
Pancreatic Stem Cells
Juan Domínguez-Bendala, MSc, PhD Research Assistant Professor of Surgery Pancreatic Development & Stem Cell Laboratory Diabetes Research Institute University of Miami Miami, FL 33136 USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-60761-131-8 e-ISBN 978-1-60761-132-5 DOI 10.1007/978-1-60761-132-5 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009926048 © Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Humana Press, c/o Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science + Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
The last decade has witnessed the consolidation of “regenerative medicine” as a recognized scientific field, encompassing disciplines as diverse as cell biology, immunology, developmental biology, and surgery. The report on the isolation of human embryonic stem (huES) cells by James Thomson in 19981 opened our eyes to a ground-breaking notion: that defective tissues could be replaced by an unlimited source of self-renewing cells with the ability to morph in vitro into any of them. The revolutionary nature of this idea is evidenced by the fact that concepts such as “regenerative medicine” or “stem cell therapies” were not in common use in the scientific literature until the late nineties. Until then, and despite reports of embryonic stem cells obtained from several animal species,2–4 there was no identifiable organized quest for a “human tissue building block,” as there was one, for example, to decipher the entirety of the human genome. In retrospect, it is as though the majority of the scientific community had not envisioned applications for these unique cells other than to create animal models for human diseases, increase livestock output, or improve the production of therapeutic proteins from transgenic animals. This seeming “unexpectedness” was further confirmed when, shortly after this breakthrough, all major scientific journals started to publish a plethora of reports on the therapeutic potential of stem cells of adult origin. Since the technology to isolate and expand adult stem cells had already been in use for a long time before Thomson’s discovery, it remains surprising that very few had
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