The adult stem cell is an undifferentiated cell that is found in a differentiated tissue. It has the ability to renew itself and become specialized to yield all the cell types of the tissue from which it originated and, in the appropriate environment, can also become a specialized cell of a different tissue. Adult stem cells are capable of self-renewal for the lifetime of the organism.

Sources of adult stem cells have been found in bone marrow, the blood stream, cornea and retina of the eye, the dental pulp of the tooth, liver, skin, gastrointestinal tract, adipose tissue and pancreas. Stem cells offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat a myriad of diseases, conditions and disabilities. Adult stem cells are relatively quiescent cells, particularly in organisms where cell turnover is low, yet they can mount a rapid and strong response to tissue stress and injury.

As cells designed to withstand crisis and orchestrate repair, stem cells must be especially resilient. Until recently, it had been thought that a stem cell collected from the bone marrow or peripheral blood (a hematopoietic stem cell) could not give rise to cells of a different tissue type, such as nerve cells. A number of clinical studies over recent years have affirmed the phenomenon known as plasticity. Plasticity is the ability of adult stem cells to differentiate to other cell types from a specific cell line. In other words, stem cells, from the bone marrow or from the circulating blood do have the ability to differentiate into other cell types such as heart cells or nerve cells.

Because of this plasticity, your own adult stem cells are the perfect ethical and moral alternative to stem cells derived from other donors or from embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cell transplants (bone marrow transplants) have been used for over 40 years in successfully treating cancers such as leukemia, multiple myeloma and lymphomas and it has now opened the doors of regenerative and reparative therapeutics.