Stem Cells From Myth To Reality And Evolving

This book is a continuum of the first two books published in the STEM CELLS series entitled "Stem Cells: From Drug to Drug Discovery" and "Stem Cells: From Hype to Real Hope" which were published in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The scope of the book encompasses a wide range of topics with a latitude from adult stem cells to pluripotent stem cells in regenerative medicine either alone or as part of the combinatorial therapeutic intervention approach as "drug" besides their application as tools (disease model) during drug development process. Written by a leading group of researchers, the book encompasses experimental to clinical aspects of stem/progenitors cells, their biology, and characteristics.

Stem Cells: Promises and Reality will tell you everything you have always wanted to know about stem cells, but could not understand the field from elsewhere. Stem cells are the great therapeutic promise of the century, and this evolving field of research and medicine brings with it many legal, ethical and psychological issues that must be discussed by society as a whole. Written so as to be accessible to general readers as well as specialists, this book explains what stem cells are, and the different aspects of stem cell research and applications. The book will enable the reader to understand the field sufficiently to critically participate in the public debates regarding stem cell research and society and ethics. By the end of the book, the reader will also be able to judge news on the stem cells field, and to discern what are real advances and what are phony treatments. The main advantage of this book in comparison with other "stem cells for the general public" books is that it assumes the reader knows NOTHING about biology, except what is already common knowledge (for example, that we are made of cells). The book constructs step by step the required basic biology knowledge in order for the reader to understand all the different aspects of stem cells. At the same time that it is thorough in its stem cells-based content, and will keep the reader engaged with its narrative.

The handbook comprehensively reviews the therapeutic potential of stem cells and stem cell secretome-based cell-free strategies in regenerative medicine. The chapters in section I and section II respectively discuss the diverse applications of mesenchymal stem cells and non- mesenchymal stem cells, including skeletal myoblasts, endothelial progenitor cells, adipose tissue-derived stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, and neuronal stem cells in myocardial repair, inflammatory bowel disease, cognitive deficits, wound healing, retinal disorders, and COVID-19. The subsequent chapters in section IIIprimarily focused on the fast-emerging cell-free therapy approach in regenerative medicine for tissue repair and regeneration. These chapters review the impact of stem cell-derived secretome on various biological processes such as angiogenesis, neurogenesis, tissue repair, immunomodulation, musculoskeletal pathologies, wound healing, anti-fibrotic, and anti-tumorigenesis for tissue maintenance and regeneration.Lastly, section IV summarizes miscellaneous aspects of cell-based therapy, includingthe treatment advantages, opportunities, and shortcomings in stem cell-based therapy, potentially helping to refine future studies and translate them from experimental to clinical studies. Moreover, this section also has chapters on cancer stem cells as novel targets in cancer therapeutics. This Major Reference Book (MRW) is a valuable resource for researchers involved in stem cell research to understand the multifaceted therapeutic applications of stem cells and their derivative secretome in regenerative medicine.​

The book covers multifarious aspects of stem cell-based therapy for cardiovascular diseases. In addition to stem cells from different sources for cell-based therapy, it covers stem cell organoids and stem cell-derived exosomes in regenerative medicine. The book also encompasses advances in state-of-the-art infrastructure to improve the maturation aspects of pluripotent stem cells-derived cardiomyocytes using a novel scaffold-based cell culture system for cell delivery in experimental animal models and clinical settings. Besides the use of mesenchymal stem cells, the book includes chapters on the use of cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs), microtissue implantation, use of PSCs for valvulopathies, application of de-cellularized organ arrays as natural scaffolds for cardiac tissue engineering, use of epicardial stem cells, and skeletal myoblasts in cell-based therapy for myocardial regeneration. Besides the cell-based therapy approach, the book also reviews the stem cell-derived exosomes, their characteristics, and engineering strategies to enhance their therapeutic potential via targeting and drug loading and use in disease models. Additionally, the book also discusses the latest research on injectable hydrogels for cardiovascular regeneration and how hydrogel-based delivery protects the cells and their retention post-engraftment in the heart, a problem, which significantly reduces the efficacy of cell-based therapy.

This clear, lively, and systematic presentation examines the scientific evidence for evolution and reaches for the widest possible audience—from scientific minds to those with no science background at all. Forcefully rejecting creationist objections to evolution and including a critique of Intelligent Design, it argues that they are part of a larger social agenda. With discussion that celebrates the fascination to be found in studying the diversity and complexity of life, this examination suggests with some urgency that the science of evolution is crucial to the existence of science itself.

The immune systems of human and non-human primates have diverged over time, such that some species differ considerably in their susceptibility, symptoms, and survival of particular infectious diseases. Variation in primate immunity is such that major human pathogens - such as immunodeficiency viruses, herpesviruses and malaria-inducing species of Plasmodium - elicit striking differences in immune response between closely related species and within primate populations. These differences in immunity are the outcome of complex evolutionary processes that include interactions between the host, its pathogens and symbiont/commensal organisms. The success of some pathogens in establishing persistent infections in humans and other primates has been determined not just by the molecular evolution of the pathogen and its interactions with the host, but also by the evolution of primate behavior and ecology, microflora, immune factors and the evolution of other biological systems. To explore how interactions between primates and their pathogens have shaped their mutual molecular evolution, Primates, Pathogens and Evolution brings together research that explores comparative primate immune function, the emergence of major and neglected primate diseases, primate-microorganism molecular interactions, and related topics. This book will be of interest to anyone curious as to why infectious diseases manifest differently in humans and their closest relatives. It will be of particular interest to scholars specializing in human and non-human primate evolution, epidemiology and immunology, and disease ecology. Primates, Pathogens and Evolution offers an overview and discussion of current findings on differences in the molecular mechanics of primate immune response, as well as on pathogen-mediated primate evolution and human and non-human primate health.

Ecology and Evolution of Cancer is a timely work outlining ideas that not only represent a substantial and original contribution to the fields of evolution, ecology, and cancer, but also goes beyond by connecting the interfaces of these disciplines. This work engages the expertise of a multidisciplinary research team to collate and review the latest knowledge and developments in this exciting research field. The evolutionary perspective of cancer has gained significant international recognition and interest, which is fully understandable given that somatic cellular selection and evolution are elegant explanations for carcinogenesis. Cancer is now generally accepted to be an evolutionary and ecological process with complex interactions between tumor cells and their environment sharing many similarities with organismal evolution. As a critical contribution to this field of research the book is important and relevant for the applications of evolutionary biology to understand the origin of cancers, to control neoplastic progression, and to prevent therapeutic failures. Covers all aspects of the evolution of cancer, appealing to researchers seeking to understand its origins and effects of treatments on its progression, as well as to lecturers in evolutionary medicine Functions as both an introduction to cancer and evolution and a review of the current research on this burgeoning, exciting field, presented by an international group of leading editors and contributors Improves understanding of the origin and the evolution of cancer, aiding efforts to determine how this disease interferes with biotic interactions that govern ecosystems Highlights research that intends to apply evolutionary principles to help predict emergence and metastatic progression with the aim of improving therapies