Hopes and Dangers of Stem Cells

Although there are many therapies based on stem cells today, most of them involve the use of adult stem cells. There are also approaches, such as IGF-1, that aim to increase the ability of the body’s existing stem cells instead of introducing new stem cells into the body.

Researchers suspect that therapies based on embryonic stem cells could be even more powerful tools, but many questions remain—such as how to make sure a particular treatment doesn’t cause cancer over the long term.