How Does Diversity and Immigration Impact Innovation?

How Does Diversity and Immigration Impact Innovation? Anca Pop Nowadays, due to the increasingly competitive economic environment, and the constant danger of economic turn-downs, innovation has come into great prominence not only as an important source of competitive advantage, but also as a powerful driver of economic growth and prosperity. In this new context, attention has been drawn to the role that cultural diversity and immigration play in fostering innovation. Thus, the aim of this essay is to assess the impact of immigration on innovation. Furthermore, the question regarding whether or not a culturally diverse society represents an enabling environment for innovativeness shall be discussed. Nevertheless, a number of evidences and empirical data which support the linkage between cultural diversity, immigration and the innovation process shall be analysed. Statistical reports have shown that at the turn of the century â€Å"4.6% of world population was born in a different country from the one where it currently lived†. (Bratti and Conti, 2012:2). Given the size of this phenomenon, immigration has come into sharp focus on the global agenda, currently being at the centre of many economic and political debates and its economic consequences giving rise to a high level of research activity. Thus, it would be of highly importance to consider the contribution of increasingly cultural diversity in many societies to the innovation system especially when dealing with economic analysis and policy. However, in order to be able to analyse the effects of immigration and cultural diversity on innovation, firstly, the meaning of „innovation† as a concept along with its indicators should be tackled. Defining â€Å"innovation† could be rather a difficult task as it is a â€Å"multi-faceted phenomenon†, and a widely used concept in various ways and different contexts. (Venturini, 2005: 1) However, it could be generally agreed that †Innovation is different from pure invention. Innovation involves the successful implementation of a new product, service or process, which for most activities entails their commercial success.† (Gordon and McCann, 2005: 3). In addition to this, Ozgen, Nijkamp and Poot (2013: 3) state that innovation is achieved â€Å"by means of analytical knowledge† and argue that â€Å"The improvement of an existing product or the modification of an existing process or organizational arrangement can also be viewed as an innovation.† Regarding the measures of innovation, the most prominent ones are the number of patent applications and the Total Factor Productivity, used as proxies of technological growth and effective innovation s at both firm and country levels. Having now defined this process, leads the analysis further, to establishing how does immigration affect innovation. In recent years, research activities have demonstrated a rather positive correlation between migration and innovativeness, as â€Å"individuals coming from different countries usually have different, complementary skills with respect to natives, and the production of new ideas may be positively influenced by contacts and interchanges between culturally diverse individuals† (Bratti and Conti, 2012: 4). In addition to this, â€Å"migration brings youth to ageing countries, and allows ideas to circulate in millions of mobile minds. That is good both for those who arrive with suitcases and dreams and for those who should welcome them†. (The Economist, 2011) A rather more technical research on this matter is conducted by Ozgen, Nijkamp and Poot (2012) who study the impact of size, skills and diversity of immigration on the innovativeness of host regions using the number of patent applications per million inhabitants from 170 regions in Europe for the periods 1991-1995 and 2001-2005. According to this study, there are five mechanisms through which immigration may boost innovation: â€Å"the population size effect†; â€Å"the population density effect†; â€Å"the migrant share effect†; â€Å"the skill composition effect† and â€Å"the migrant diversity effect†. (Ozgen, Nijkamp and Poot, 2011:2). The first three mechanisms result from the fact that immigration increases the local aggregate demand. This boost in the aggregate demand could be met through an increase in the level and diversity of local production, which in the long run might need additional investment and thereby will encourage product and process innovation. Furthermore, local economy prosperity not only will generate firm growth but will also encourage additional start-up firms resulting into an innovation lift. Moreover, usually attracted to the large metropolitan areas with better job opportunities, migrants increase the urban population and thereby strengthen the forces of agglomeration which leads to greater innovation. (Ozgen, Nijkamp and Poot, 2011: 3). A more debated way through which the innovation system is enhanced by immigration refers to the skill composition effect on innovation. Given that the modern economy is in a constant quest for fresh ideas and better goods that would accelerate business growth, the global competition for highly-skilled migrants has gained magnitude. â€Å"Their role in innovation may seem obvious: the more clever people there are the more ideas are likely to flourish, especially if they can be commercialised.† (The Economist, 2009) Considerable empirical evidence for this is provided by Kerr who gathered data about the 8 million scientists who had acquired an American patent between 1975 and 2004. Hence, he found that the share of patents given to American-born scientists fell while the share of all patents awarded to immigrant scientists from China and India increased from 4.1% in the late 1970s to 13.9% between 2000 and 2004. (The Economist, 2009) Moreover, Kerr and William Lincoln (2008) ana lysed the way changes in the number of H-1B visa admissions reflected on patents in the years between 1995 and 2006. It is imperious to mention that H-1B visa is the United States work visa for skilled immigrants, which allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise as well as the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent as a minimum. Thus, they point out that â€Å"the estimates suggest that a 10% growth in the H-1B worker population is associated with a 2% increase in patenting† (Kerr and Lincoln, 2008: 20) Bosetti, Cattaneo and Verdolini (2013: 1) predict that skilled immigration has a significant positive contribution not only to the knowledge creation in host countries as â€Å"they add to the pool of skills in destination markets†, but also enhances natives ‘productivity as the interaction of diverse cultures and approaches in problem solving and brain storming situations might give birth to new, original ideas. In order to support these predictions, they have studied the effect of skilled migrants on the number of patents applied for through the Patent Cooperation Treaty and citations of scientific publications, as proxies of innovation in a panel of twenty European countries from 1995 to 2008. Thus, in accordance with their initial prediction, Bosetti, Cattaneo and Verdolini (2013:11) found out that â€Å"the variable measuring the stock of knowledge in a given country (stock of RD expenditure) exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on innovation. A 1 percent increase in the stock of RD expenditures is associated with a 0.6 percent and a 0.4 percent increase in patent application and citation, respectively†. In a similar vein, Hunt and Gauthier-Loiselle (2009) measure the likeness of skilled immigrants to enrich innovation and at what extent. They do so by evaluating the differences in patenting behaviour between immigrants and natives as well as the state-level determinants of patenting using a panel of data from 1940-2000 in the Unites States. The results show that a 1% increase in the college graduate immigrants implied 6.1% rise in patents per capita while 1% increase in the share of college natives raise patents per capita only by 3.5%. Furthermore, â€Å"1.3 percentage point increase in the share of the population composed of immigrant college graduates and the 0.7 percentage point increase in the share of post-college immigrants both increased patenting per capita by about 12% (..). The 0.45 percentage point increase in immigrant scientists and engineers increased patenting per capita by about 13%.† (Hunt and Gauthier-Loiselle, 2009:20). Hence they discover that one way ski lled immigrants could boost patenting per capita is by engaging in science and engineering as the knowledge and skills these occupations request are more easily transferable across countries. Skilled immigrants could also enrich patenting per capita, if an immigration policy regarding immigrants’ selection according to their abilities and knowledge levels was introduced. This would attract more science and engineering orientated migrants and would encourage less skilled migrants to acquire higher education and engage themselves more into the innovation process. (Hunt and Gauthier-Loiselle, 2009: 2). Nevertheless, due to migration and globalisation, diversity has become an increasingly outstanding feature of today’s world. This brings into discussion the fifth mechanism through which immigration can boost the innovation system, the migrant diversity effect, as an important link to innovation. A say on this matter had the European Commission (2008: 8), in their work regarding the diversity journey in search for talent, competitiveness and innovation: â€Å"as innovation processes depend on harnessing creativity, and while dynamic as well as supportive systems of management can elicit the best from staff, like-minded people will usually produce like-minded results. Diversity in the workforce can, however, help companies to break this mould and the cycle of limited unilateral thinking and, in so doing, set them free to discover new products, markets, and ways of doing or leading business†. Empirical evidence that confirms the positive linkage between cultural diversity and innovation is provided by Niebuhr (2006). She investigates the impact of a cultural diverse labour force in German regions on innovation, using a sample of 200 different nationalities. The results show cultural diversity to be beneficial to innovation: â€Å"Due to their different cultural backgrounds, it is likely that migrants and native workers have fairly diverse abilities and knowledge. Thus, there might be skill complementarities between foreign workers and native in addition to those among workers of different qualification levels.† (Niebuhr, 2006: 564). But are cultural diversity and immigration always beneficial to innovation? According to Bratti and Conti (2012: 4), cultural diversity might also cause difficulties in communication, especially when natives and immigrants do not speak the same language. This might reduce social capital and therefore act as an impediment to innovation and economic performance. In addition, Ozgen (2013: 92) finds as outcomes of cultural diversity, lower levels of trust and higher discrimination within firms, â€Å"non-transferability of skills† or â€Å"non-recognition of qualifications† which play as impediments in ideas exchange or the formation of new knowledge. Similarly, â€Å"co-ethnic networks can lead to spatial or occupational segregation and clustering of migrant groups, which may also impede the contribution of immigrants to firm innovation†. Moreover, a few other situations which lie on the negative side of immigration could be observed. That would be the case of areas experiencing higher inflows of low-skilled or low educated migrants: â€Å"unskilled immigration can have a negative effect by reducing social capital, creating communication problems among workers or pushing firms to lower their efforts to introduce product and process innovations†. (Bratti and Conti, 2012:16). In order to uphold this statement, Bratti and Conti (2012: 22) evaluate the effect of low-skilled immigrants in Italian provinces on patent applications, as a proxy for innovativeness. Thus, they find evidence that there is a significant negative effect not only of low-skilled migrants, but also an overall negative effect of large inflows of immigrants on innovation: â€Å"rising immigrants’ share by 1 p.p. produces a 0.064 percent reduction in patents’ applications per 1,000 inhabitants.† This negative effect is proved to be mostly driven by the characteristics of immigrants who â€Å"mainly appear as a source of low-skilled and cheap labour force, which is employed in traditional economic sectors† (Bratti and Conti, 2012:11). Although it focuses especially on Italy, Bratti and Conti’s study is not necessarily a particular case, as their findings are also consistent with the Lewis’ work (2011: 1031) who has proved that areas rich in low-skilled immigrants areas adopted less machinery, giving technological change a slower evolution and: â€Å"plants added technology more slowly between 1988 and 1993 where immigration induced the ratio of high school dropouts to graduates to grow more quickly†. Hence, the substantial immigration boom from the end of the last century had a negative impact of knowledge formation and actively led to a slow growth in the supply of skills in the United States: â€Å"only after the large wave of immigration in the 1980s did high-immigration ci ties become more unskilled than low immigration cities.† (Lewis, 2011: 1031). On the other hand, there are also claims that even low-skill immigrants can indirectly enhance productivity gains and innovation: â€Å"Even low-skill immigrants who start small businesses that stay small are important to the American economy. They provide low cost services and access to more goods. There are also second-order effects, for example someone who provides child or elder care cheaply provide an invaluable service. This allows natives to works outside of their home† (The Economist, 2010). Similarly, Peri (2009: 17) has found a positive linkage between productivity gains and immigration in the United States in the years between 1960 and 2006, although the most majority of the immigrants in his sample were low-skilled and engaged in menial work. He proves that the inflow of unskilled migrants resulted in a more efficient allocation of skills and education to jobs amongst natives, thereby leading to an increase in the total factor productivity. Additionally, the negati ve effects of cultural diversity and unskilled immigrants could be overcome by properly exploiting the competencies of skilled immigrants as well as by attracting more highly educated immigrants. This could be achieved by introducing favourable immigration policies for high-skilled immigrants, in order to foster innovation and economic growth. Furthermore, free language courses and job-related training programs could be provided for immigrants in order to reduce language barriers and allow them to develop or upgrade their skills. To conclude, on theoretical grounds, there are several ways in which immigration and cultural diversity can affect both positively and negatively the innovation system. Given such a mixture of positive and negative effects, the overall impact of immigration on innovation should be considered in terms of empirical evidences. In this sense, this essay has presented a number of different studies and approaches from European countries, but also from the United States. What is more, five mechanisms through which immigration can boost innovation have been analysed. As opposed to this, several negative effects of cultural diversity and immigration with regards to the innovation process have been considered along with several ways these drawbacks could be overcome. Thus, all things considered, it could be consented that migration and cultural diversity represent an opportunity as much as a challenge, but if managed carefully it would lead to positive outcomes such as innovation, technologica l change, increasing productivity gains and ultimately to economic growth. References Bosetti V., Cattaneo C. and Verdolini E. (2012) â€Å"Migration, Cultural Diversity and Innovation: A European Perspective†, FEEM Working Paper No. 69.2012. Online at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2162836 (Accessed 14 January 2014) Bratti M. and Conti C. (2012) â€Å"Immigration, Population Diversity and Innovation of Italian regions† Online at: www.ecostat.unical.it/rd2013/Papers/Bratti_Conti.pdf‎ (Accessed 12 January 2014) European Commission (2008) â€Å"Continuing The Diversity Journey: Business Practices, Perspectives And Benefits† European Union Publications Office, Luxembourg. Gordon I.R. and McCann P. (2005) â€Å"Clusters, Innovation and Regional Development: An Analysis of Current Theories and Evidence†, in Johansson B., Karlsson C. and Stough R., (eds.), â€Å"Entrepreneurship, Spatial Industrial Clusters and Inter-Firm Network†s , Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Hunt, J. and M. Gauthier-Loiselle (2008) â€Å"How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?† NBER Working Paper14312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge Mass. Online at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp3921.pdf (Accessed 12 January 2014) Kerr W.R.andLincoln W. F. (2008)â€Å"TheSupplySideofInnovation:Hà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ 1BVisaReformsandU.S.EthnicInvention†JournalofLaborEconomics. Online at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15768 (Accessed 13th January 2014) Lewis, E. (2011) â€Å"Immigration, skill mix, and capital skill complementarity†. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, 1029–1069. Online at: http://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v126y2011i2p1029-1069.html (Accessed 9 January 2014) Niebuhr A. (2006): â€Å"Migration and innovation: Does cultural diversity matter for regional RD activity?† IAB discussion paper, No. 2006,14. Online at: http://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/31908 (Accessed 11 January 2014) Ozgen C. (2013) â€Å"Impacts of immigration and cultural diversity on innovation and economic growth† Online at: http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/handle/1871/47948/dissertation.pdf?sequence=1 (Accessed 13 January 2014) Ozgen, C., Nijkamp, P., Poot, J. (2011) Immigration and Innovation in European Regions IZA Discussion Papers 5676, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Online at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp5676.pdf (Accessed 12 January 2014) Peri, G. (2009) â€Å"The Effect of Immigration on Productivity: Evidence from US States† NBER working paper September 2009. Online at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15507 Accessed 14 January 2014 The Economist (17 September 2010) â€Å"Importing job growth† Online at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/09/economic_growth (Accessed 10 January 2014) The Economist (19 November 2011) â€Å"The magic of diasporas†. Online at: http://www.economist.com/node/21538742 (Accessed 10 January 2014) The Economist (5 March 2009) â€Å"Give me your scientists†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , Online at : http://www.economist.com/node/13234953 (Accessed10 January 2014) Venturini A. (2012) â€Å"Innovation and Migration† co-authored with F. Montobbio, C. Fassio, MPC Analytical Note, 2012/05. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI): European University Institute, 2012. Pluripotent Stem Cells: Benefits, Properties and Uses Pluripotent Stem Cells: Benefits, Properties and Uses INTRODUCTION Pluripotent stem cells give rise to nearly all cells types of the body, like, muscle, nerve, heart, and blood. They hold huge promise for both research health care. The advance in human biology continues to generate interest among scientists, patients suffering from a wide range of diseases, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes, their families. Embryonic stem (ES) cells, is derived from inner cell mass of mammalian blastocysts they have the ability to grow for an indefinite period while maintaining pluripotency. These properties have led to hope that human Embryonic Stem cells might be useful to understand the disease mechanisms, to monitor effective and safe drugs, to treat patients of various diseases and injuries, such as juvenile diabetes and spinal cord injury. Cell culture is the one of the most important basic biomedical research. From many decades, many innumerable insights into both normal pathologic cellular processes have been gleaned by the study of human cells explanted in vitro. Primary human cells have a small life span in culture, there is a regulation of tissue formation, regeneration, and repair. Many human cell types have never closely been adapted for the expansion in vitro, and the lack of available models of normal pathologic tissue structure has render many new important questions in human growth and disease pathogenesis and it is hard to find. At present three types of methods have been reported to induce pluripotency artificially in mouse somatic cells. Embryonic stem like cells can also be recognized by long-term culture of bone marrow cells, and pluripotent stem cells can be generate adult germ cells, either by vitro culture of spermatogonial cells or by the parthenogenesis of unfertilized eggs. The capability to reprogram cells from the human blood will let the generation of patient-spec ific stem cells for the diseases. In this disease-causing somatic mutations are then restricted to the cells of the hematopoietic lineage. Depending on methods used, reprogramming of the adult cells to gain iPSCs may pose significant risk those could limit their use in humans. Many scientists around the world, announced the discovery of the method that could eliminate oncogenes after the induction of pluripotency, which will increase the potential use of iPSC in human disease. In April 2009, it was verified that generation of iPS cells is feasible without any genetic modification of the adult cell: a repetitive treatment of cells by means of certain proteins channelled into the cells viapoly-arginine anchorswas sufficient to induce pluripotency. Pluripotent stem cells are a unique scientific and medical source.The pluripotent stem cells are derived using non-Federal funds 8yat the beginning, embryos donated voluntarily by couples who are undergo fertility treatment in an vitro ferti lization clinic. Human embryonic stem cells isolated from more surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics represent an immortal circulation of pluripotent cells that can theoretically generate any cell type inside the human body. PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS are generated from adults cells where induced pluripotent stem cells is the part of pluripotent stem cells and it is also called as iPS cells or iPSC’s. Pluripotent stem cells give rise to nearly all of the cells types of body, like muscle, nerve, heart, and blood. Pluripotent stem cells are called master cells because they are able to make cells from all three body layers, so they can produce any cells or body needs to repair itself, it is called pluripotency. Pluripotent stem have promising future in the area of regenerative medicine because it it is different in effect on the cells of the body which are neurons, heart, pancreatic liver cells. It can help in the representation of single cell which can remain to lost the damage or diseased cells. IPSC they are similar to natural pluripotent stem cells, like embryonic stem cells in many ways, like the appearance of certain stem cell genes proteins,  chromatin methylation  patterns, doubling time,  embryoid body  formation,  teratoma  formation, viable  chimera  formation, and potency and differentiability. Pluripotent stem cells EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS Embryonic stem cells is the most important type of pluripotent cells. Embryonic stem cells(ES cells) arepluripotentstem cellsthat are derived from theinner cell massof ablastocyst an early-stage preimplantation  embryo. Humanembryos reach the  blastocyst  stage 4–5 days postfertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells. From adult tissue iPSC has been derived. They cannot by pass the need of embryos but they can be matched in the patients which mean that pluripotent stem cells line will be present in the each individual. Without any risk of immune rejection autologous cells can be used for recognising the basic behaviour of disease present in the patients therapeutic transplants are not safe in iPSC technology. ESC that are appeared which have large domains of the genome that have a specific histone code, that are not found in more mature cells, which allows very fast inactivation or activation of gene expression. Embryonic stem cells arepluripotent th at are able todifferentiatein all derivatives of the three germ layers:ectoderm, endoderm, andmesoderm. It includes more than 220 cell types in the adult  body. Pluripotency distinguishes embryonic stem cells from  adult stem cells  found in  adults; while embryonic stem cells can produce all cell types in body, adult stem cells they are multipotent  and they can create only limited number of cell type. Human embryonic stem cell structure SOMATIC CELL NUCLEAR TRANSFER The somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) means, transferring the nucleus from a somatic cell, any cell of the body, to an other cell, in this case it’s an egg cell. This kind of pluripotent stem cell called ntES cell, which has only been made successfully in the inferior animals. To make ntES cells in the human patients, an egg donor, would be needed. The process of transferring a differentnucleusinto the egg â€Å"reprograms† it to a pluripotent condition, reactivating full set of genes for creating all the tissues of the body. PRODUCTION OF INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS iPSCs are introduced in a set of pluripotency associated genes or reprogramming factors in to a given cell kind. The original set of reprogramming factor are genes Oct4 (Pou5f1), Sox2, cMyc, and Klf4. It is a slow and unsufficient process which takes 1-2 weeks in mouse cells 3-4 weeks in human. It has efficiency of 0.01%- 0.1%. For improving the efficiency and time taken to get ipsc considerable changes have been done. In reprogramming factor, cell start to make colonies that look like pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotency is maintained by a combination of epigenetic, transcriptional and posttranscriptional mechanisms. PRODUCTION OF Ipsc CELLS GENERATION OF INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM cells. They divide culture donor cells. Transfect the stem cell-associated genes into cells by viral vectors. Harvest and culture the cells according to the Embryoic Stem cell culture by the use of mitotically in feeder cells. A small set of transfected cells become iPS cells generate ES-like colonies Generation of IPS cells Types of Pluripotent Stem Cells There are several types of pluripotent stem cells are Embryonic stem cells which are joined from the inner cell mass of blastocyst the embryos are produced from in vitro fertilisation, although this is important cause it eliminates the embryo, which could have been implanted for the formation of a baby. Embryonic germ cells which are obtained from the aborted foetuses and these pluripotent cells are copied from past cells. These past cells are those which can form sperm eggs. Embryonic carcinoma or the cancer cells which are cosset from tumour that sometimes are prevalent in a a foetus. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TOTIPOTENT,   PLURIPOTENT, AND MULTIPOTENT Totipotent cells can form all the kind of cell in a body, in addition the extraembryonic, or the placental cells. Embryonic cells, the 1st couple of cell divisions following fertilization are the only cells that are totipotent cells. Pluripotent cells can also give rise to all of the type of cells that make up the body. Embryonic stem cells are called pluripotent. Multipotent cells can expand into more than 1 cell type, but they are more limited than the pluripotent cells, adult stem cells cord blood stem cells are often considered as multipotent. BENEFITS OF PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS Pluripotent stem cells give a renewable basis of healthy cells tissues to treat many type of diseases similar to heart disease and diabetes. People who are burn those patients who suffer from autoimmune diseases like Parkinsons can give advantage from the usage of pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotent stem cells have large potential for treatment of diseases, because they give rise to majority of cell types in human body,which include muscle, blood, heart nerve cells. The use for pluripotent stem cells include the generation of cells tissues that are use in transplantation. Drug study research next method that pluripotent stem cells are beneficial. Animals are mostly used to measure the safety and use of drugs. Those drugs which are secure and used in development for testing on animals. TURNING PLURIPOTENT CELL INTO TREATMENT Over time, many techniques are developed, pluripotent stem cells could any one of the day allow doctors to create form, rejection-proof transplant to patch a scarred heart, revitalize damaged nerves or reboot an immune system which is not able of fighting infection. Doctors have first obtained  pluripotent  stem cells that match the patient genetically through genetic  reprogramming,  nuclear transfer, or parthenogenesis. There are four critical steps: To grow  pluripotent  stem cells that create a large quantity of healthy cells. Restore faulty genes,this would be needed if the cells are carrying a genetic disorder, such as sickle cell anemia which turn the stem cells into a specific cell kind or a tissue.A genetically healthy line of  pluripotent  cells is recognized, they must be creating specialized kinds of cells and this process is called as differentiation. To transplant cells or tissue to the diseased or damaged organ or tissue,the cells will require to reach right part of the body, take hold and start to function. Scientists know how to deliver blood to the stem cells, but they still need to develop some effective delivery method for other cell types. Getting the pluripotent stem cell The cells can be made in one of several ways: Nuclear transfer— By using a patient’s skin cell and then transferring it into an egg (possibly the patient’s own, or of an egg donor). Genetic  reprogramming— By transforming a skin cell or blood cell or other cell from the patient to a  pluripotent  stem cell. Parthenogenesis— This is done by using unfertilized eggs. A woman may be able to give her own eggs to make stem cells that match her genetically, or draw on master banks of stem cells which are made from eggs. WHY ARE PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS IMPORTANT? Pluripotent stem cells can be used to produce any cell or tissue the body might need to challenge a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to spinal cord injury, to childhood leukemia,or to heart disease. Pluripotent  stem cells can potentially be modified to provide a perfect genetic match for any patient. It means that the patient could get transplants of tissue and cells without matching tissue and tissue rejection problems. There is also no need to take powerful immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives. Although there is time in achieving this, researchers have treated mouse models of human disease by using this strategy and hope that same can be done with human patients. Disease in a dish: Pluripotent stem cells create excellent laboratory models for studying how a disease unfolds, which further helps scientists to locate and track, very earliest disease-causing actions in cells. Immune deficiencies like type1 diabetes, muscular dystrophy, and myriad other disorders which are embedded in fetal development. In the lab, researchers monitor from where the first muscle cell comes from, or the first blood cell, and how this is different when the patient has a genetic disease. By the use of this information, doctors are able to correct the genetic defect before the disease advances. Applications: Pluripotent  stem cell has different characteristics that make it useful in different ways : Induced pluripotent cells(iPS cells) offer a unique chance to model many human disease and are already being used to make a lot of new discoveries about premature aging, disease,cancer, and more. They are made from a person’s own cells, they can be potentially manipulated to fix the defects that are causing disease and then used to create healthy cells for transplant that won’t be rejected by the immune system. Embryonic stem cells(ES cells) are standard for the biological theory of pluripotency. Scientists are continuosly working with Embryonic Stem cells to study more about a cell with pluripotency and discover safe better ways to create iPS cells. Each type of ES cell is important for different reasons: ES cells made from donating early embryos are unique tools for the understanding of earliest stages of human development specific tissues form, because they’re not modified to individual patients, their value is mainly in research. MEDICAL RESEARCH Disease modeling and drug development An attractive feature of the human iPS cells is their ability to derive them from adult patients for the study of cellular basis of human diseases. Since iPS cells have property of self-renewing and are pluripotent, they stand for a theoretically unlimited source of patient-derived cells which further can be turned into any kind of cell in the body. This is important because many other types of human cells which are derived from patients tend to stop rising after a few passages in laboratory culture. iPS have been generated for a broad variety of human genetic diseases, including common disorders such as Down syndrome and polycystic kidney disease. Organ synthesis A proof-of-concept by induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to make human organ for the transplantation  was reported by researchers of Japan. Human ‘liver  buds’ (iPSC-LBs) were grown from a mixture of three different types of stem cells: Hepatocytes  (for liver function) coaxed from iPSCs Endothelial stem cells  (to form lining of  blood vessels) from  umbilical cord blood Mesenchymal stem cells  (to form  connective tissue). This new approach allows different cell types to self-organize into complex organ, mimicking the process in  fetal development. After growing in vitro for few days, the liver buds were transplanted into mice where the ‘liver’ quickly connected with host blood vessels and then continued to grow. Tissue repair Embryonic cord-blood cells were induced to pluripotent stem cells by the use of plasmid DNA. Using cell surface endothelial/pericytic markers  CD31  and  CD146, researchers have identified vascular progenitor, which is high-quality, multipotent vascular stem cells. After the iPS cells were directly injected into the  vitreous  of damaged  retina  of mice, the stem cells then engrafted into retina, grow repaired the  vascular vessels. Red blood cells In 2014,  type O  red blood cells  were synthesized at Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service from iPSC. The cells were induced to become a  mesoderm   then  blood cells   then red blood cells. The final step was making them eject their nuclei mature properly. Type O rbc’s can be transfused into all patients. Each pint of the blood contain about 2 trillion red blood cells, although some 107 million blood donations are collected globally each year. Human transfusions were not expected to begin until 2016.