During the last three decades, considerable hope and attention has led to the initiation of the field of “regenerative medicine”. This has resulted not from the development of our ability to regenerate any organ or tissue, with the exception of the hematopoietic system-as widely believed, but only from the prediction that certain cells referred to as stem cells show the capacity in vitro to apparently undergo differentiation into cells of all the three germal lineages when cultured under various conditions. Such stem cells have been found in embryos, in fetal tissue and cord blood, in the placenta, in postnatal bone marrow, fatty tissue, bloodand practically everywhere else.


doi: 10.5214/ans.0972.7531.12190201