Stem cells have enormous scientific interest as it is thought to have properties that may lead us to many solutions in the future, especially when it comes to terms with incurable genetic diseases.

This is a novel therapeutic approach for a "new" tool at the disposal of scientists although studied the last 40 years.

The McCulloch and Till, in 1963, detected the presence of cells that have the potential for renewal in the bone marrow of mice.
Five years later the first bone marrow transplantation was performed and helps in the treatment of immunodeficiency syndrome, in two siblings.

Several years later, in 1992, embryonic stem cells were cultured successfully in the laboratory, in the form of neurospheres.

In 1998, James Thompson and his colleagues created the first cell line of human stem cells at the University of Wisconsin.

In 2006, it has been shown that it is possible with the help of stem cells to produce under laboratory conditions, many cell types, tissues and even whole organs or organisms (experimental animal models).
For this reason, many laboratories around the world now have turned their interest in studying and finding applications involving stem cells.

Today, the hematopoietic stem cells are used in a number of hematological diseases, such as acute and chronic leukemias, beta-thalassemia, anemia Fanconi, sickle cell anemia, severe aplastic anemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, and severe combined immunodeficiency syndromes.

So far, they have been performed all over the world 10.000 allogeneic transplantations, while in Greece they have performed 32 (by end 2007), while the autologous transplantations that have been globally performed is 15 / 800,000 (www.eae.gr).

http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/defaultpage.asp
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/
http://www.corduse.com
http://stemcells.nih.gov/research/current.asp
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/stemcells/sctoday/
http://www.stemcelltherapies.org/
http://www.aabb.org/Pages/Homepage.aspx
"Stem Cell FAQ". US Department of Health and Human Services. 2004. http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2004pres/20040714b.html. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
http://www.xcell-center.com
http://www.stemcellspuhua.com
http://www.eae.gr/new/trapezes-o-m.asp