Department of Clinical Biochemistry and Applied Cell Sciences, School of Medicine, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran.
Embryolab Academy, Thessaloníki, Greece.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2021;1312:19-37. doi: 10.1007/5584_2020_592.
The first isolation of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) reported in the late 90s opened a new window to promising possibilities in the fields of human developmental biology and regenerative medicine. Subsequently, the differentiation of hESC lines into different precursor cells showed their potential in treating different incurable diseases. However, this promising field has consistently had remarkable ethical and experimental limitations. This paper is a review of clinical trial studies dealing with hESC and their advantages, limitations, and other specific concerns. Some of the hESC limitations have been solved, and several clinical trial studies are ongoing so that recent clinical trials have strived to improve the clinical applications of hESC, especially in macular degeneration and neurodegenerative diseases. However, regarding hESC-based therapy, several important issues need more research and discussion. Despite considerable studies to Date, hESC-based therapy is not available for conventional clinical applications, and more studies and data are needed to overcome current clinical and ethical limitations. When all the limitations of Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are wholly resolved, perhaps hESC can become superior to the existing stem cell sources. This overview will be beneficial for understanding the standard and promising applications of cell and tissue-based therapeutic approaches and for developing novel therapeutic applications of hESC.
20 世纪 90 年代末首次分离出人类胚胎干细胞（hESC），为人类发育生物学和再生医学领域的研究开辟了新的可能性。随后，hESC 系向不同前体细胞的分化显示了它们在治疗多种不治之症方面的潜力。然而，这一前景广阔的领域一直存在显著的伦理和实验限制。本文回顾了与 hESC 及其优势、局限性和其他具体关注点相关的临床试验研究。一些 hESC 的局限性已经得到解决，并且正在进行多项临床试验研究，以便最近的临床试验努力改进 hESC 的临床应用，特别是在黄斑变性和神经退行性疾病方面。然而，关于基于 hESC 的治疗，仍有几个重要问题需要更多的研究和讨论。尽管目前已经进行了大量研究，但基于 hESC 的治疗尚不适用于常规临床应用，还需要更多的研究和数据来克服当前的临床和伦理限制。当胚胎干细胞（ESC）的所有限制都得到完全解决时，hESC 或许可以优于现有的干细胞来源。本文的综述有助于理解基于细胞和组织的治疗方法的标准和有前途的应用，并为 hESC 的新治疗应用的发展提供参考。
