By: Maddy McKay, Jeremy Blanchard, Hayden Shapiro, Ingrid Jimenez, and Derek Kramer

By: Maddy McKay, Jeremy Blanchard, Hayden Shapiro, Ingrid

Jimenez, and Derek Kramer

Getting to know Stephanie

• This is Stephanie! She is an embryonic stem cell. She comes from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, which is an early stage of a human embryo.

• Stephanie felt lonely because all of her other friends were adult stem cells which are undifferentiated cells found throughout the body. Although her friends and she can both replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues, they come from completely different sources.

• Her friends, who are adult stem cells, come from adult tissues found already in the body. Stephanie does not. She comes from human embryos. Because she comes from human embryos some of the cells in the body don’t like her.

• Other cells tend to not like her because they think she shouldn’t exist. They believe that she is alive because she destroyed the potential baby that could have been created.

• This makes Stephanie sad because she knows she was created for good and can truly help people! She has been through several clinical trials to try to help people to show that she is good!

• The other cells pointed out that even though she tried to help someone there are many risks.

• One time Stephanie attempted to try and help out a sick friend but she ended up making it worse by creating the graft vs. host disease. She also created an infection. It seems like whenever she tries to help it turns on her. Now Stephanie is scared to help because she doesn’t want to make things worse.

• Her best friend Alex, who is an adult stem cell reminded her though that even though she messes up sometimes that she can do great things.

This makes Stephanie hopeful that she can do her job correctly to possibly cure a disease like Parkinson’s disease or maybe even make it possible for someone to walk again.

• Stephanie feels like that she has the responsibility to help someone who is suffering and could benefit from her help. This makes her feel happy. The other cells though, still don’t like her because they believe she is more bad than good. They believe it wasn’t fair for her to take the place of a potential baby.

• Stephanie though finally stood up to the other cells and told them that “I am an embryonic cell, but I want to be specialized and help people to improve their medical issues.” The other cells then realize that Stephanie has good intentions and could help people in a way that they can not.

• Stephanie believes one day she will help someone fight off and treat a disease. She finally now knows that she is a good cell and that the way she was created is okay. Being an embryonic stem cell is great!

• THE END!!!!