As I shared in the “blood” note, blood stem cells saved my life. By transplanting blood stem cells from my donor, I was able to replace my broken “blood factory”.

Blood stem cells (called hematopoietic stem cells) are special blood cells that are “pluripotent” – meaning they have the ability (the “potentiality”) to become any type of blood cell (red, white, or platelet). Blood stem cells are just one example of many types of stem cells in the body. All stem cells have this inherent potential to become multiple things.

The mother of all stem cells is the zygote. Our lives began as a zygote – the first cell created when a sperm cell fertilizes an egg cell. The zygote is called “totipotent” – meaning that inside this single cell is all the potential for (physical) you!

The zygote quickly begins dividing and differentiating – where cells gradually “give up” their potentiality and become the specific cells in our body (like blood or eye or neuron or whatever). Much of the internal programming and mechanisms of this amazing transition from zygote to newborn baby are still steeped in mystery. But God has allowed us to “pull back the curtain” a bit on embryonic development and we are already using this newfound knowledge for amazing medical advances. For example, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has helped millions of couples worldwide overcome infertility and have children.

The amazing discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells holds great promise for further medical advance. In 2006 Shinya Yamanaka and team discovered that regular adult cells, such as skin cells, could be reprogrammed to “reverse course” and return to their pluripotent state. They can then be reprogrammed to become other cell types! Mind blow.

I am amazed at the process of embryonic development from the zygote – with all its inherent “potentiality” – to a newborn baby. What a magical journey! This journey is not fully determined by our genes, but is rather a dance between our genetic makeup and a host of epigenetic (“above genetics”) factors from our environment. For example, the mother’s diet and stress level can impact embryonic development.

“Potentiality” is an idea that we see again powerfully in the quantum realm – where reality at the smallest level dissolves into fields of potentiality or probability. More on that later….

Thank you God for potentiality!
toodling and noodling, stan