Adult stem cells - Biology and methods of analysis

I do not like the use of the term adult referred to the somatic stem cells but it is now-a-days impossible to call the cells we are speaking of somatic, it sounds like an incongruous aristocratic attitude, since both laypeople and scientists know very well that we are speaking of those cells able to self renew and to maintain our body efficiently working. Nowadays we find out adult stem cells in every organ we look at and the present day efforts in this area are mainly devoted to work it out new methods to validate the true stemness nature of the cell line we are able to establish. Thus, the three parts that makes up this volume, the first dealing with the basic biology, the second with the characterization of the adult stem cells phenotype and the third with the regulation of the life span of these cells, are all targeted to the critical evaluation of the techniques we use to distinguish adult stem cell-renewal from cell survival. These techniques are mainly focused on the quantification of the replicative life span, the adult stem cell capacity to grow at clonal density, to express pluripotency-related genes .....