Table 2.

Cell types used in biomedical research with their advantages and inconvenients.

Cell types	Advantage	Disadvantage
Immortalized cell lines	Easy to obtain large quantities	Different from in vivo cells
	Inexpensive	Modified cell lines
		Relevance limited
Primary cell culture	Relevance	Hard to obtain
	Behavior similar to in vivo	Limited quantities
hESC	Unlimited quantities	Ethical issues
	Unmodified cells	Expensive
		Long differentiation time
		Cell lines hard to obtain
hIPS	Close to in vivo reality	Expensive
	Cell lines from patient with specific diseases easy to obtain	Not yet proven to have complete equivalence with hESC
Transdifferentiated cells	Relevance	Limited quantities
	Ability to obtain one specific cell type	Impact of transdifferentiation not well known