Chapter 1: Introduction: a decade teaching stem cell biology -- Chapter 2: Preimplantation development: from germ cells to blastocyst -- Chapter 3: Origins of pluripotency: from stem cells to germ cells -- Chapter 4: Human induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells: generation and applications -- Chapter 5: Cellular reprogramming and aging -- Chapter 6: Cloning -- Chapter 7: Stem cells in plant development -- Chapter 8: Axial stem cells and the formation of the vertebrate body -- Chapter 9: Skeletal muscle development - from stem cells to body movement -- Chapter 10: Cardiac regeneration and repair: from mechanisms to therapeutic strategies -- Chapter 11: Reproducing human brain development in vitro: generating cerebellar neurons for modelling cerebellar ataxias -- Chapter 12: Neurotoxicology and disease modelling -- Chapter 13: Mesenchymal stem cells for cutaneous wound healing.

This textbook will support graduate students with learning materials rich in the basic concepts of stem cell biology, in its most widespread and updated perspective. The chapters are conceived in a way for students to understand the meaning of pluripotency, the definition of embryonic stem cells and the formation of multicellular structures such as organoids together with the underlying principles of their epigenetic. This textbook also discusses adult stem cells and the potential use of these cells, in particular neural, mesenchymal, and several types of muscular cells, in biomedical research and clinical applications. This textbook represents a vital complement to the text on Essential Current Concepts of Stem Cell Biology, also published in the Learning Materials in Biosciences textbook series.