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Healing the Sick without Harming the Helpless
In August, President George W. Bush declared that he would permit federal funding for research on a group of existing stem cell lines. ... However the controversy was not present when the first stem cell was extracted from a lab mouse in 1981, and the general public did not know about it when in 1998 this same process was repeated using embryos. The controversy arises when this use of embryos for stem cell research is brought up. ... Some say that it would be unethical to use embryos for research; many say that it would be immoral not to take this avenue of study. ... Compromising ethics is not necessary in order to reap the benefits of stem cell research.
The beginning of stem cell research did was not as complicated an issue as it is now. In fact it began just the same as most medical research begins—with lab rats. ... ” Well, the fuss is that stem cells are what is behind the whole growth of one tiny, fertilized cell into a massive, working system of cells and tissues.2 Stem cells have been described as “…primitive cells that, like the stem of a plant, can grow into any part of the human body. ... They removed the first stem cell from a mouse. Almost seventeen years later--after much work with mice--medical science was able to take the next step when the biotech company Geron funded researchers in November of 1998 to use human embryos created through in vitro fertilization to remove embryonic stem cells.4 This research has progressed up into the past few years, when without much difficulty researchers are removing stem cells from various sources to produce lines of stem cells which they, in turn, are able to use many times over for their study.
Behind all of the study is the hope that many ailments resulting from cell degeneration might be more proficiently treated or even better—cured. Many diseases occur because of cell degeneration. ... 5 Theoretically, stem cells can be used to make people any new tissues or even organs that are needed. ... In reality, a lot of results have come from research; however, this is research of mouse stem cells. ... One might wonder what a stem cell line is and even start to question whether he/she knows what a stem cell even is; however, with the description of a few terms, it will be seen that this issue is not quite as boggling as it may seem. ... Pluripotency is a word derived from pluri-, meaning many, more, or several and potency, meaning latent power or potentiality, to describe a cell that is able to become different kinds of other cells. When the degree of pluripotency is described, it refers to how easily the cell is able to change and/or how many different types of cells it could possibly become. ...
Second, it is vital to understand what a stem cell line is. A line is mass of stem cells extracted from the embryo that have the same deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and can reproduce indefinitely and provide for many experiments.10 When scientists are doing their investigation on stem cells, they do not use just one from each embryo for every little experiment, instead, they are usually able to use one stem cell to form a line that they can use almost indefinitely. ... Regardless, the formation of stem cell lines can not be put away as a complicated technicality; it is an important part of this debate—a part that is closely related to pluripotency.
Due to the importance of stem cell lines and how they become fit for study, it is necessary to acquire a little deeper of an understanding of the processes by which the lines are acquired.
Approximate Word count = 3024
Approximate Pages = 12.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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