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Controversy of stem cell research
Advantages and disadvantages of stem cell research
Stem cell research and ethical issues surrounding the topic
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Stem cell therapy is an imperative topic for health specialists and for patients with degenerative disorders. Stem cell therapy in India has mammoth potential and should be considered as a healing treatment for injuries or organ impairment. Furthermore, systemic stem cell therapy exhibits an assurance in treating neurological illnesses. However, it is also sometimes a topic of political discussion. Some elementary questions concerning the therapy are answered below:
What is stem cell therapy and why is it vital?
Stem cells are "blank slate" cells that can, under the correct settings, become other, specified cells, such as muscle, bone, organ or nerve cells. This means that they may be adept of restoring impaired tissues in the human body, making it a pertinent treatment technique for a multiplicity of health disorders and
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By far, there hasn't been much human research into this form of treatment. One apprehension, though, is that it can upsurge the patient's risk of cancer. Cancer is instigated by cells that speedily multiply and don't self-destruct habitually when something is wrong. Stem cells are added to growth factors that embolden speedy multiplication before relocated into patients, and they incline to die less hurriedly than other cells. Tumor growth, both gentle and menacing, can occur.
For more info on this treatment, visit StemCellCareIndia. Its main emphasis is assisting people get back to good health via stem cell treatment.
Every person has stem cells in their body. These cells act as repairmen within a standard healthy body. As an individual ages or is bound by injury, these critical repair cells are not sufficient. Either the body does not have an enormous supply or the impairment is too severe. Stem cell therapy is intended to help the body by naturally healing the region of injury or deterioration. This form of medical therapy aids to initiate and augment the body's natural repair
Are stem cells ethical to use in medical research? The most basic cells in the human body are stem cells. Because doctors use stem cells for medical treatment of chronic ailments, stem cells play an important role in human medical research. However, despite the benefits of stem cells in medical treatment, controversy surrounds the methods employed to obtain them. Should researchers continue to use stem cells?
The wide range of prospective uses for stem cells could greatly improve the health and wellbeing of many people. In stem cell treatments, undifferentiated cells are programmed to form specific cells, which can then be transplanted to the afflicted area. Stems cells can possibly treat afflictions including “Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis” (“Stem Cell Basics”). Another important use is in drug testing. Drugs can be tested on stem cells that develop into the target tissue before using it on human test subjects, which improves safety. Finally, transplantation of organs created from stem cells could eliminate the need for human...
Could you imagine being able to create new organs, tissues, muscles, and even food? With embryonic stem cell technology, believe it or not, these things are possible. Stem cells are the body's raw materials. Specifically, they are cells from which all other cells with specialized functions are generated. Under the right conditions in the body or in a laboratory, stem cells can divide to form more cells called daughter cells. These daughter cells either become new stem cells or turn into specialized cells with a more specific function, such as blood cells, brain cells, muscle cells or bone cells. The possibilities are almost endless. The debate and main issue with this technology is that the actual stem cells come from embryos. Embryos are an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development. Although there is controversy surrounding these cells, embryonic stem cells should continue to be researched and used, because they have so much potential.
Stem cells are valuable due to the fact that they are ? non-designated,? (have no specifically assigned task in the body, i.e. liver cells, brain cells, skin cells, etc.) and they also have the ability to divide indefinitely. Thus, theoretically stem cells could replace any damaged or lost specifically designated cells within the body.
Over the past decade scientist and the U.S government have been debating about funds for stem cell research (SCR), the amount spent depends on who is in office. The Democratic Party fully supports SCR, but the Republican Party somewhat opposes the concept of SCR, arfuing it violates the Christian principle of life. As a result, this topic is considered controversial, but also beneficial if allowed. Despite the controversy, SCR should be well funded for medicinal use, because blank stem cells (SC) can be used to regenerate bones and muscle tissue, they can be used to control or even reverse neurodegenerative disease, and because they can be used for therapeutic cloning.
Because stem cells are essentially a blank slate, scientists are theoretically capable of growing any human tissue cell. There is enormous medical potential in this. Stem cell research is the next step in advancing the medical field. It is comparable to the discovery of penicillin or the inoculation for smallpox.
Stem cells are a type of unspecialized cells that can revive themselves through the process of cell division (Abdel-Salam and Oma, 2011). They have a phenomenal potential to differentiate into other specific cell types in a living organism. These cells can also be activated to turn into organ-specific cells or tissues with defined activity but only under specific experimental set-up. Stem cells have the ability to remain as they are or divide further to renew deteriorated and damaged tissue cells. Recently it has been discovered that stem cells can be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease, but still a lot of clinical trials are being conducted to find a specific government approved treatment.
Stem cells help us to maintain and heal our bodies, as they are undifferentiated cells, their roles are not yet determined. They have the ability to become anything during early life and growth. Stem cells come from two sources, namely: embryonic stem cells (embryo’s formed during the blastocyst phase of embryological development) and adult stem cells (see figure 3).
Have you ever seen a movie or read a book where they can tell what your child will look like or if they have a disease or birth defect. Or have you ever wondered how the world would be shaped if we could have clones or even erase genetic diseases. All of these things are theoretically possible with stem cell research. If we are able to reach this point what would we have to sacrifice in the process. To understand humanity would we have to sacrifice the values that truly make us human? What would the fail rate be if we are able to genetically enhance the human body?
Every year countless people are diagnosed with cell based diseases, 7.6 million a year alone receive the petrifying news that they have cancer. But what if we could eliminate the idea that a cancerous diagnosis is the equivalent of a death sentence? The use of embryonic stem cells could, for the first time, make diseases like cancer or parkinson a non-issue. This is why the use of embryonic stem cells should not be viewed as unethical but rather a huge step towards unthinkable medical breakthroughs and the eradication of life threatening diseases.
“Top Ten Things to Know About Stem Cell Treatments.” Www.closerlookatstemcells.org ISSCR. Web 1 November 2013
In the past 40 years, scientists have developed and applied genetic engineering to alter the genetic make-up of organisms by manipulating their DNA. Scientists can use restriction enzymes to slice up a piece of DNA from an organism with the characteristics they want and spliced (joint) to a DNA from another organism. DNA that contains pieces from different species is called recombinant DNA, and it now has different genetic material from its original. When this DNA inserted back into the organism, it changes the organism’s trait. This technique is known as gene-splicing (Farndon 19).
Stem cells offer exciting promise for future therapies, but significant technical hurdles remain that will only be overcome through years of intensive research. Stem Cells have the incredible potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. Scientists primarily work with two kinds of stem cells from animals and humans. The embryonic stem cells and the non-embryonic stem cells. Stem cells are the cells from which all other cells originate. In a human embryo, a large portion of the embryo’s cells are stem cells. These stem cells can be used for cell-based therapies. Cell-Based therapies are treatments in which stem cells are induced to differentiate into the specific cell type required to repair damaged or destroyed cells or tissues. Stem cells are versatile and offer the possibility to treat a number of diseases including Alzheimer’s, stroke, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc. The problem is that for the process of embryonic stem cell research and embryo will be destroyed if used. This raises a moral issue and questions of whether stem cell research is unethical or not.
...there are some risk factors in using stem cell for therapeutic approaches, hematopoietic stem cell therapy by bone marrow transplantation has already been proofed to be safe if donors’ background and screening, cell contamination, HLA matching and opportunistic or nosocomial infections during immunocompromised period were carefully monitored and controlled. Still, other types of stem cell therapies, despite of their good therapeutic efficacy, are remain in experimental stage and need more data to support and demonstrate the safety in clinical trials. More understanding of stem cell biology is also required in order to keep stem cell under controlled and avoid some complications that they might cause. So, to pave the way for successful stem cell therapy, research in this extent is needed to pursue to maximized therapeutic efficiency with highest safety in patients.
Researchers in this field are seek to know how stem cells can be used to develop into specialized cells or tissue, which aims restore lost function in damaged organs or even grow new fully functioning organs for transplant.