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Ethics of stem cell research 2016
Importance of stem cell research
What are the advantages and disadvantages of stem cell research
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This paper focuses on the benefits of stem cell research in the medical and nursing field. New technology is always being created to help us understand the way the human body works, as well as ways to help us improve diseased states in the body. Our bodies have the ability to proliferate or regrow cells when damage is done to the cells. Take for example the skin, when an abrasion or puncture to the skin causes loss of our skin cells, the body has its own way of causing those cells to regrow. The liver, bone marrow, heart, brain, and muscle all have cells that are capable of differentiating into cells of that same type. These are called stem cells, and are a new medical tool that is helping regrow vital organs in our body to help us survive. Stem cells can come from adult cells, or the blastocyst of the embryo. The cells that come from these are undifferentiated, and can be specialized into certain cell types, making them available for many damaged tissues in the body. While using stem cells in the body is a main use, they are also being used to help doctors understand how disease processes start. By culturing these cells in the lab and watching them develop into muscles, nerve cells, or other tissues, researchers are able to see how diseases affect these cells and possibly discover ways to correct these diseases. While researchers have come very far in using stem cells, there are still many controversies to overcome when using these cells. There are many different types of stem cells that are being looked at for research. These include embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and induced pluripotent cells. Embryonic stem cells are cells that have the potential to produce many different cells in the body. They are cells that are tak... ... middle of paper ... ...he site of destruction and regrow those damaged cells. This could be a medical breakthrough for many patients because this could mean limited hospital stay; Fewer treatments from reoccurring illness caused by damaged tissue and saving them money by decreasing the need for multiple hospital visits. Stem cells are an ongoing research project in which new discoveries are being made about them, and researchers are learning how to use them in new ways. The three current kinds of stem cells all prove to have their own challenges when it comes to using them. The important thing is finding out which stem cell is right for the patient and how much of an ethical concern there is when it comes to using the stem cell. As we learn the best way to use them and they become more popular in the medical field, stem cells will become a new weapon in the fight against certain diseases.
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 pluripotent cells of the body which are “undifferentiated.” This means that stem cells can ultimately give rise to any type of body tissue. Thus stem cells have the potential to cure a vast number of diseases and physical ailments including Parkinson’s, diabetes, spinal cord injury, and heart disease. Consequently, stem cell research and the development of associated medical applications are of great interest to the scientific and medical community. The area of stem cell research involving human embryonic stem cells is of particular interest in that embryonic stem cells are derived from week-old blastocysts developed from in vitro fertilized eggs. As opposed to adult stem cells, which must undergo a complicated process of de-differen...
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.
This report does a fairly comprehensive job on educating the public to the definition of stem cells, describing them as “a diverse group of remarkable multipotent cells that are relatively undifferentiated and unspecialized cells of the body.” Stem cells have the capacity for unlimited self-renewal and the possibility to produce differentiated descendant cell types. The main in...
“Stem Cells: The Future of Medicine.” Medschool.umaryland.edu. University of Maryland School of Medicine Web 14 Nov 2013
Those who favour stem cell research are optimistic about the continued developments in stem cell research will open doors to many breakthrough discoveries in biomedical science. The scientific and ethical questions arise as rapidly as the reaching of milestones in stem cell research. There are two main types of stem cells, namely embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells in our body. But they have restricted-range of cells that they can further differentiate. On the contrary, embryonic stem cells have the ability to differentiate into nearly two hundred cell types in the human body, called pluripotency. The process of harvesting embryonic stem cells involves destruction of embryos (Mooney, 2009).
As stated on the Neostem website, “Stem cells have remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth.” They are used for cell therapeutics and the advantages are many. They offer a source of renewable cells to replace the damaged or dead cells that can be cause disabilitating ...
Over the past years, stem cell research has been very famous through the scientific community and the media. Stem cells are pluripotent cells that are present in every single organism on Earth. The power of stem cells are beyond imagination. Stem cells have the power to turn into any type of cells. Some examples are, blood cells, nerves, cardiac muscles, and the list goes on and on. The scientific community has recently taken a large interest in stem cells. They have used stem cells to treat horrible misfortunes that people have been diagnosed with. Some examples of the diseases that are being treated by the use of stem cells are, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, spinal cord issues, strokes, diabetes, damaged organs, and even cancer! However, despite the infinite potential for medical treatments, the topic of stem cells is surrounded by enormous amounts of controversy. The questions that feed the controversy are about how the stem cells are acquired and about how the gained knowledge would be used. However, it is necessary for mankind to keep stem cell research alive in order to save lives while taking care of any unethical topics about it.
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.
Many patients in hospitals are waiting for transplants and many of them are dying because they are not receiving the needed organs. To solve this problem, scientists have been using embryonic stem cells to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones (Human Cloning). Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys can all be produced. By combining the technology of stem cell research and human cloning, it will be possible to produce the needed tissues and organs for patients in desperate need of a transplant (Human Cloning). The waiting list for transplants will become a lot shorter and a lot less people will have to suffer and die just because they are in great need of a transplant....
Too many people form an opinion on stem cell research without understanding what it is. In the 1960’s, Canadian scientists Ernest McCulloh and James Till discovered the idea of stem cells. A human embryo starts out as a blastocyst, which a formation of a hollow ball of cells [Firpo par.3]. The cells then develop into specialized cells. Each group of specialized cells has specific jobs in the human body. The groups of cells continue to divide and grow into similar cells. Embryonic stem cells are special because as embryo, they have not yet become specialized. This means they have the ability to divide into any type of specialized cell. In other words, embryonic stem cells are heart cells, brain cells, skin cells, or any other type of cell. In 1998, when Wisconsin biologist James Thomson successfully isolated and grew embryonic stem cells, it became a realistic possibility that these stem cells could be used for possible cures to vast numbers of diseases [Haymer 3]. It was then thought that the potentials of stem cell research were unlimited.
The field of regenerative medicine encompasses numerous strategies, including the use of materials and de novo generated cells, as well as various combinations thereof, to take the place of missing tissue, effectively replacing it both structurally and functionally, or to contribute to tissue healing[29]
The procedures that will be the future of modern medicine currently fall into the realms of taboo and fictional. These procedures encompass every aspect of medical science, from exploration of the human body, curing diseases, to improving a person’s quality of life. Many of these procedures are not very well known, while a few have been in the spotlight. These procedures include cloning, nano-robotics, retro-viruses, and genetic manipulation via gene-specific medications. For any serious breakthroughs in modern medical science, we must embrace these new forms of treatment instead of shying away from them. Second, I’ll attempt to explain how these methods and procedures could benefit mankind.