Stem Cells: Solution to Diseases?
Last week, I and my blockmates attended a symposium about stem cells. I don’t know if you have heard of it. As for my case, it was my first time, and I got so interested with it that’s why I am going to talk about them. Pardon me if there are some flaws with this entry as I am new to this topic.
Let me start this entry by defining what stem cells are. Stem cells are cells that are common to us and other multi-cellular organisms. These cells have the ability to multiply and replenish themselves and grow into a wide range of specialized cell types.
As we all know, as we grow older, most of our cells renew and multiply themselves by a process called cell division. But some don’t. Cells in our hearts and brains lose their capability to multiply as time flies by. If no, our heads would be bigger than their normal size and our hearts would be bigger than our fists. And sometimes, these vital body organs get damaged. Thus, these body organs have the tendency to malfunction.
So here is where the stem cells come in. Basically, they can replace almost every part of your body. These could treat neurological diseases like ALS and Parkinson’s disease. These could also treat leukemia and cancer. Thus, making humans’ life span even longer. (But I am not saying that stem cells are now being used to treat all of these diseases nowadays.)
There are two categories of mammalian stem cells which are embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.
The problem is that the first category, the embryonic stem cells which is way better than the latter is banned. Basically, it is banned because it needs to destroy an embryo. There are these cells in the inner cell mass of a early stage embryo known as a blastocyst which are scraped off, making the embryo unable to make all the cells in our body. These scraped cells are then cultivated where we can derive more than 220 cell types of the adult body. This what makes embryonic stem cells way better than the adult stem cells.
And here comes a big problem. We all know that before a man can be a fully human, we have to be an embryo first. And that means, if this would be done, a breach to the humans’ and God’s law have to be done. It is clearly stated that we cannot kill and as we all know, it is highly unethical to kill somebody just so we can gain something else. In other countries, the use of human embryos where these have to be either created or destroyed are strictly prohibited.
To date, no disease was cured with this first category.
With the latter one, the adult stem cells, there are some cases where patients were cured because of it. Adult stem cells are found throughout the body. Not like with the former one, this have limited capacity for cellular differentiation . We cannot make all the cells in the human body with this. As what the speaker had said, this is not as controversial as the first because this does not require the destruction of an embryo. It was also discussed that there were successful treatments especially with leukemia that cured the patient because of this.
Now, let me ask you a question, do you think this stem cell research is ethical or not?
