STEM CELLS BY NICK DEYOTTE PURPOSE OF STEM

STEM CELLS BY NICK DEYOTTE

PURPOSE OF STEM CELLS • There are multiple ways that stem cells can be used, such as making more personalized medication, creating new tissue to replace old tissue, and more. Scientists are hoping to make personalized medicine using stem cells to replace the old cells in your body with new ones. Stem cells can be used to create new tissue that can replace parts of organs that are damaged by injury or disease. Stem cells are currently being used to treat people with blood diseases such as leukemia. Stem cells can be used to replace damaged tissue in many places to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Type 1 Diabetes and many more, stem cells have so much potential to lessen these diseases.

HOW IT WORKS • Stem cells come from three main sources, embryos, umbilical cords, and adult tissue, but embryonic stem cells are the most controversial. Inside the embryo there is a group of cells called the Inner Cell Mass which later goes on to form all tissues of the body. These cells are undifferentiated as they have not yet commited to becoming a specific type of cell. These cells can grow indefinitely and maintain their undifferentiated state, these are stem cells. Since these cells are undifferentiated, they have the ability to become any type of cell in the adult body and can be very useful.

BENEFITS/RISKS • There are tons of benefits to using embryonic stem cells but there also some risks. Embryonic stem cells can be used to treat many diseases and it can lead to these diseases not even being a threat in the future, it can be used to make medicine that will replace old cells with new ones so even if cells are damaged they will get replaced with new ones. Although stem cells could prove to be very useful in the future, there are still many risks of stem cell transplants. In some cases stem cell transplants have been proven to cause infertility, infections, cataracts, disease, new cancers, organ damage, and even death. Going into the future, we need to be very careful with using stem cells, but hopefully we can soon make these transplants a risk free procedure.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS • The main source of stem cells is from the embryo, which is an unborn offspring still in very early stages of development, only a few weeks after fertilization. In the process of extracting the stem cells from the embryo, it is destroyed and the baby will not be born. The big ethical consideration is whether it is or is not ok to destroy an embryo and prevent a life from happening to gain the stem cells and help out others in medical need. Some people think of it as killing a human and think it is very unethical, while other people don’t have a problem with it and don’t think of the embryo as a human, as it is in very early development, won’t feel pain, and doesn’t have any consiousness yet.

MY OPINION • In my opinion, I think that the use of embryonic stem cells is fine and I don’t have any problem with it. The embryo is still in such an early stage of development that it can barely be considered a human. The embryo has no consiousness, won’t feel pain, and is so early in development that I think taking the stem cells from it and destroying it in the process is ok. Although I think it is ok, I think it should be limited it some way. There are two other sources of stem cells that don’t involve taking away the life of an unborn human, and if they work the same or can be used similarly then we should do our best to use those rather than embryonic stem cells. If embryonic stem cells work differently from the other two sources of stem cells then I think it is ok to get it from embryos but it should be limited and only be used when absolutely necessary. If there are no laws in Canada against abortion, and it is legal at any time during pregnancy, then I think it is ok the destroy embryos for their stem cells.

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS • In the future, stem cells could be used greatly to create medicine and treat diseases. Stem cells could one day make these big diseases that are killing thousands of people, not a threat. Hopefully in the future stem cells will make personalized medicine possible that replaces your old damaged cells with new cells to help make sure you stay healthy, and hopefully we will have easier treatment for these big diseases and we can use stem cells to replace those damaged cells with new healthy cells. We can only hope that stem cells bring us greatness, but some bad things could happen in the future. If we say now that killing an embryo is ok, in the future people might start to decide that killing a baby at a later stage of pregnancy is ok and it could get out of hand. Although stem cells could be greatness in the future, we have to set limitation to ensure it doesn’t get out of hand.

BIBLIOGRAPHY • http: //www. medicalnewstoday. com/info/stem_cell • http: //learn. genetics. utah. edu/content/stemcells/sctoday/ • http: //www. mayoclinic. org/tests-procedures/ • http: //www. pregnantpause. org/ethics/whystem. htm • http: //www. mayoclinic. org/tests-procedures/bone-marrow-transplant/details/risks/cmc-20212238