Stem Cell Research : Stem Cells

Stem cells have several potential applications. Stem cells can be used to study development by helping us to understand how a complex organism develops from a fertilized egg. Some of the serious medical conditions such as cancer and birth defects which are lead by abnormal cell division and differentiation will have new therapy dealing with stem cell research. Stem cells have the ability to replace damaged cells and treat disease of extensive burns, leukemia (a cancer of blood forming tissues) and other blood disorders. Today, doctor use donated tissues and organs to replace damaged tissue, but the need for the tissues and organs far outweighs the available supply. With the stem cells, it can offer the enormous sources of replacement cells and tissues. Third, stem cells could be used to study disease. Today, scientists use stem cells to model disease processes in the laboratory to better understand what goes wrong in the disease genes. Finally, stem cells could provide a resource for testing new medical treatments. Lot of new medications could be tested on specialized cells from stem cell lines which can reduce the animal testing. For example, cancer cell lines are used to screen potential anti tumor drugs to see the effects on cells. Stem cells are mother cells that have potential to develop into a new different cell in the body. It can self-renew or multiply while developing into other types of cells, for example they can become cells of the blood, heart, bones, skin, muscles and brain. Stem cells were discovered in human cord blood in 1978, and in 1998, Thompson, from the University of Wisconsin, isolated cells from the inner cell mass of early embryos (early stage of an animal or person before it is born) and developed t… … middle of paper … …e cells from the synthetic retina had moved and integrated as it looked like normal mature rod cell after six weeks. Professor Ali says that it will take few years to implement this research within a human trial, but the team has already started working with human embryonic stem cells. I really wish this experiment works with human because blindness is the hardest thing to cure and it is really hard to find the eye donor. Doing this stem cell research, it reminded me of my grandmother when she had a stroke. She was really lucky because my grandfather found her very quickly, when she fainted from the stroke. The doctor said that she still has a chance of getting stroke again so she always has to be careful. If the stem cell research develops, my grandmother will be able to cure the stroke clearly and we won’t have to worry about her anymore going to hospital again.

Stem Cell Research is Illegal, Immoral and Unnecessary

Stem Cell Research is Illegal, Immoral and Unnecessary

President Bush’s limited federal funding of research relying on the destruction of human embryos violates federal statutory law. Christians have grieved for many years over the assault on unborn human life set loose upon our nation by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Even that decision, however, did not affect all areas of law where lawmakers seek to protect developing human life. Because they are not covered by the Court’s theory of reproductive privacy, human embryos outside the womb may be fully protected by law – and at least nine states have acted to protect these embryos from lethal experiments. In some states, destructive experimentation on human embryos is a felony.

Most Christians have grave concerns on this critically important issue of embryonic stem cell research. In our view, conducting research that relies on deliberate destruction of human embryos for their stem cells is illegal, immoral and unnecessary.

It is illegal because it violates an appropriations rider (the Dickey amendment) passed every year since 1995 by Congress. That provision forbids funding “research in which” human embryos (whether initially created for research purposes or not) are harmed or destroyed outside the womb.(1) National Institutes of Health guidelines approved by the Clinton Administration nonetheless give researchers detailed instructions on how to obtain human embryos for destructive cell harvesting, if they wish to qualify for federal grants in “human pluripotent stem cell research.”(2) Clearly, obtaining and destroying embryos is an integral part of this project, even if the specific act of destroying embryos does not directly receive federal funds. By i…

… middle of paper …

…uman Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID)-X1 Disease,” 288 Science 669-72 (28 April 2000).

16. K. Foss, “Paraplegic regains movement after cell procedure,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), June 15, 2001 at A1.

17. E. Ryan et al., “Glycemic Outcome Post Islet Transplantation,” Abstract #33-LB, Annual Meeting of the American Diabetes Association, June 24, 2001. See: http://38.204.37.95/am01/AnnualMeeting/Abstracts/NumberResults.asp?idAbs=33-LB.

18. M. McCullough, “Islet transplants offer hope that diabetes can be cured,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22, 2001 at A1.

19. D. Woodbury et al., “Adult Rat and Human Bone Marrow Stromal Cells Differentiate Into Neurons,” 61 J. of Neuroscience Research 364-70 (2000) at 364 (emphasis added).

20. D. Prockop, “Stem Cell Research Has Only Just Begun” (Letter), 293 Science 211-2 (13 July 2001)(citations omitted).