Stem Cell Research
Research on stem cells is advancing knowledge about how an organism develops from a single
cell and how healthy cells replace damaged cells in adult organisms. This promising area of
science is also leading scientists to investigate the possibility of cell-based therapies to treat
disease, which is often referred to as regenerative or reparative medicine.
Research on the topic of stem cells is advancing the scientific knowledge about how cells
develop. Stem cell research is applied to two main characteristics that allow stem cells to be
distinguished among most other types of cells. The first major characteristic is that the stem
cells are unspecialized and can renew themselves through cell divisions for longer durations of
time. Secondly, the cells can be manipulated under certain conditions to become any cell that the
scientist encodes them with; liver cell or even a heart cell. Scientists primarily work with two
types of stem cells; embryonic and adult, descriptions will be addressed later. Unlike muscle
cells, blood cells, and nerve cells, stem cells may replicate many times. An initial population of
stem cells grows for many months and in lab conditions can produce millions of cells. The cells
are termed to be long term self renewing if the produced cells are unspecialized like their parent
stem cells.
A key topic in stem cell research is called differentiation. Differentiation is described as
being when unspecialized cells give rise to new specialized cells. Scientists are still exploring
this topic and what signals this action. So far they have described the external signal. The
external signal is when chemical secretions are passed on by other cells, physical contact is
made, and certain molecules in the “micro-environment.” Recently, scientists have begun to
devise ways to grow certain embryonic stem cells without feeder cells. Embryonic stem cells
that have multiplied in a cell culture for six months without differentiating, are pluripotent, and
appear genetically similar to normal cells are termed as embryonic stem cells. During tests,
scientists test the stem cells to see if they exhibit the fundamental properties that make them
embryonic stem cells to differentiate them from other cells. An adult stem cell is an
“undiffertiated” cell found among differentiated cells in an organ or tissue that can renew itself,
and can differentiate to produce specialized cell types of the tissue or organ. Also, unlike
embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells origins in mature tissues or organs are a mystery. One
population of stem cells called hematopoietic cells is responsible for all the blood cells in the
body. Similarly stromal cells are responsible for the generations of bone, cartilage, fat and
connective tissues such as tendons.
Recently, as of 2/12/04, stem cell production has been achieved in Seoul Korea. They
achieved this by cloning and extracting embryonic stem cells. The scientists exclaimed in their
publication that their achievements were to expand medicinal use of stem cells and not for
fertility reasons. One problem exists with stem cells is that they continue to grow, which means
their programmed cell death are not present and could be detrimental instead of beneficial.
There have been discussions that once a blastocyst is implanted in the uterus science will have
crossed the line. Creating stem cells for medicinal purposes would therefore be morally
reasonable because they are not taking the new technology and attempting to give life to a
human. Stem cells used for organs and bodily tissues would essentially be giving life to a dying
tissue or organ, but they would not be used for creating a human. Creating cloned humans could
be a problem as serious as global warming one day. The beginnings of a scientific revolution
could be said to begin. Once the first human is cloned legally or illegally a new world will arise
containing regulations on science that have not been thought of up to this date. With such
regulations bound to come the social cultures of the world will eventually adapt and embrace this
new technology, maybe not for decades but this new science will effect our immediate future.
The line has to be establishing that separates moral and ethical uses from inhuman and un-ethical
uses. That line was not a major focus before February 12, 2004, now people in the science field
have a major task at hand.
In conclusion human embryonic and adult stem cells each have advantages and
disadvantages for future application. Embryonic stem cells can differ in number and type of
differentiated cells they can become. Adult stem cells are generally limited to differentiating
into different cell types of their specific tissue or organ of origin. Stem cell research will be able
to be used to test drugs and their effects, along with their most important application of human
stem cells to regenerate tissues that could be used for cellular based functions.