Stem cells: we know little about them. they could potentially cure thousands of ailments, including degenerative ones

Question: Stem cells: we know little about them. they could potentially cure thousands of ailments, including degenerative ones like parkinsons or alzheimers, they could also cure gentic diseases. But they could also cause cancer. Plus, the main problem being, that to obtain ones sufficient for human use they have to be obtained from a human foetus. Many would see this act as murder. is it? At what point does a fertilised egg become a human?

Asked by mattdizzle92 to Anne, Carolyn, Joe, Mariana, Nick on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: General.
- Carolyn McGettigan answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  Well, because I don’t work with stem cells I have to admit I really know only a little about the topic. I think this topic is a good model for many issues in the development of science. There are pros and cons, and it will be crucial for scientists and the rest of the public to work together in forming policies that will ensure that all of the ethical issues are fairly addressed.
  
  The potential therapeutic benefits of stem cell research are considerable, but then there is still a lot of uncertainty about the long-term consequences of therapy for the recipients. And then of course there is the very sensitive topic of whether it is right to use embryos to generate these cells. From my reading around today, it does seem that there are several types of stem cells that can be derived from adult tissue and could be used therapeutically, although these may not be *as* useful as embryonic cells for several reasons. Maybe investing more time in the development of the adult stem cell types will help to re-focus the debate on the pros and cons of the clinical applications, and less on the moral issues surrounding ‘the use of a life’ for research.
- Nick Bradshaw answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  Lots of people interested in stem cells today! Apologies that this is rather similar to my replies to other questions!
  
  From the moment of conception an embryo is “alive” in the sense that is biologically working. However at this stage there is no brain or any other structure capable of thinking – which suggests they are not yet a person. My guess is that “life” probably begins at around the stage that an embryo is capable of starting to move (certianly by 13 weeks through pregnancy when they can be quite a fidget). By this definition use of an embryo is probably not murder in any sense. Also, most stem cells used for research come from “spare” IVF embryos which were to be destroyed anyway (whether or not that is right is another issue).
  
  That said, I’m a Christian and so believe in a “soul”, and science will never be able to answer when one of those shows up…
  
  Basically, I’m not sure. Personally I would not use embryonic stem cells for my research to be on the safe side, but I know quite a few people who are happy to do so. There is some work underway to make more “ethical” stem cells (for example from hair folicles), however it is unclear if these will ever be as good as embryonic ones
- Joseph Devlin answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  Nick and Mariana are the cell specialists in the group so they are probably better to address this, but I’ll give it a try.
  
  My understanding is that stem cell research offers enormous potential for many diseases, so it is definitely worth pursuing. You’re right, though — most of the cell lines come from human embryos from aborted pregnancies which raises legal and ethical questions. Some of these will be naturally occurring abortions (which is quite common) and others will be from medical abortions — which are legal in the UK. By definition this isn’t murder (murder is a legal term). So legally, there is no issue here.
  
  Ethically is potentially a different story as not everyone agrees that abortion is ethically justified. That centres on the issue of when the embryo is a human being and whether it is ever justified to take a human life. This is one that everyone needs to answer for themselves.
  
  It’s worth noting that there are major efforts to reduce or remove the need for embryos in stem cell research though. Alternatives involve keeping existing stem cell lines alive indefinitely without the need to renew them or producing new stem cells from adult cells that can be genetically “reprogrammed” to revert to an undifferentiated state. Both of these offer the possibility of having our cake and eating it too!
- Mariana Vargas answered on 16 Mar 2010:
  
  Hi there, I don’t work with stem cells, so I don’t know much about them except for what I read on the news… and yes indeed, there is a lot of controversy on the use of stems cells, because they could be so useful but at the same time we haven’t studied the therapies fully to understand the potential dangers.
  
  At what point does a fertilised egg become a human? This issue is very complex and I don’t have an answer for it. For the purpose of research using stem cells there are laws that prohibit the use of embryos beyond a certain age. It is important to express your opinion about this with the people that make the laws.

Comments

Carolyn commented on 22 Mar 2010:

Hi all

I thought I should add an update to this topic. Did anyone else read about the boy who received a trachea (windpipe) transplant this week? Apparently it’s a pioneering operation where a donor adult trachea was transplanted into a 10-yr-old boy whose own trachea was only 1mm in diameter and so had created enormous problems for breathing. The donated trachea had the donor’s cells scraped off to leave only the collagen (connective tissue). It was then injected with stem cells obtained from bone marrow in the boy’s pelvis, treated with chemicals to trigger stem cell development into tracheal tissue, and surgically implanted. The intention is that the stem cells will develop and heal the trachea into place. It is reported that the boy is breathing normally and speaking. This sounds like science fiction to me, but it apparently all happened, and one of the big advantages is that the boy won’t have to take the immunosuppressant drugs that people usually need to have to prevent their body’s immune system from rejecting a donor organ. This is a good thing as these drugs make patients extremely susceptible to infection. The article I read says that a woman in Italy had the same procedure six months ago. Personally, I think it’s risky to publicise this so soon after the operation (just last Monday) in case the stem cell growth doesn’t work out. If it does, though, this could have immense implications for similar therapies.

What does everyone think?