• Question: What would you say to someone who thinks that too much money is going towards stem cell research, especially as we are in this time of money crisis? How do you justify the amount of money spent stem cell research? Thanks, Hailey.

    Asked by haileybailey to Kara, Jayne, James, Emma on 16 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      wow Hailey,

      Thats a fab question! In science we have to argue that what we do is really important all the time otherwise our funding gets cut. unfortunately the government has already said it will cut its funding of scientific research which is bad news for scientists! But i think to continue to progress and develop as a successful country we need healthy people, so i think all medical research should be ring-fenced from cuts. Having said that- basic scientific research is important for us to better understand basic things about cell biology which then help people working on more medically orientated research, so its really all important!!

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi Hailey, thanks for a really good question. I think it’s a tricky one to answer really. You are right in thinking that there is a lot of money that goes into this research and that sometimes it can feel like there a not many answers coming out or therapies being developed. The problem is that we need to look at the bigger picture – it make take a lot of money now but might save us money in the future. For example if we could give a diabetic person one injection of stem cells we would save the NHS thousands because they wouldn’t need insulin or as many checkups – not to mention helping with the side-effects of a condition like diabetes.
      Also many of these therapies take 10-15 yrs to produce, it’s probable that we wont be in a financial crisis then and everyone will want to know why the research was stopped.
      So I think you have asked a really good question but I do think it is important that scientific research continues – you can’t really put a price on helping people.

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Nice one. that’s a really important question, Hailey, because funding for medical scientific has been cut by something like a third and research is really really expensive! It typically costs hundreds of thousands of pounds for every project every year!

      But, one thing about our country, and many of the other more advanced countries, is that we really take people’s lives very seriously – we put a high value on the quality of life people lead, which is only a good thing. Now, if we can cure or help the thousands and millions of people get better, and as the technology gets better, it will get cheaper. It’s like, computers used to be really expensive, but now you can buy one that is hundreds of times more powerful than the one they used to send the first shuttle up to the moon to play games on! Also, remember, for example, in my research looking into how to make bones heal quicker, a lot of my patients are young and may never be able to work again – these people will then cost the government a lot of money because they no longer make any money for the country and they will probably need lots of care and benefits and so on, and in the long term, it is not good for the country either. If we can use stem cell technology to help them get back on their feet and work, then we might have saved a lot of money in the long run.

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