In the 19th century, stem cell research began to emerge in the labs of several scientists. It was discovered that stem cells could reproduce quickly and had the ability to produce other types of cells because they are unspecialized cells that are capable of changing themselves (“Journal of Stem Cell Research and Therapy”). In the early 1900s it was discovered that stem cells could be used to produce blood cells, liver cells, skin cells, tissues and several more. At first these stem cells were taken from bone marrow through a process called “bone marrow transplantation”, but it was soon discovered that these cells could also be obtained through peripheral blood, or blood take from the placenta, especially from cord blood.(“Immune Deficiency Foundation”). Eventually, scientists began using stem cells to treat several disease by performing a process similar to a blood transfusion, containing stem cells that would change themselves to fit the description of a needed cell. As stem cell research continued the ability to manipulate stem cells to cure genetic disease emerged giving hope to several suffering from genetic diseases.Stem cell therapy offers great promises for life-saving therapies for several genetic diseases, but it also poses some problems in the immune system and causes some concerns. Stem cells for use in various therapies can be collected from several different sources. There are various types of stem cells that can be used for therapy including embryonic, adult, and umbilical cells. Embryonic stem cells are gathered from the cell mass of an unfertilized egg from a variety of sources including animals and humans. Adult stem cells can be found in various places of the body where they are used to replace old cells or tis... ... middle of paper ... ...ved, they should be compensated for their donation. The taking of cells from an oocyte can be dangerous to the donor, so taking such a risk for the purpose of helping others and furthering research should be rewarded and detailed informed consent should be of utmost importance to the doctors or scientist. Stem cell therapy for genetic disease is providing great opportunities for the discovery of a cure for thousands. Stem cells provide an outstanding way to cure these diseases because of the ease with which they adapt themselves to their environment and can differentiate into several cells types. Although there are ethical and bioethical issues surrounding the use of embryos and the safety of a cell donor, stem cells therapy and stem cell therapy research had given a new hope to hundreds of thousands that are sick and dying without an effective or existent treatment.
Most people live in capitalist societies where money matters a lot. Essentially, ownership is also of significance since it decides to whom the money goes. In present days, human tissues matter in the scientific field. Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, shows how Henrietta Lacks’s cells have been used well, and at the same time, how they have been a hot potato in science because of the problem of the ownership. This engages readers to try to answer the question, “Should legal ownership have to be given to people?” For that answer, yes. People should be given the rights to ownership over their tissues for patients to decide if they are willing to donate their tissues or not. Reasons will be explained as follows.
When viewing organ donation from a moral standpoint we come across many different views depending on the ethical theory. The controversy lies between what is the underlying value and what act is right or wrong. Deciding what is best for both parties and acting out of virtue and not selfishness is another debatable belief. Viewing Kant and Utilitarianism theories we can determine what they would have thought on organ donation. Although it seems judicious, there are professionals who seek the attention to be famous and the first to accomplish something. Although we are responsible for ourselves and our children, the motives of a professional can seem genuine when we are in desperate times which in fact are the opposite. When faced with a decision about our or our children’s life and well being we may be a little naïve. The decisions the patients who were essentially guinea pigs for the first transplants and organ donation saw no other options since they were dying anyways. Although these doctors saw this as an opportunity to be the first one to do this and be famous they also helped further our medical technology. The debate is if they did it with all good ethical reasoning. Of course they had to do it on someone and preying upon the sick and dying was their only choice. Therefore we are responsible for our own health but when it is compromised the decisions we make can also be compromised.
Stem cells are the building blocks of the human body. Embryos consist of unspecialized stem cells that transform into the various specialized cells in the body such as cardiac, muscle or bone cells. Fetuses also have stem cells. However, the stem cells are divided into types like muscle, bone or nerves and don't perform a specialized function. Surprisingly, adult bodies also contain stem cells. In adults, stem cells are undifferentiated but limited to specific tissue type. When needed, the stem cells transform into the cells needed for repair and maintenance. The most common source of adult stem cells is bone marrow. Researchers also acquire stem cells from umbilical cords. Without stem cells, embryos could not develop into fetuses and adult
She provides valid and supported reasoning for her thoughts. Implied consent and compensation for donations are inventive and legitimate ways to prevent the deaths of individuals on the organ waiting list. Compensation would improve the quality of life of both donors and recipients, and implied consent would increase the amount of usable organs. These reforms would greatly benefit those in need of a transplant. The need for organs is large and the argument to increase the number of organs for donation is strong.
However, I believe the choice is up to the individual receiving treatment to decide the method of their treatment in accordance with their beliefs. I suppose my stance with this is strongly rooted in my acceptance of stem cell research, despite which method is used. While the use of adult cells is less controversial, I do not think they have the capacity to completely replace the use of embryonic stem cells without more testing. Although, I personally am indifferent to where the cells come from, I do not condone effecting an abortion for the sole purpose of stem cell therapy or cloning one child to have the clone just as a lifetime organ donor. I would prefer that the stem cells used for testing be taken from medical waste or otherwise discarded materials. Perhaps one day the stem cells received from adults or the umbilical cord will satisfy all needs and possibly put an end to controversy (NIH,
...ns of a morally questionable nature. It is necessary that our practices remain ethical and that we uphold the value of a human life, as this is the cornerstone of human society. Embryonic stem cell research is one such operation that forces scientists, policy makers, and the larger society to define what constitutes a human life and to find an answer to the crucial question: Is it morally acceptable to violate the rights of a human life for the for the sake of medical progress?
Stem cell research began in 1956 when Dr. E Donnall Thomas performed the first bone marrow transplant (“Adult stem cells are not more promising,” 2007). Since that time, research has evolved into obtaining cells from a variety of tissues. According to stem cell research professors, Ariff Bongso and Eng Hin Lee (2005), “Stem cells are unspecialized cells in the human body that are capable of becoming cells, each with new specialized functions” (p. 2). Stem cells are in various adult tissues, such as bone marrow, the liver, the epidermis layer of skin, the central nervous system, and eyes. They are also in other sources, such as fetuses, umbilical cords, placentas, embryos, and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are cells from adult tissues that have been reprogrammed to pluripotency. Most stem cells offer multipotent cells, which are sparse...
I think that stem cell research has advanced in so many ways, with all the discoveries being made, and the new possibilities being explored. Although it still remains unethical because embryonic cells are one of the sources of stem cells. Why is somebody else’s life more valuable than someone else? Just because an embryo cannot talk, doesn’t mean, its life has any less value than a normal human being.
However, it’s extremely important because organs from cadavers are often discarded if the family fails to make arrangements for them to be donated prior to the deceased being removed from life support. These situations significantly influence the fact that many Americans continually die every single day from not receiving a needed organ transplant. In fact, Sigrid Fry-Revere in her interview explains that 20 to 30 people die every day”. So exactly how should the American government address the organ donation shortage? The answer is quite simple: by compensating those who are willing to put the value of human life above all else. Compensation for organ donation is essential if the American Government wishes to increase the number of donors and significantly decrease the amount of Americans who are presently awaiting an organ transplant. Allowing compensation for organ donation will provide Americans with a stronger sense of protection, a clear expectation of moral behavior, and a stronger sense of American
This paper focuses on the benefits of stem cell research in the medical and nursing field. New technology is always being created to help us understand the way the human body works, as well as ways to help us improve diseased states in the body. Our bodies have the ability to proliferate or regrow cells when damage is done to the cells. Take for example the skin, when an abrasion or puncture to the skin causes loss of our skin cells, the body has its own way of causing those cells to regrow. The liver, bone marrow, heart, brain, and muscle all have cells that are capable of differentiating into cells of that same type. These are called stem cells, and are a new medical tool that is helping regrow vital organs in our body to help us survive. Stem cells can come from adult cells, or the blastocyst of the embryo. The cells that come from these are undifferentiated, and can be specialized into certain cell types, making them available for many damaged tissues in the body. While using stem cells in the body is a main use, they are also being used to help doctors understand how disease processes start. By culturing these cells in the lab and watching them develop into muscles, nerve cells, or other tissues, researchers are able to see how diseases affect these cells and possibly discover ways to correct these diseases. While researchers have come very far in using stem cells, there are still many controversies to overcome when using these cells.
Those who favour stem cell research are optimistic about the continued developments in stem cell research will open doors to many breakthrough discoveries in biomedical science. The scientific and ethical questions arise as rapidly as the reaching of milestones in stem cell research. There are two main types of stem cells, namely embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells in our body. But they have restricted-range of cells that they can further differentiate. On the contrary, embryonic stem cells have the ability to differentiate into nearly two hundred cell types in the human body, called pluripotency. The process of harvesting embryonic stem cells involves destruction of embryos (Mooney, 2009).
Doctors now have three sources of stem cells available to them: bone marrow, mobilized bone marrow or peripheral blood, and umbilical cord blood. Bone marrow has traditionally been used as a source of stem cells, but research is proving that cord blood may be an excellent alternative source. Cord blood can be utilized for the treatment of many diseases, including leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and Hodgkin's disease. The first successful cord blood transplant took place in 1988 when a newborn's cord blood was used in a life saving stem cell transplant for her older brother .
For decades, biologists have been using stem cells to figure out possible cures for different diseases and even prevent them. Stem cells are cells that can become useable in certain tissues in the body (according to an infant), or tissue cells that are already found in blood, bones, the brain, and skin (in adults or children). Stem cells are being used for patients with lymphoma (begins in the immune system), leukemia (cancer of white blood cells), and other types of blood disorders.
Stem cells offer exciting promise for future therapies, but significant technical hurdles remain that will only be overcome through years of intensive research. Stem Cells have the incredible potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. Scientists primarily work with two kinds of stem cells from animals and humans. The embryonic stem cells and the non-embryonic stem cells. Stem cells are the cells from which all other cells originate. In a human embryo, a large portion of the embryo’s cells are stem cells. These stem cells can be used for cell-based therapies. Cell-Based therapies are treatments in which stem cells are induced to differentiate into the specific cell type required to repair damaged or destroyed cells or tissues. Stem cells are versatile and offer the possibility to treat a number of diseases including Alzheimer’s, stroke, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc. The problem is that for the process of embryonic stem cell research and embryo will be destroyed if used. This raises a moral issue and questions of whether stem cell research is unethical or not.
...there are some risk factors in using stem cell for therapeutic approaches, hematopoietic stem cell therapy by bone marrow transplantation has already been proofed to be safe if donors’ background and screening, cell contamination, HLA matching and opportunistic or nosocomial infections during immunocompromised period were carefully monitored and controlled. Still, other types of stem cell therapies, despite of their good therapeutic efficacy, are remain in experimental stage and need more data to support and demonstrate the safety in clinical trials. More understanding of stem cell biology is also required in order to keep stem cell under controlled and avoid some complications that they might cause. So, to pave the way for successful stem cell therapy, research in this extent is needed to pursue to maximized therapeutic efficiency with highest safety in patients.