What You Should Know about Stem Cells Essay - 1171 Words

What You Should Know about Stem Cells A topic of extended scientific and ethical debate in our society as of late has been the question of Stem Cell research. Going down this path could yield unprecedented medical leaps in treatment and prevention that medicine will be able to offer. Before I address the debate of whether or not Stem Cell research should be done, I want to first explain to my readers what stem cells are, how they come to be and what we can use them for. We must first start with the different types of cells, I will explain them as I take you through part of the fetal development process. The first type of cell is the totipotent cell. This cell is created when a sperm fertilizes an egg. This kind of cell can†¦show more content†¦Once we are able to create these stem cell lines a variety of possibilities will be open to us. The first is the ability to speed up our future drug testing. This benefit should please animal rights activists. If we create a line of human stem cells for new drugs to b e tested on than we can assess the negative and positive effects on the stem cell tissue before the drug is ever used on an animal or a human. Not only that but testing new drugs on stem cells increase the amount of information we can learn because we can target specific and more varied tissues that previously we had access to. Now I will get into more direct benefits of stem cell research. Pluripotent stem cells can be directed to develop into almost any kind of tissue, and this creates the possibility for a renewable source of replacement tissues and cells. What does that mean? We would be able to better treat and cure a large number of diseases and injuries including but not limited to: Parkinson?s, Alzheimer?s, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. I have included an example taken from the National Institute of Health?s Primer on Stem Cells: Transplant of healthy heart muscle cells could provide new hope for patients with chronic heart disease whose hearts can no longer pump adequately. The hope is to developShow MoreRelatedThe Debate Of Stem Cell Research1519 Words   |  7 Pagesbring the topic of stem cell research to the table to inform you on a topic you most likely know nothing about. According to the bible the strong need to bear with the failings of the weak. Why should we please ourselves if we don’t care for stem cell research? Among one of the, if not the most, controversial topics of our time comes one medical science that can save lives if legalized nationwide. We are talking about stem cells of course, and why the allowance of these basic cells in common medicalRead MoreThe Ethics Of Stem Cell Research1557 Words   |  7 Pagesthese outstanding medical advances a self-renewing stem cell that regenerates and gives rise to all cells and tissues of the body was discovered. The controversy of such find ing of abilities of stem cell is that they can only be extracted from the human embryo. In order to extort stem cells from the embryo it needs to be aborted. The extraction needs to be done just days after conception or between the fifth and the ninth week. Though stem cell research has astonishing potential to save many livesRead MoreEssay about Stem Cell Research808 Words   |  4 PagesStem Cell Research Works Cited Not Included Stem cell research is an ongoing controversial issue. What exactly is stem cell research? How would this type of research affect peoples lives? What are stem cells? 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Stem cells are special cells that have the ability toRead MorePros And Cons Of Stem Cell Research1003 Words   |  5 PagesFoundations Ethics Stem Cell Research Stem Cell Research Explorable.com 1.6M reads 32 Comments Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version Pros And Cons in Research The debate of the pros and cons of stem cell research clearly illustrate the difficult ethics evaluations researchers sometimes must do. All scientists must consider whether the positive effects from their research are likely to be significantly higher than the negative effects. What are Stem Cells? Stem Cells are crucial to developRead MoreStem Cell Research Essay1706 Words   |  7 Pagestheir educational short film A Stem Cell Story, there are certain stages of development while in the uterus where most of our cells stop dividing and stabilize into a specific kind of cell. They do not mutate throughout our life. These cells are referred to as specialized cells. Once they are damaged or die they cannot regenerate themselves. There is one kind of cell that never specializes during development. They are called stem cells and they are the only known cells that can renew themselves. WhenRead MoreThere Was A Seventeen-Year-Old Boy Named Joe Beene That1674 Words   |  7 PagesThere was a seventeen-year-old boy named Joe Beene that severely injured himself during a football practice in November. Because of Joe’s injury, Joe’s family had a very difficult moral dilemma that involved the right to conduct stem-cell research to help with medical conditions. The injury that Joe sustained was a broken neck that left Joe paralyzed from the Chest down hindering Joe from any activities including taking care of himself. I couldn’t even start to understand the pain and suffering that