Several years ago I remember first hearing about stem cell
research, and at the time it was not a very hot topic. However it did not take
long before it became the spotlight of biotechnology and the hottest topic of debate
between the scientific community and many religious or spiritual organizations.
In case you have been living under a rock for the last decade I’ll quickly
explain what stem cells are exactly and why they found themselves at the center
of such a heated debate.
Cells are the
building blocks of our bodies and must constantly be replaced with new ones as
the old ones die and fall away. Our bodies have to constantly produce skin,
blood, hair, and muscle cells on a daily basis and they accomplish this daunting
task through the use of stem cells. Stem cells are the cells in our body that
have the ability to either split into two separate stem cells or become two
cells of something like hair or skin. Every single one of us has and uses stem
cells in our bodies every day, but there is another type of stem cells and
these are the ones that have been the most debated. Embryotic stem cells are similar to the stem cells
that we create, however they are only found in babies that are still growing
because unlike our stem cells they have the ability to not only split into
hair, skin, muscle, and blood cells but any type of cells in our entire body.
This type of a stem cell can be used to repair previously un-repairable body
parts such as limbs or major organs. If you are interested in watching a video
that can better explain the science behind stem cells I would recommend watching
this video by EuroStemCell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-3J6JGN-_Y)
on youtube. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding embryotic stem cell
research in the last several years. Some believe that it is considered playing
the role of “God” and that we should simply not be experimenting with this type
of research at all. Others admittedly do not know much about the subject but
recall others saying that the only way to get embryotic stem cells is through
unborn babies, in particular those from abortions. This is not the case however
and in fact most embryotic stem cells come from umbilical cord donations which
have a very large amount of embryotic stem cells. Yet a majority of the scientific
community stands behind their research and feels that it is vitally important
to push this biotechnology out of the clinical trials phase and into the
medical market place.
The advancement
of stem cells in the medical field has been and continues to be a long hard
road. No matter where you stand on this road morally or theoretically the
evidence is beginning to pile in favor of these procedures at a rate that simply
cannot be ignored. Wired.com published an article in 2003 (http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/03/57944?currentPage=all)
about a boy who was involved in a nail gun accident that caused him to undergo
open heart surgery, after the surgery his only options to live where either a
heart transplant or become the first patient to use stem cells to attempt reconstruct
the hearts destroyed tissue. The procedure took 4 days to incubate the stem
cells in his body and then a week after they were transplanted on his broken
heart wall he was all set to go home and finish recovering. This type of
success story has played out over and over again over the last decade. Several
years ago China legalized stem cell use for medical treatment and there are a
ton of documented cases of successful use that is readily available with a
little bit of searching. Many of these cases are almost unbelievable at first
such as people who have been paralyzed for most of their lives going to China
for treatments and returning in as little as a few months walking on their own.
EuroStemCell.org (06/14/2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-3J6JGN-_Y
Philipkoski, Kristen, Stem Cells Heal a Broken Heart (03/07/2003)
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/03/57944?currentPage=all
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