Entry nº 37: Oral Presentation Nº 1 First part

COULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO USE STEM CELL TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE ARTIFICIAL LIFE OR SO-CALLED “DESIGNER BABIES”?

Last year I read some newspaper articles about the application of stem cells to treat diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and I got surprised of such medical advances, but now after having read an article about the possible use of stem cell technology to create artificial sperm and eggs in order to treat infertile couples, and even to facilitate the production of designer babies, I wondered how far can scientists and doctors go with their investigations, and at what point do these investigations trasspass the line between ethical and unethical, between moral and immoral. Then I realized that I didn’t know quite well what stem cell technology was about so I could give a sustancial opinion about the issue; therefore, I made the following research.
First of all, it is necessary to define and characterize stem cells. Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the ability to differentiate into a diverse range of specialized cell types and the ability to self-regenerate, in other words, stem cells are a type of cells that can make any kind of cell required to build an organism. The ability to differentiate is the potential to develop into cells with special functions. Self-regeneration is the ability to divide and produce more stem cells for long periods of time. Stem cells are central to two processes in an organism, development and repair of adult tissue. Two basic types of stem cells occur in humans and animals: Embryonic stem cells and Adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells derive from the embryo when exists as a blastocyst (a three weeks embryo), this primordial embryonic cell are totipotent because have the potential to grow into a complete being. Embryonic stem cells have the potential to develop into all the different cell types or tissues found in the body, but they have lost the totipotent ability to grow into a separated being. This property is called pluripotency. Embryonic stem cells produced in laboratory conditions continue to divide and can be sustained almost indefinitely. Adult stem cells are found in humans and animals after birth and remain active in the body throughout a lifetime. They can only turn into certain specialized types of cells, that is why they are multipotent. Of all the adult stem cells identified thus far, Hematopoietic stem cells are the best characterized. Different types of adult stem cells act as a repair system and are able to replace such cells as blood cells, bone cells or certain nerve cells. Recently it has been found that these cells are able also to give rise to cell types of a completely different tissue, the phenomenon is known as “stem cell plasticity”. Examples include bone marrow stem cells becoming neurons or pancreatic islet cells (Hematopoietic stem cells give rise to liver, brain and kidney cells). Adult stem cells have been difficult to sustain in laboratories. In addition, the number of stem cells present in an adult is far fewer than the number seen in early development because most of the stem cells have differentiated and multiplied. This makes it extremely difficult to isolate stem cells from adult organism, which is why scientists hope to use embryonic stem cells for therapy because they are much easier to obtain. Although Embryonic stem cells have the most capacity to differentiate into a variety of cells and their proliferation capacity is also unsurpassed by any other cell type, there are three major problems with these cells: ethical issues, immunological rejection problems and the potential of developing teratomas (cancer). However, embryonic stem cells remains far more likely to produce a cure than do adult stem cells. On the other hand, the use of adult stem cells is not as controversial as embryonic stem cells because the production of adutl stem cells does not require the destruction of an embryo, and they can be obtain from different sources like bone marrow, peripheral blood or umbilical cord blood.