Entry nº 38: Oral Presentation Nº 1 Second Part

The process of harvesting stem cells in the laboratory consist of four steps. Step one: an egg is fertilized.Embryonic stem cells used in cells used in research most often come from embryos left over after in vitro fertilizarion procedures. Step two: the fertilized egg begins to divide and develop into an embryo. About five days later, the embryo becomes a blastocyst (a hollow ball of about 100 cells). The inner cells are the embryonic. Step three: stem cells are removed from the blastocyst and cultured in the laboratory where they theoretically can multiply indefinitely. Step four: by adding and removing certain proteins, scientists can coax the cells to develop into new heart, bone, nerve or other cells. Stem cells are good candidates for cell-based therapies due to the following characteristics: 1- Potential to be harvested from patients; 2- High capacity of cell proliferation in culture to obtain large number of cells from limited source; 3- Ease of manipulation to replace existing non functional genes via gene transfer methods; 4- Ability to migrate to host’s target tissues e.g. the brain; and 5-Ability to integrate into host tissue and interact with surrounding tissue. Medical researchers believe that stem cells therapy has the potential to dramatically change the treatment of human disease. A number of adult stem cell therapies already exists, particularly bone marrow transplant that are used to treat leukemia. Currently, the potential therapeutic applications of stem cell bioengineering are being investigated such as the generation of different types of neurons for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and spinal cord injuries; the production of heart muscle cells for heart attack survivors; the generation of insulin-secreting pancreatic islet cells for the treatment of type-1 diabetes; drug testing; cancer research and fundamental research on embryonic developmentñ. There exists a widespread controversy over human embryonic stem cell research that emanates from the techniques used in the creation and usage of stem cells. Starting a stem cell line requires the destruction of a human embryo and/or therapeutic cloning. What is more, British scientists have been allowed to create human-animal hybrid embrios to assure a supply of stem cell for scientific investigation so that they can avoid the previous techniques. But all these procedures have come under ethical scrutiny since they require serious moral consideration by society.
In conclusion, I think that stem cell bioengineering is a great advance for the treatment of many diseases that otherwise could not be treated or cured, but these investigations need specific legislation and governmental strict control in order to avoid future Frankenstein type experiments in case scientists try to play God, and further education of the public so as to provide detailed information to the public opinion. However, in what respects to the genetic manipulation of human embryos I agree with an article which stated that although this procedures could be possible there is still much of human genetic structure that is unknown that designer babies may never be possible. This affirmation was based in two main reasons. First, trying to alter genes is a truly daunting task because it can have deadly consequences as has been demonstrated in the experiments done with so-called knockout mice which were born with unexpected handicaps and some died within days. Second, the development of a human beings depend not only on some specific genes but also in many other factors such as environment, lifestyle, motivations, customs and so on. Apart form that, these genetically modified embryos would still inherit an assortment of their parents’ genes, so the changes are not assured to have successful results.