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Ethical Issues Concerning Stem Cell Research Essay

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Adult bone marrow stem cells may have a way around a very serious issue in donation, immunity and the use of embryos. It may be possible to harvest the stem cells from the patient, then move them to wherever they may need. And because the donor and patient are the same, rejection wouldn’t be a problem. (Wyce) One problem with adult stem cells is that the patient is the donor. While on the other hand Fetal stem cells have higher replicative potential and the pre-immune status of early fetal stem cells might be important in mismatched transplant situations. There are, of course, ethical issues associated with the collection and use of fetal tissues for stem cell research. Nevertheless, it can be argued that fetal stem cells are currently obtained …show more content…

Almost all religions look down on embryonic stem cells because that the baby has to be killed and the life has to be taken. For this reason the field is looked down upon and thus research and funding is slow, but we may not have to use embryos to gain these stem cells. A paper published by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a reproductive biology specialist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton, and his colleagues is sure to rekindle the debate for not using embryos. Mitalipov and his team have finally created patient-specific embryonic stem cells (ESCs) through cloning, and they are set to prove that the technology is worth pursuing. A donor cell from a body tissue such as skin is fused with an unfertilized egg from which the nucleus has been removed. The egg 'reprograms' the DNA in the donor cell to an embryonic state and divides until it has reached the early, blastocyst stage. The cells are then harvested and cultured to create a stable cell line that is genetically matched to the donor and that can become almost any cell type in the human body. (Cyranoski) With this method we don't have to use stem cells from embryos to heal someone, we can simply use egg cells along with a donor cell to create almost any

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