by Sam Roberts

Created on: August 07, 2009   Last Updated: August 08, 2009

Issue Ethical views on Stem cell research

Stem cell research in both embryos and skin has great potential to open boxes for the future of biology and medical advances.

Stems cells have given hope to the past and present untreatable diseases and disorders. (See left for stem cell http://healthcare.zdnet.com/images/stem-cell-harvest .jpg) [3]. However where ever there is a new medical advancement there are ethnical issues to be taken into view.

Human stem cell research has been a subject of much debate recently. There has been much discussion about what an embryo is, as well as ethical, legal, and religious issues. The main issue with stem cells is ethnic views, with most religions having strong views against stem cell research; it is extremely hard to gain funds for the research. This hardens the possibility of further research in a possible breakthrough that could save many lives, or does it?

Main stem cell research starts from a totipotent 8 cell embryo (show left). They can be obtained from blastocysts or different forms of early embryos. These are the most likely to be grown into any organ in the human body or to be used for cell transplantation to help people regain tissues to help recover from injury.

There are three types of cell stages, totipotent, pluripotent and multipotent. (See left for stem cell stages, http://theblackcordelias.files.wordpress.com/2009/03 /stem-cells.jpg ) [2]

A totipotent cell is a single cell that has the ability to divide and produce all the differentiated cells within an organism.

Zygotes are a type of totipotent cell and are formed during sexual and asexual reproduction. Zygotes are the products of the fusion of two gametes (fertilization).

A pluripotent cell has the ability to become any cell in the body bar a few such as a placenta cell. This stage of cells comes after totipotent cells, just after the embryonic cell under goes the first few divisions when it is a blastocyst.

A mulipotent cell is slightly more specialized and have potential to develop into limited other types of cells. Multipotent cells are adult cells and mainly consist of muscle, blood, heart and nerve cells. These cells are used by an organism for repair on damaged tissue.

Ethical issues:

For:

One may kill someone who is unjustly pursuing a third party to kill him.[1]

This famous Jewish quote is saying in the sense of a fetus, if the fetus is not yet considered a person and is pursuing its mother in most likely death then it may be killed

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