Stem Cells are cells that can develop into many different types of cells such as muscle cells or brain cells. A stem cell can either stay as a stem cell or develop into another special cell such as a muscle, blood, or brain cell. Stem cells act as a repair system for the body.

Some of the pros of stem cell research are that scientists can learn about how we are made up or formed and try to reverse problems in this stage such as cancer and birth defects.

Another pro is that we are learning how to grow tissue to use for medical reasons, if they keep progressing in their studies scientists will possibly be able to cure illness such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

If scientists can find a way to do this it will be great because in America now we have more people that need organs than people donating organs, so if the scientist succeed then thousands of lives will be saved.

Some of the cons of stem cell research are that to develop a cell line scientists have to use embryonic stem cells witch are taken from embryos that are about one week old this means that the baby will not live, so a life is lost in order to save others. I think that we should not do this because we can also get embryonic stem cells from umbilical cords and tissue but not just as much as an embryo.

Embryonic stem cells are so important because they have the possibility of becoming any cell in the body such as a brain cell or a bone marrow cells.

If scientists could learn how to develop organs such as the heart or lungs they could be used to test drugs on to find out witch ones were safe and witch ones were not. Another way they could help is that they could possibly be used to treat some illnesses that are only found in a few cell types such as Parkinson disease. Theoretically healthy cells could be injected into people with unhealthy hearts in order to strengthen the heart and save the person.

Although stem cells have come a long way in the past years I think they still have a long way to go and we are getting closer and closer every day.

Learn more about this author, Richard Hamilton.
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