Stem Cell Research

[BrandNewRock05]

Immoral? Key to many problems? Good, bad or indifferent, tell your thoughts.

[Ronin]

Originally posted by BrandNewRock05
Immoral? Key to many problems? Good, bad or indifferent, tell your thoughts.

Possibly the key to many MANY problems

And I don't think it's immoral

[BrandNewRock05]

I think its a great thing, and i do not find the immorality in it. Its only a positive to do this. I dont know everything about it, but curing paralysis and cancer sound like good things

[yeat182]

it sounds good to me, unless they start growing fetus's specifiacally for their stem sells...that's probably a bad thing.

[BrandNewRock05]

Originally posted by yeat182
it sounds good to me, unless they start growing fetus's specifiacally for their stem sells...that's probably a bad thing.
that would be bad. but i figure there are enough miscarriges to help us figure stuff out, then we go from there.

[steverocks33]

if they can grow a kidney or lung or something by itself, i think its fine, but if they start growing babies just for spare parts, thats fucked up.

[kidinthecorner]

Originally posted by steverocks33
if they can grow a kidney or lung or something by itself, i think its fine, but if they start growing babies just for spare parts, thats fucked up.
Werd. Its good if it can be done in a humane way. Once its abused, its completely fucked in my mind.

[tyte emo]

Originally posted by steverocks33
but if they start growing babies just for spare parts, thats fucked up.

They don't and won't.

I happen to know a little on this subject because last year I was VERY interested. I wanted to become an geneticist or something... I did a few research papers on stem cells and their uses.

I'll try to outline one of the processes called somatic cell nuclear transfer.

So a lady donates an egg. Not an embryo, just an un-fertilized egg (it generally goes to waste monthly anyway). They take this egg to the lab. A paralyzed man donates an a cell from his arm. The DNA of the egg donor is extracted from the egg (along with its entire nucleus) and the somatic cell nucleus, containing the full diploid (46 chromosomes) is transplanted into the egg.

Then the egg is stimulated to being mitosis and growth. Growth is stopped once cells reach the blastocyst stage, the stage before cells begin to differentiate. So all of these cells are still stem cells capable of turning into whatever is needed for the patient. These cells can then be transplanted into the area of need of the patient.

That's the use of stem cells that we will see first. Growing a baby would mean not stopping the process at the blastocyst stage. But this would be impractical as any one patient would not need all the organs of the body... the somatic cell nuclear transfer process (to create stem cells) achieves much more as the stem cells created have the exact DNA of the patient.

Things that do not need specific DNA sequences are already being used in hospitals. These can be made from "stem cell lines" of stem cells that are already out there. Cartilage is one common example.