Stem Cells for Everyone!

A while ago I made a post concerning stem cell research. Well, many people are against using human embryos in research, regardless of the beneficial procedures that said research could produce. However, there have been recent discoveries that could solve the problem while keeping both the researchers and the pro-life supporters happy. A professor from Kyoto University named Shinya Yamanaka developed a procedure that turns mice skins cells into mice stem cells. His results have been reproduced by other researchers, which prove that it isn’t some hoax, and he is apparently making strides in doing the same in humans.



What does this mean for us? If this technique could be reproduced in humans, we could take a person’s skin cells, and turn them into stem cells that could be used to cure many disorders, fix otherwise deadly wounds, and perhaps even cure diseases. To top the whole scenario off, this wouldn’t involve killing, or even creating, any embryos, effectively destroying the current argument against further investigations.

I really like this idea. Personally, I think the gains that our current techniques would provide outweigh any ethical dilemmas that it would create. However, even I don’t much like the idea of messing with human embryos if it can be avoided. Also, there’s the fact that our current procedures have less than a 1% success rate, and that these new techniques could theoretically have a much higher chance of being successful. Overall, I think we should allocate a large amount of resources towards investigating these new ways of ethically researching stem cells, and any therapies they would allow. I eagerly look towards a future where we could have access to personalized stem cells without angering half the population due to ethical beliefs.