Ella MacQueen
Stories (1/0)
Stem Cell Research
Every human body has special cells that, when they divide, have the potential to become any specific cell with a certain function such as blood cells, brain cells, or muscle cells. However, a type of stem cell called adult stem cells are limited. There are specific stem cells that can only grow into certain organ tissue. For example, humans have liver stem cells that can only grow into liver cells and not into any other type of organ or tissue. Embryonic stem cells are not limited in this way. In a blastocyst, or a fertilized egg that has not yet attached to the uterine wall, there are millions of stem cells that have the potential to grow into any type of tissue. The eggs used for stem cell research are not extracted from a woman’s body, but rather from a fertilized egg in a petri dish. Many scientists want to use the flexibility and potential of stem cell research to better human life and ease suffering. However, there are those who oppose the use of these type of cells. One cause of the controversy of this issue is that in many cases, the blastocyst is destroyed in the process of extracting the stem cells. For almost 20 years, scientists have been debating back and forth about the ethics of stem cell research, specifically concerning embryonic stem cells.
By Ella MacQueen7 years ago in Longevity