Stem cell research: a moral dilemma
Sometimes advances in science move so quickly that it is difficult for society to develop policy guidelines. Such is the case with the field of stem cell research (SCR) that is currently a source of intense public debate. For some, these experiments represent the destruction of emerging human life. For others, they could provide a cure for such debilitating conditions as spinal cord paralysis, Alzheimer's disease, cancer and multiple sclerosis; it would be a human injustice not to promote such research. In the heat of the debate, the different areas of SCR (which each have their own ethical implications) can get lost:

• Embryonic SCR involves using ‘spare’ embryos arising from in vitro fertilization. Following fertility treatment, the unneeded embryos can be offered for adoption, stored, discarded or donated to science. Better to use them for research than to bin them, many would argue. This is probably the most controversial area of SCR.
• At the other end of the ethical spectrum, is adult SCR. These cells can be obtained without the ethical conflicts inherent in using human embryos. Adult stem cells are undifferentiated (unspecialized) cells found among the cells of a specific tissue. They are mostly multipotent cells, that is, they can produce cells only of a closely related family. For example bone marrow cells can develop into several different types of blood cells but cannot, for instance, develop into brain cells. Hence the attraction of embryonic stem cells whose development is unrestricted (that is, they are totipotent).
• Finally a technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has been developed. SCNT creates stem cells by inserting the nucleus of a patient's cell into an egg cell that has had its nucleus removed. The resulting cell can be coaxed to produce embryonic stem cells, which are capable of transformation into a large number of cell types. Moreover SCNT creates stem cells with a distinct advantage over those derived from in vitro fertilization in that they would be genetically and immunologically compatible with the patient and could be used without risk of immune rejection.

Surely SCNT is the ideal solution? However, some would object because, like the union of sperm and egg during reproduction, this creates an embryo. The result of combining the adult human cell and human enucleated egg is a human embryo which if implanted into a womb, has the potential to develop into an identical twin of the patient donor in the same way that Dolly the sheep was created. In the public mind this may only be one step away from human cloning.

No area is moving forwards faster than that of reproductive technology; researchers are now able to make human sperm cells from embryonic stem cells. Soon it will be possible to do the same for egg cells. Although this technology is being developed for infertility treatment, stem-cell sperm or eggs could be used to make children for other individuals.

“It is possible that we could use this technology to make eggs from stem cells created from a man's skin cells,” said Professor Harry Moore, of Sheffield University's Centre for Stem Cell Biology. “Thus technology could help gay men have babies, though obviously a fertilised egg created this way would have to be carried to term by a woman. It would have the genetic make-up of its two male ‘parents’.”

There are as yet no governmental guidance as to how these ethical issues might be approached. It is something that needs to be addressed.

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Content last updated: 01/12/2005

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