STEM Cell Research

STEM cell research involves researchers growing stem cells in laboratories. The stem cells are manipulated/influenced to specialize into the exact type of cells, including nerve cells, blood cells, or heart muscles, which can then be implanted into a living human (Chowdhury & Ghosh, 2021). Stem cell research provides a great potential to understand the fundamental mechanisms of differentiation and human development, along with the expectation of new treatments for numerous illnesses such as spinal cord injuries, diabetes, myocardial infarctions, and Parkinson’s disease (Prasad Joshi et al. 2016). Stem cell research is funded mainly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Hence it forms the federal government’s budget (NIH Human Microbiome Portfolio Analysis Team et al. 2019). The private sector may also fund the research. Even though human stem cell (hSC) research elicits sharp political and ethical controversies, and some people do not agree with the funding, this study finds the benefits of federal funding the STEM cell research to outweigh the demerits.

STEM cell research is controversial in the US due to ethical issues around the termination of embryotic cells to obtain stem cells. The US congress in 1995 adopted the Dickey-Wicker amendment prohibiting the federal budget allocation for the research, arguing that it destroys life by destroying embryos. President Bush appended his signature on the decision, but President Obama’s administration lifted many restrictions, arguing for the potential treatment of various diseases possible with stem cell research (Hayden, 2009).

Furthermore, studies have affirmed a wide range of prospective adoption of stem cells to improve the well-being and lives of many people. Stem cells can treat several afflictions such as spinal cord injuries, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, osteoarthritis, heart complications, and rheumatoid arthritis. The treatment uses undifferentiated cells conditioned to generate definite cells that can be transplanted to the hurt part of the body (Prasad Joshi et al., 2016). Another important application of stem cells is during drug testing. New drugs can be tried using stem cells, which develop into target tissues before the drug is used on human subjects (Chowdhury & Ghosh, 2021). This way, stem cells help to enhance human safety on the verge of rapid development of new drugs.

Furthermore, transplantation of stem cell-created organs could reduce the need f0r donors in organ transplants and save the lives of people who could not otherwise find a donor. This will also reduce the cases of human trafficking and the killing of people for organ trade activities. Embryonic is completely undifferentiated or pluripotent, with the ability to generate specific cells (Bhat et al. 2019), hence having excellent potential for treating many diseases in the near future.

Concerning the controversies surrounding embryo destruction in embryotic stem cell research, one compromise is that scientists only use excess embryos from vitro fertilization that cannot be advanced into a child. Many embryos are created during vitro fertilization to increase the chances of at least one being successful. All the embryos produced during the process cannot all be needed (Volarevic et al. 2018); hence nothing wrong with using them for other life-saving research. Besides, the embryo controversies in stem cell research could soon be solved entirely with more advancement. For instance, modern scientific innovation in stem cell study is the development of induced pluripotent/undifferentiated cells. These are adult cells capable of getting undifferentiated after a sequence of treatments. Induced pluripotent/undifferentiated stem cells have lots of advantages as they will reduce the destruction of embryos, and also there is no problem of rejection or immune response issues since the cells are generated from the patients (Shi et al. 2017). That is why STEM cell research requires more federal funding to advance these areas, potentially saving millions of lives in the era of rapidly advancing diseases.

Overall, federal government funding is critical for the effective and rapid scientific development in scientific stem cells study due to a wide range of potential cures, the ethics of adopting excess embryos for scientific research, and the capacity to guarantee appropriately regulated and controlled scientific research practices. The excellent opportunity to advance the general well-being and health of the human race must not be wasted due to legal and political squabbles.

References

Bhat, M., Shetty, P., Shetty, S., Khan, F. A., Rahman, S., & Ragher, M. (2019). Stem cells and their application in dentistry: A review. Journal of Pharmacy & Bioallied Sciences, 11(Suppl 2), S82.

Chowdhury, S., & Ghosh, S. (2021). Stem Cells in Clinical Research and Therapy. In Stem Cells (pp. 239-252). Springer, Singapore.

Hayden, E. C. (2009). Obama overturns stem-cell ban: president’s executive order will allow US human embryonic stem-cell research to thrive at last. Nature, 458(7235), 130-132.

NIH Human Microbiome Portfolio Analysis Team lita.proctor@ nih. gov Lita Proctor Jonathan LoTempio Aron Marquitz Phil Daschner Dan Xi Roberto Flores Liliana Brown Ryan Ranallo Padma Maruvada Karen Regan R. Dwayne Lunsford Michael Reddy Lis Caler. “A review of 10 years of human microbiome research activities at the US National Institutes of Health, Fiscal Years 2007-2016.” Microbiome 7 (2019): 1-19.

Prasad Joshi, Y., Kabir, R., Upreti, P., Lee, E. W., Papadopoulos, K., & Ferdous, N. (2016). Potential impact and controversy of stem cells in public health. International Journal of Scientific Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, 2(5), 9-14.

Shi, Y., Inoue, H., Wu, J. C., & Yamanaka, S. (2017). Induced pluripotent stem cell technology: a decade of progress. Nature reviews Drug discovery, 16(2), 115-130.

Volarevic, V., Markovic, B. S., Gazdic, M., Volarevic, A., Jovicic, N., Arsenijevic, N., … & Stojkovic, M. (2018). Ethical and safety issues of stem cell-based therapy. International journal of medical sciences, 15(1), 36.