Defining the Future of Medicine
Stem cell research has been a top priority for scientists all over the world for years. Their unique characteristics and wide scale applicability allows them to be one of the world’s fastest growing economies. As stem cells, or self renewable cells, prove to be useful in a variety of fields such as medicine, cloning, and the food industry, it is almost certain that they are going to be a huge part of the market, especially in California, the current leader in stem cell research. The promise of economic growth is one of the many reasons that stem cell research is well funded by the government. While stem cells prove to be a steady investment for billionaires, treating disease and improving health care is just the “cherry on top” of opportunities they create. However, many people have varied stances on the morality behind the cultivation of these cells. Despite controversial opinions, stem cells are a medical beauty, and they are sure to create a major impact in our economy and radically improve current treatments.
History
Stem cells were first defined by Ernest McCulloch and James Till at the University of Toronto in the early 1960s. While testing bone marrow transplants in mice, they discovered a blood-forming stem cell, the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC). This discovery made the colony-forming cells that McCulloch and Till theorized a reality. These cells can then be transformed into pluripotent stem cells. Then in 1981, Martin Evans and Gail Martin conducted separate studies to derive pluripotent stem cells from mice. Pluripotent stem cells are cells that have the capacity to self-renew by dividing and developing into primary germ cell layers of the early embryo and
eventually all the cells in the adult body. The pluripotent cells Evans and Martin derived were the first embryonic stem cells to be isolated. In 1997, Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute unveiled the first artificial animal clone, Dolly the sheep, who was created by the fusion of a sheep egg with an udder cell, and then implanting the resulting hybrids into a surrogate mother sheep. The success of this project led to the speculation that similar hybrids could be created to genetically match adult tissue and organs. A year later, in 1998, scientists at John Hopkins isolated the first human embryonic stem cell. Since then, efforts have steered stem cell research into broader categories, such as heart disease, organ transplant, cloning, and regenerative medicine.
Applications
Stem cell transplant is another application of stem cells. In these transplants, stem cells are used to replace cells that may have been damaged by chemotherapy or other complications. Stem cells are the body’s raw materials, and under the right conditions, they can divide to become daughter cells. These daughter cells can either become new stem cells, by self-renewal, or can specialize by differentiation. Cells that differentiate have a more specific function, such as brain cells, blood cells, heart muscles cells, or bone marrow cells. No other cell in the body has the natural ability to generate into new cell types. Because they can repair damaged tissue and replace injured cells, the next chapter of research is using stem cells in organ transplants instead of relying on the short supply of donor organs. For example, a patient with heart disease who needs a transplant would be injected with stem cells trained to restore function in the damaged heart. Just as our body trains to fight viral diseases using vaccines, our body can also learn to use stem cells for specialization. Research has shown that adult bone marrow cells can be guided to become heart-like cells to repair heart tissue. Even though this type of research is still developing, a form of stem cell therapy has already been applied in hospitals. Surgeons have performed stem cell transplants for cancer and blood-related diseases like leukemia and lymphoma using HSCs.
Seeing Double
Stem cell organs are less likely to be rejected than donor organs. As a result, a wide range of diseases can be treated with stem cells including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Type 1 Diabetes. Stem cells can even be used in therapeutic cloning, or somatic cell transfer, a technique used to create stem cells independent of fertilized eggs. In this technique, the nucleus is removed from an unfertilized egg and from the cell of a donor. The donor nucleus is injected into the unfertilized egg. The egg divides and forms a blastocyst essentially creating stem cells genetically identical to the donor cell — a clone. Therapeutic cloning would allow doctors to observe how diseases progress and has been applied in the production of genetically modified, or transgenic, animals. This type of cloning, however, has not been successful in humans, despite success in other species such as sheep and mice. Research for therapeutic and regenerative cloning continues, and we can be prepared to depend on laboratory artificial organs completely grown from stem cells in the future.
Potential Risks
With every positive success in this area of study comes a potential risk. For embryonic stem cells to be used by a patient, the doctor must be sure that the stem cells will differentiate into the correct type of cell. Embryonic stem cells can grow irregularly or specialize in different cell types spontaneously. They may also trigger an immune response causing the immune system to attack the cells as foreign bodies. Additionally, there are numerous known risks for the female donor while attaining the embryonic cells. Even so, we simply lack the technology yet to further research and cultivate stem cells in large quantities. A majority of clinical trials proved that stem cell transplants have many side effects and they are not yet FDA approved. In addition to health risks for humans during experimental therapies, there are a variety of ethical concerns regarding stem cell research in the community as well.
Ethical Concerns
Stem cells have been a matter of political and ethical controversy since their conception. The destruction of human embryos posed a series of debates — when does human life start? Destroying embryos, as well as the morality of abortion, are closely linked to the disagreement of when human life starts. Those against embryonic stem cells used believe it to be immoral and unethical to destroy one life to save another. They believe that destroying an embryo is the equivalent of taking a life, regardless if the egg has fully developed yet. All methods to extract oocytes, germ cells required to generate stem cells, from embryos require the destruction of an egg and have potential for health risks to the donor. Additionally, “stem cell research in particular has been subject to significant commercialization pressure,” says the Health Law Institute in Canada. The close link between publicly funded research and the industrial efforts to turn university-based research into marketable products seems to relate to the “capitalization of life and human body parts.” Many agencies financially benefit from stem cells, but for the most part, many are in support of stem cell research and transplant. The high amount of scientific excitement in funding this wide-scale applicable solution to hundreds of problems seem to be enough to ignore the speculation of a few.
Economy
Despite hesitancy about the future of stem cells, many government agencies know that stem cells will be a major part of our economy. From stocks to clinical trials, these microscopic jewels will be valuable and highly sought after. Because stem cells have the potential to treat chronic illnesses, health care costs will lower and treatment will be more accessible. The overall cost of healthcare is an extensive part of our tax dollars, but with stem cells it is sure to decrease substantially. They will spur economic growth, and with our current situation in the COVID-19 pandemic, the accompanying increase in job opportunities will have an immediate impact. With a projective market of $500 billion by the end of 2021, states are right to fund these economic programs. However, this is just the short-term payoff, as we might be looking at 10 more years of trials. Stem cells might not reach the market any time soon but even if they do, doctors are unsure of their real world applicability and affordability. Additionally, many patients are not comfortable with the treatments using stem cells. Currently, the economic climate is too unstable to attempt testing. Even so, it is certain stem cells will play a vital role in improving healthcare.
Hundreds of Years Later…
Stem cells have been studied for decades, and with each year, progress and new discoveries paint our future. Despite ethical controversy, stem cell research has the potential to treat diseases that are burdened with high healthcare costs. Introducing stem cells into the market can make healthcare more affordable for those who do not receive proper care. Stem cells are the future of organ transplants and body system repairs, and will introduce new medications and safer treatments. They have the capacity to completely eradicate the need for donor organs and generate body parts that are short in supply. Their impact will extend to the food industry with the cloning of livestock and other food items. As their role in curing large chronic illnesses continues to be researched, they are sure to improve the quality of life for millions of people regardless. For now, the future of stem cells is unseeable, but definitely not unreachable.
Sources:
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