Morality and ES cells
Neil Neumann
Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:54 UTC
To get things started. I had a question about what people think about the morality of complete control over embryonic stem cells. By this I mean if we ever get to the point where we completely understand the transcriptional networks in ES cells and can control which pathways they go down to create new tissues or limbs. Is that wrong? Is that too much control or is that the goal of current ES cell research?
Just thinking,
Neil
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Replies
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Personally, embryonic stem cell research is both exciting and uncomfortable at the same time. With the new iPS cells, I think ES cells are simply excellent models of pluripotent cells, rather than the clinically relevant source we once believed. I do think it would be ethically problematic to use embryonic stem cells when a non-controversial alternative exists.
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Wow. One would have thought that a bioethics forum would be quite a happening place. Well, to spice it up a little, let’s extend this debate in a different direction: in the future, will we even need stem cells?? Although research on and using ES cells is still an extremely worthy and useful endeavor (for now…), recent publications give rise to the notion that we may be able to short-circuit the discussion on that particular morality issue (destroying embryos for research purposes) and simply bicker about cloning instead. If you want a little more, please see a discussion on this topic here.
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I have to agree with Noah – why are there so few takers on this? Noah, I agree with you – there still seems to be too little discussion on the emerging alternatives (hey, I’m not in the field, so I may be missing out). The other problem I see is the general public level of understanding of research using embryonic stem cells. For example: there’s a big difference between ‘using’ available stem cells vs. specifically starting embryos for the purpose, isn’t there? How do you communicate even just that – not to mention the more specific technical details you mention? Hey, this is big politics these days that get people to vote for one or the other party..
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