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Asked by vicky to Anne, Carolyn, Joe, Mariana, Nick on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: Test methods. This question was also asked by dominicmulford.
Question: how do you feel about the use of embryonic stem cells for your research or research in general?
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Carolyn McGettigan answered on 16 Mar 2010:
vicky, this is what I wrote in response to a similar question:
Well, because I don’t work with stem cells I have to admit I really know only a little about the topic. I think this topic is a good model for many issues in the development of science. There are pros and cons, and it will be crucial for scientists and the rest of the public to work together in forming policies that will ensure that all of the ethical issues are fairly addressed.
The potential therapeutic benefits of stem cell research are considerable, but then there is still a lot of uncertainty about the long-term consequences of therapy for the recipients. And then of course there is the very sensitive topic of whether it is right to use embryos to generate these cells, especially when positive outcomes are not guaranteed. From my reading around today, it does seem that there are several types of stem cells that can be derived from adult tissue and could be used therapeutically, although these may not be *as* useful as embryonic cells for several reasons. Maybe investing more time in the development of the adult stem cell types will help to re-focus the debate on the pros and cons of the clinical applications, and less on the moral issues surrounding ‘the use of a life’ for research.
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Joseph Devlin answered on 16 Mar 2010:
Stem cell work is primarily for the treatment of various neurological problems and because my research is primarily based on normal, healthy individuals they aren’t especially relevant to my work.
More generally, I think stem cells are an extremely promising area of research but not one I follow in detail. I read that recent advances have helped to make cell lines reproducible for much longer times, reducing the need to get new material. If true, that’s a substantial advance that should make new breakthroughs ever more likely.
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Nick Bradshaw answered on 16 Mar 2010:
Personally I doubt that embryonic stem cell treatment will ever be used for schizophrenia, which is what I study. It is better suited for tackling diseases in which whole groups of cells stop working all together (such as Parkinson’s). Schizophrenia seems to occur when much more subtle things go wrong, so rather than adding new cells we need to fix the ones that are normally there. In the short term this will probably be through the use of new improved drugs, although it is possible that gene therapy may be of use in the long term.
As for stem cells generally, that is a complex area. Speaking scientifically the embryos used to generate them are two early to have the ability to “think” or be a person, and most of them are unused IVF embryos that were to be destroyed anyway. However it is still for me a grey area. There are a lot of people working on ways of generating more “ethical” stem cells, but whether these will ever be as useful as embryonic ones remains to be seen.
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Mariana Vargas answered on 16 Mar 2010:
There is a lot of potential on the use of embryonic stems cells to treat disease, but there are a lot of problems associated with them (mainly that they can produce tumours). I think in the long distant future the emphasis in Medicine will be more on the prevention rather than in the cure of diseases. So we may not need to rely on stem cells, but at the moment it is useful to explore many therapies which can save lives for people which have devastating diseases, although I believe it’s important to research distinct therapies, and not only the use of embryonic stem cells.
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