Developments In Stem Cell Research
There is a bio-medical research lab at UC Santa Barbara. They
claim to have progress to cure vision diseases such as macular degeneration,
diabetic retinopathy and Alzheimer’s.. They are focusing their research towards
the development of stem cells from skin, known as pluripotent stem cells. These
have the potential to remove embryonic stem cells from the picture of stem cell
research. This would allow the progression of stem cell research without the
moral “is this right or wrong” question. With the combination of expertise in bio-engineering basic molecular biology and neuroscience, they have been able
to address many problems that other research facilities cannot such as “ how to
deliver the cells, how to get the cells pure and how to monitor the cells after
transplantation”.
This article caught my interest because Alzheimer’s is
fairly common in my family. My grandmother currently has it and is currently
living in a special nursing home that specializes in Alzheimer’s. My mother
already has faint signs and I believe its only a matter of time before she
succumbs to it as well. Since it is coming from two sides of my family, knowing
there is hope out there to cure it in the future is nice to know. I also have a
great interest in stem cells. The research that has been done on embryonic stem
cells is incredible; however, I never wanted to support it because I believe
that killing embryos for the stem cells is unethical. Taking stem cells from
skin that work as well as embryonic stem cells changes the playing ground drastically
now. I will be very interested in what comes from this research facility.
posted by Unknown at 1:04 PM
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