How many diseases do you know of that have a cure? If you’re like most people, the answer is not many. Even diseases that are treatable can cause a lot of problems for patients. But what if there was a way to eradicate diseases altogether?
Believe it or not, stem cells may be able to help with this endeavor. Stem cells and their applications have led to a wide range of potential treatments for previously incurable diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease.
Keep reading to find out how disease eradication could be possible in the future.
What Exactly Is a Stem Cell?
Stem cells are essentially the foundation of your body. All other cells are derived from them. Stem cells divide into two groups: Pluripotent and multipotent. Pluripotent stem cells can become any type of cell. On the other hand, multipotent cells can only become different types based on the tissue they originate from.
Stem cells are extremely valuable due to their ability to self-renew and differentiate into other cell types. This makes them capable of replacing dead or diseased tissues and organs in your body. This can have positive consequences for future disease eradication.
How Do They Work?
There are multiple ways stem cells can therapeutically treat diseases. The first is to induce pluripotency or the state of being able to become any type of cell. Cells induced into this state are called induced pluripotent stem cells.
These types of cells transform by genetically manipulating a patient’s own cells. That way, they can lose some or all of their specialized functions and revert back to an embryonic state. A variation on the pluripotent cell is the embryonic stem cell.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells that originate from early-stage embryos. They work to treat a wide range of medical conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.
Another variation is the multipotent stem cell, which can become different types of cells based on their origin. For instance, bone marrow, blood vessels, brain tissue.
The Future of Stem Cell Therapeutics
Here we will focus on hematopoietic stem cells, aka blood stem cells. They are multipotent and able to differentiate into different cell types found in the blood. This allows them to be used to treat diseases that destroy the healthy bone marrow. These include leukemia and sickle-cell anemia.
The potential for stem cells therapeutics is endless, with applications ranging from regenerating diseased organs to curing genetic disorders. As research continues, the future of stem cell therapeutics looks bright.
Scientists have been optimistic about the future of stem cell therapeutics. More and more disorders are being treated with cellular therapies each year. They appear to be a promising treatment option that has yet to reach its full potential.
However, as scientists continue to research this promising field, there are some ethical concerns that must be addressed before clinical trials involving stem cells are widely administered.
Ethical Concerns
There are three main ethical concerns surrounding the use of stem cell therapeutics: the moral status of human embryos, informed consent, and societal justice.
The moral status of human embryos is an important issue to address before clinical trials involving stem cell therapies can continue.
The use of human embryos, which are associated with In vitro fertilization, has been the subject of intense ethical debate. To many researchers and scholars, using embryonic stem cells to produce treatment options for diseases is equivalent to destroying human life.
Therefore, it is ethically inappropriate for scientists to use human embryos when they could be used in other ways.
It would be more appropriate to use embryonic stem cells that are not capable of forming an embryo, or adult stem cells that have already been differentiated into specific cell types.
Informed consent is another ethical concern scientists must contend with before utilizing stem cell therapeutics in clinical trials.
When conducting clinical trials, it is essential that the human participants understand all of the risks associated with the treatment they are receiving. There have been many cases in which scientists used experimental treatments on patients without their knowledge or consent.
It is unethical to test out an unproven treatment option without giving adequate information to the subject. If clinical trials involving stem cell therapies continue, scientists must ensure that they are providing adequate information to their human participants.
However, trailblazers, like Moderna Co-founder Kenneth Chien, support the use of stem cell therapy.
Societal Concerns
Finally, societal justice is an important aspect of clinical trials involving stem cell therapies that have yet to be addressed properly. The use of embryonic stem cells in research comes with a hefty price tag. Some estimates place the cost at around $20,000 per subject.
This sort of price tag is not feasible for impoverished people who could benefit the most from stem cell therapies. It is unlikely that clinical trials involving embryonic stem cells will result in treatments for diseases that disproportionately affect impoverished communities.
Research should focus on effectiveness rather than cost, but this research must be directed toward the diseases that are most likely to impact everyone.
Can Stem Cells Cure Diseases? Disease Eradication Made Possible
Stem cell therapy is one of the most promising medical breakthroughs in recent years. It’s been used to treat a variety of ailments, and now researchers are looking at how it could be an effective weapon against cancer. We’re excited about what this research might mean for our future and disease eradication!
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