Question

What kind of legal issues do you think stem cell research and genetic therapies will present in the coming years?

Answer 1

Stem cell research shares a great opportunity to explore deep understanding of intricate mechanisms involved in the human development and differentiation and the crosstalk between different biological pathways so that novel treatment options would emerge. The precursor cells known as pluripotent stem cells have capacity to differentiate into any cell type of body and this property of pluripotency can be capitalized to allow them to grow into cells of our choice that could be used for transplantation interventions.

Though, stem cell research has a great potential to address the issues. Nevertheless, it has undergone lot of criticism at various phases of the research like consent required to donate biological material and conduct clinical trials, concerns regarding destruction of human embryos (which can become a human being), monetary benefit to the donors of stem cells etc. The people who are criticizing it at political and religious levels say that embryos which are future generations have the same rights to live as other grown human beings.

The bigger issue regarding human stem cell research is that reprogramming of cells for therapeutic use can cause harmful mutations that would enhance the chances of cancer as well as unexpected migration of stem cells that could cause neurological issues. Scientists of embryonic stem cell research believe that many diseases can be cured using stem cells like Parkinson's disease etc. However, the critics believe that such cells could cause immune rejection; it is a very costlier technique that has more of business orientation and could lead disorder of the human species. The issue of side effects of conditioning which is done before actual treatment using stem cells draws a huge storm of controversies both political as well as ethical.