Argumentative Essay On Stem Cell Therapy

Some of the promise of stem cell therapy has been realized. A prime example is bone marrow transplantation. Even here, however, manyproblems remain to be solved. Challenges facing stem cell therapy include the following: Adult stem cells Tissue-specific stem cells in adult individuals tend to be rare. Furthermore, while they can regenerate themselves in an animal or person they are generally very difficult to grow and to expand in the laboratory. Because of this, it is difficult to obtain sufficient numbers of many adult stem cell types for study and clinical use. Hematopoietic or blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow, for example, only make up one in a hundred thousand cells of the bone marrow. They can be isolated, but can only be expanded …show more content…
For other types of stem cells, such as mesenchymal stem cells, some success has been achieved in expanding the cells in vitro, but application in animals has been difficult. One major problem is the mode of administration. Bone marrow cells can be infused in the blood stream, and will find their way to the bone marrow. For other stem cells, such as muscle stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells, the route of administration in humans is more problematic. It is believed, however, that once healthy stem cells find their niche, they will start repairing the tissue. In another approach, attempts are made to differentiate stem cells into functional tissue, which is then transplanted. A final problem is rejection. If stem cells from the patients are used, rejection by the immune system is not a problem. However, with donor stem cells, the immune system of the recipient will reject the cells, unless the immune system is suppressed by drugs. In the case of bone marrow transplantation, another problem arises. The bone marrow contains immune cells from the donor. These will attack the tissues of the recipient, causing the sometimes deadly graft-versus-host