Ethical Issues Concerning Stem Cell Therapy And Organ Repair
Cell therapy and organ repair is a significant issue because most human organs and tissues do not regenerate spontaneously. Several categories of stem cells can be used in regenerative medicine including embryonic, fetal, and adult stem cell. Not all stem cells are of equal interest for clinical applications, because they are not able to become different specialized cells. Fetal and adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells, which can be found within fetus or in adult tissues or organs. They have limited self-renewal and are multipotent, which means that they can differentiate in several types of tissue cells. Although adult stem cells cannot be expanded in culture indefinitely, their use does not present ethical problems. The majority of
medical specialties will benefit from the progress in regenerative medicine within the next decade as most are in their experimental stages (with the exception of bone marrow transplantation). Cell therapy covers a very large potential in many clinical fields of cancer and in regenerative medicine with more than 3,000 trials currently in progress. Regenerative medicine based on somatic stem cells, holds great promise if clinical hurdles, like their possible tumorigenic property, can be overcome. This was highlighted in a case report involving a child who received fetal neural stem cells as a treatment for a neurodegenerative disease, but who later developed multifocal glioneuronal tumor from transplanted neural stem cells. Due to the lack of organs available for transplants, there has been an increase in research focused the reconstruction of organs. The development of reconstructed organs follows two stages: decellularization of the target organ with a need to maintain the structural integrity of the extracellular matrix and recellularization of the matrix with stem cells or resident cells. Stem cells are the ideal source of material because they can proliferate indefinitely. Currently, growing organs in vitro and ex vivo can take several weeks until they have completely developed in the matrix. Although organ engineering like a liver or a heart is particularly difficult because of the structural complexity and heterogeneity of organ and cell types, encouraging work has recently shown the feasibility of creating bio organs for their reconstruction. Clinical applications remain a distant prospect, however.
medical specialties will benefit from the progress in regenerative medicine within the next decade as most are in their experimental stages (with the exception of bone marrow transplantation). Cell therapy covers a very large potential in many clinical fields of cancer and in regenerative medicine with more than 3,000 trials currently in progress. Regenerative medicine based on somatic stem cells, holds great promise if clinical hurdles, like their possible tumorigenic property, can be overcome. This was highlighted in a case report involving a child who received fetal neural stem cells as a treatment for a neurodegenerative disease, but who later developed multifocal glioneuronal tumor from transplanted neural stem cells. Due to the lack of organs available for transplants, there has been an increase in research focused the reconstruction of organs. The development of reconstructed organs follows two stages: decellularization of the target organ with a need to maintain the structural integrity of the extracellular matrix and recellularization of the matrix with stem cells or resident cells. Stem cells are the ideal source of material because they can proliferate indefinitely. Currently, growing organs in vitro and ex vivo can take several weeks until they have completely developed in the matrix. Although organ engineering like a liver or a heart is particularly difficult because of the structural complexity and heterogeneity of organ and cell types, encouraging work has recently shown the feasibility of creating bio organs for their reconstruction. Clinical applications remain a distant prospect, however.