Human stem cells represent cellular formations that have not assumed a body function yet; they are present in embryonic tissues when the body is developing, and new groups of specialized cells become necessary, but they happen to be part of adult tissues as well. No recovery from disease, injury or decay would be possible without these human stem cells that activate the moment they are needed. Human stem cells can surely prove a medical hope for the treatment of irrecoverable diseases such as heart attacks, diabetes, Alzheimer's, strokes, Parkinson's disease and lots of others. And if science makes enough progress such achievements will be possible.

Most of the research conducted on human stem cells has used biological material taken from human embryos that would get killed in the process. For such reasons, human embryo stem cell research was given an eight-year ban during the Bush administration of the US. Presently, efforts are directed towards creating a technique that would allow skin cells to transform into induced pluripotent stem cells instead of the embryonic ones. At the moment, opinions and views remain biased, which will continue as long as people see a real person in the fertilized union between a spermatozoon and an ovum.

Adult human stem cells are safe from the moral controversy but they somehow limit research because they don't have the same almost infinite potential of embryonic cells. In their adult stage, stem cells can only specialize as certain types of cells with specific functions, and therefore, they cannot be part of the same unlimited number of options provided by embryo research. The choice could be pretty difficult if we consider the ethical point of view: how moral is it to stop the physiological evolution into a human being for the sake of science? And on the other hand, human stem cells could help to the creation of a panacea.

Although in tests, human stem cells perform well and make great promises, lots of clinical trials have more to go through before being complete. Some mysteries still escape scientific deciphering. For example, we still don't know where adult human stem cells come from, even if things seem to be clear with embryonic research while adult stem cell studies are far from being over. This is not the only example, as there are many other blank spaces that science needs to fill before discovering the cure for all diseases and the fountain of youth.


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Tags: embryonic tissues, physiological evolution, embryo stem cell research, pluripotent stem cells, Cancer