Stem Cell Research

Briefly, the embryonic SCR social dilemma can essentially be broken down into being a debate between a Pro-Life and a Pro-Choice campaign.

This is exactly what Professor Austin Smith, of Edinburgh University, is afraid of. Dr Arne Sunde, a cell biologist and director of the IVF unit at the University Hospital of Trondheim in Norway is a leading pioneer in SCR. Recently, researchers have developed a new kind of SCR. If successful, this breakthrough may not only solve the social dilemma, but also the business issue faced by embryonic SCR researchers. Supporters say the embryos were going to be destroyed anyway and that “research from their cells holds the potential to cure debilitating diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s” (Berger, 2). A stem cell from a rat embryo was induced to form a hind limb on an adult rat. Moreover, if stem cells can be implanted into the spinal cord “there is a possibility that functioning nerves could grow again and restore some of the function of paralyzed limbs” (Connor, 20). Cases such as these entice many critics to protest even more to the “excessive waste of tax-payers dollars and valuable research time” (Prentice, 22). Research opponents say SCR is wrong because it destroys human life. Confronted with so much opposition, researchers have concentrated some resources on finding a possible compromise, possibly an alternative.

Fortunately, there may be some sort of compromise in the horizon.

The monetary and time investments do not seem to be made out of brazen confidence or coincidence. Research using stem cells offers the potential to inform us about the earliest molecular and cellular processes that regulate normal development.