Mrs. Brown
Stem Cells
02 February 2016
Dear Mrs. President Obama,
Stem cells differ from other kinds of cells in the body. All stem cells, regardless of their source, have three properties: they are capable of dividing and renewing themselves for long periods of time; they are unspecialized, and can give a rise to specialized cell types. One of the fundamental properties of a stem cell is that it does not have any tissue specific structures that allow it to perform specialized functions the way it should. A stem cell cannot work with its neighbors to pump blood through the body, it cannot carry molecules of oxygen through the bloodstream, and it cannot fire electrochemical signals to other cells that allow the body to move or speak.
Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because of all their pluripotent. Adult stem cells are thought to be limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin. Embryonic stem cells can be grown relatively easily in culture.
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These are populations of cells, all carrying the same genes, grown in the laboratory through many cycles of growth and divisions over many generations of cell lines. A single cell line can supply researchers with a huge numbers of cells. Some people oppose using human embryonic stem cells under any circumstances. However, the use of cell lines that already exist is the most widely accepted source of stem cells. This acceptance is based on the argument that what’s done is done and that’s final. Even if harvesting the embryos in the first place could be considered morally controversial, nothing can now be done to save the original embryos from which the lines were created and will stay that