The Ethicality of Stem Cell Research

Stem cell research has been around for a long time, since 1998. Contemporaneous with the overall movement towards incorporating stem cells into treatments of modern disorders was a major debate regarding the ethics behind stem cells. At the time, to ensure the most accurate stem cell research studies, hES (human embryonic stem cells) cells were solely extracted directly from a human embryo to contribute to such therapeutic trials. Consequently, this extraction has been claimed to be an ethical violation due to the necessary destruction of a human embryo to do so. President Bush even developed a stem cell policy to limit stem cell research to the study of only 70 cell lines, viewed unfavorably researchers as an attempt to stymie the advance of the field as a whole. President Obama overturned this policy and increased the number of studiable cell lines in 2009. This back and forth modifications of the stem cell policy has legislators in a major quandary. However, stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka, the recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, discovered a way to create other types of stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Due to this innovation, can we definitively say that the stem cell debate is now unnecessary?

The problem which the Bush administration faced in creating such a policy was clearly on how to create a policy amenable to both stem cell researchers as well as the general moral principles that should govern any scientific study. At the same time, the controversial question of whose rights were being violated due to human embryo destruction was a major impasse. Does an embryo have the claim to any rights? The administration dodged this question by restricting the cell lines permitted to be studied to those that arose from “extras” at fertility clinics. This may have acquiesced to the bioethicists on the matter, but the stem cell researchers refused to tolerate this move until the 2009 revision by President Obama. Despite the murky ethics around their use, stem cells are unequivocally remarkable cells with multiple uses. Stem cell transplants have been instrumental in the treatment of a myriad of diseases from Parkinson’s disease to diabetes. The only aspect of stem cell treatments that detracted from these marvelous applications was the acquisition of the necessary stem cells. However, another type of stem cell, called multipotent stem cells, were easily harnessed via the umbilical cord and the bone marrow before the development of iPSCs. These entail a less wide of a range as pluripotent stem cells found in the embryo can account for, but they have been shown to theoretically almost as well. In fact, mesenchymal stem cells, a type of multipotent stem cell, is actually the main stem cell being used to treat a variety of cancers due to its tumor tropic properties. Embryonic stem cells might still be up for debate, but the recent use of other types of stem cells shows the relative futility in harping over a slight upgrade over multipotent stem cells.

Another point of contention that is misconstrued by bioethicists the actual efficacy of iPSCs. The discovery of the Yamanaka factors capable of inducing reprogramming any adult cell into a pluripotent stem cell was undeniably laudable. However, the iPSC method of reprogramming has not been made fool proof and there’s still a good chance that the reprogramming of an adult cell into a pluripotent stem cell does fail. Even if the researchers would be able to find the correct therapeutic use of their treatment carried by iPSCs, clinical trials for even a successful drug would take, on average, 15 years. The average American employee is employed (across potentially multiple jobs) for around 40-45 years and the entire process would take almost 40% of the time at the very least. However, the time iPSCs take to be reprogrammed is definitely worth it compared to the major backlash human embryonic stem cells. On top of the ethical baggage, human embryonic stem cells are not as readily available as iPSCs even with the immoral destruction of human embryos. iPSCs can be reprogrammed from almost any adult cell and that versatility is capable of developing life-saving therapies at a much faster rate than we ever could with the use of hES cells.

iPSCs could also change the game in a variety of other controversial subjects of recent biological breakthroughs. The applications of CRISPR/Cas9 can be tested most accurately and safely in these cells. The resulting functional cells can be subsequently transplanted instead of the publicly horrifying conception of germ-line genomic editing. The only cited repercussion behind the prospective use of iPSCs to modify gene expression is the possibility of insertional mutagenesis, the chance that the corrective transcription factors integrate themselves into a more “delicate” part of the genome such as the cancer-linked oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes, but the vaunted specificity of the CRISPR/Cas9 system generously accounts for that. Despite the amount of effort still needed for refining the process of creating induced pluripotent stem cells, the overall stem cell debate has definitely subsided as a result of the introduction of iPSCS and the effective use of iPSCs in new therapeutics should be able to open new doors in a brighter future for therapeutics.