Steam cells

There are so many diseases now such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, arthritis, arthrosis, paralysis. The nature isn’t stationary and all the time test people with the help of new sicknesses. Maybe it’s a revenge for a cruel interference. A person interfered too far and he even doesn’t assume that he had incurred displeasure not only on himself but on the whole humanity thereby. But medicine is developing, too. The greatest luminaries in science are trying to prevent punishment that nature has given but with these new inventions they disturb the balance and invade into the nature again.


In 1999 there was an article in the magazine “Science” about the event in the biology that became the 3-rd in value. This article was about steam cells…


A term “steam cell” was brought into biology by A. Maksimov in 1908 but the founder of the cell therapy is considered to be Doctor S. Vorontsov.


In 1998 D. Thompson and D. Gerhard have isolated the line of embryonic steam cells. (Korochkin L.I., Magazine “Nature”, 2005, ? 6)


So what steam cell is? What have the scientists been working for on this invention during several decades and how can it help to cure different diseases? These are the questions we have to answer.


Steam cells correspond a hierarchy of special cells of living organisms.  They are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell nodivision and differentiate into a nodiverse range of specialized cell types (Wikipedia).


Human organism contains about 50 mlrd steam cells that renew regularly. During the whole life this number shortens. And also steam cells of an adult person aren’t universal. They can’t transform into neural cells. But if doctors manage to inject steam cells into an organism i.e. to substitute the old ones, a person has a chance to cure and to live longer.


But where is it possible to take these universal cells from? Nowadays there are several ways of this:

1. A person can become a donor for himself. The greatest number of steam cells is found in a bone marrow and they can be pulled out with the help of puncture.

2. There are lots of steam cells in umbilical blood that can be gathered and placed into a special storage. Later they can be used for renewal of any tissue and organ.

3. The next source of steam cells is abortive material on the 9-12 week of pregnancy. Nowadays this source is used very frequently. But sometimes these cells can be rejected. Also the usage of unchecked abortive material can be a reason of infection.

4. And one more source of steam cells is blastocyst that is formed by the 6-th day of insemination. These cells are called embryonic steam cells. They are the most universal ones.


And now more about the last two points. There are lots of opinions about this. But the main opponent of such sources is a church.


There are some church prohibitions that are based on the next points:
• cloning is an “unauthorized creation of life ”
• destruction of five-day blastocyst is a “killing of breather”.


So where embryonic steam cells are taken from? Embryonic steam cells are obtained by collection of living embryos from female genital organ on early stages of pregnancy.  One can obtain 16-32 embryonic steam cells from one embryo. But what do we have? We have a killing of a breather! And that’s why church is against this.


“Experiments with cloning of embryo is a defiance of the nature”- said the priest M. Dudko. Russian Orthodox Church considers all manipulation with human embryo illegal, informs Mednews.ru.


Church tells over and again that abortion is a killing and embryonic steam cells are obtained in the issue of abortion. That’s that church calls  “satanism”. But church can do nothing with it. Only the state will accept a final decision.


Of course steam cells have many benefits, this research gives big opportunities to the medicine. Nowadays there are lots of illnesses that are possible to cure with the help of steam cells. But what do we have? Should we sacrifice somebody to be healthy? We should kill this small being that is just going to come to this world. Aren’t they contradicting norms of morality? Maybe because of this one considers  human being to be a predator?


Nowadays there are lots of opinions. In the article “Steam sells and reproduction” professor G. Harries says that embryos that are produced for killing can be killed. That’s why it’s possible to accept a sacrifice of an embryo. But is it really so? Of course only a chief justice- a human being can decide it.


Is the further practice possible? I think people who need steam cells to become healthy will say “yes”. When your life hangs by a thread you won’t think about the embryo that was killed for you. Nobody knows what will be tomorrow. Maybe a person who tells “no” today will tell “yes” tomorrow, because the only chance for him will be in steam cells. Only a healthy person can think objectively. Yes, steam cells research is a scientific breakthrough, it’s a chance to cure and to long your life. But from another side it’s an overstep of all limits both natural and moral.