Abstract
Stem cell biology is an extremely active field in biology, not only from a scientific but also from the political, social, and ethical perspective. It is well known that ethical aspect involves for many strong argument that using embryonic stem cells is equal to homicide. The other argument is: How one can give embryonic stem cells to somebody, when the immune system will not tolerate “nonself”? This obstacle was overcome by the concept of therapeutic cloning, in which the nucleus of stem cell (through microsurgery) is replaced by patient’s nucleus (nuclear transfer). In that way, embryonic body (which is in cytoplasm of the zygot and will give stem cells) will be “supervised” by patient’s genetic codes and orchestrate patient’s coding of specific proteins. They will not be foreign to immune system and will not affect the engraftment.
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
– Sir William Lawrence Bragg
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Balint B, Stamatovic D, Todorovic M, Elez M, Vojvodic D, Pavlovic M, Cucuz–Jokic M (2011) Autologous transplant in aplastic anemia: quantity of CD34+/CD90+ subset as the predictor of clinical outcome. Transfus Apher Sci 45(2):137–141
Schwartz SD, Hubschman J-P, Heilwell G, Franco-Cardenas V, Pan CK, Ostrick RM, Mickunas E, Gay R, Klimanskaya I, Lanza R (2102) Embryonic stem cell trial for macular degeneration: a preliminary report. Lancet 379(9817):713–720
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pavlovic, M., Balint, B. (2013). Ethical Aspects of Stem Cell Research. In: Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering. SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5505-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5505-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5504-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5505-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)