Stem Cell Research: Medical Applications and Ethical Controversy

As a person who never studied high school level biology I find this book extremely difficult to follow. A solid background in chemistry seems necessary to fully grasp the concepts being discussed, so I was surprised that the Introduction claims it could be used as a middle-school textbook. Excerpt: "Binding of the dimerized growth factor then stimulates dimerization of the receptor. Dimerization of the receptor activates its own kinase domain, located inside the cell. The receptor, in turn, phosphorylates cytoplasmic signaling proteins that stimulate cell growth, differentiation, and proliferation. Each growth factor binds to its own specific receptor, which activates a unique set of signaling molecules." Are you getting this? Much new terminology is introduced on each page of the science sections - it is a very dense read. It is, however, full of information, if one is able to decipher it.

What are you passionate about? Within many topics there is a certain amount of controversy. In order to have a respectable opinion on any controversial issue, you must know what exactly is in conflict on that particular issue and also have a reasonable amount of background issue to base your beliefs off of and provide evidence of them. If you are interested in stem cell research, a great book for learning the necessary info would be Stem Cell Research: Medical Applications & Ethical Controversy by Joseph Panno, Ph. D. In this review, you will find a chapter by chapter outline of what excelled as well as what was flawed, some background information about the author, as well as other general thoughts and the book's relevance to current events. The book begins with an introduction to exactly what stem cells are. This is a great place for the book to start as it not only lays down a foundation for the arguments and information that are going to be presented later on in the book, but also introduces stem cells and their ethical controversies to those that may not be entirely familiar with the topic. There are also many helpful diagrams throughout this chapter introducing the names of different cells which will be important in later chapters. The second chapter deals with human stem cells. This chapter seems more designed for a science buff looking more for info on the scientific aspects of this topic than the ethical ones. Much of the info in this chapter was relatively useless to someone concerned with the ethical controversy and there were many large words and scientific terms that were difficult to keep track of. This however does not make it a bad chapter to all, just les useful to some than others. The third chapter offers excellent insight on the types of diseases that could be cured using stem cell therapy and how stem cells could cure them. For a book that offers such raw information, it is difficult to not be at least a little intrigued by this information. Whether this is the writing style or just the nature of the info is difficult to say, but the impact is there. This chapter provides quite possibly the strongest argument for those in support of stem cell research. Chapter four speaks of the commercialization of stem cells. This regards where stem cell research gets its funding more than anything. One may initially wonder why this information is pertinent. When taken into consideration, however, the fact that much of the ethical controversy surrounding the topic comes from the debate over how much government funding should be allocated for the research, then funding becomes a very important issue indeed. There is a lot of info in this chapter one may not have previously thought of, such as ulterior motives of pharmaceutical companies as well as specific examples, such as stock market woes of companies such as Aastrom Biosciences Inc. where a failure to yield results resulted in the decline of shareholder's confidence

Want to understand the Stem Cell Research controversy? This is the book! It is not overly technical so the average layman can understand the issues.

Stem cells have numerous medical applications. Stems are capable of being renewed and can be continueously cultured in a undifferentiated state. In close proximity stems cells sponstanteously differentiate into heart, liver, bone marrow, blood vessels, pancreatic islet, or nerve cells. Scientist are learn how to control differentiate of these specialized cells. There are two types of stem cell: embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. embryonic stem cells differiante into a wider range of cells and scientists have isolated factors at origin, such that, they can grow a kidney externally and transplate it back into a cow. The kidney functions correctly. Technical barriers. The author does an provide an interesting view into the technical barriers that must be understood before stem cells can repair spinal injuries. Panno tell the reader, the neuron has dendrites that connect to other terminal connectors and the the electrical impulse travels down an insulated axon. The axon is insultated by a myleon sheath cell and the regenerative stem cell technology must differentiate too rebuild the neuron, oligodendrocytes, the swann cell and the sheath cell. The composition of these different cells must integrate correctly and connect sending an accurate signal. Inside the Axon membrane the signal is negative; Na+ and K+ chemical reacts cause and positive electric charge. Inside the Axon the charge is negative, in a rest state. When the dendrite membrane is distrubed or stimulated, the Sodium gate opens and these positively charged NA (Sodium) ions flood in creating a positive charge. Next the K (Potassium) gate opens, the K diffuse out, the membrane becomes negative. The charges must hit certain threshhold before the connecting dendrites will start their chemical reactions creating a positive impulse. The myelin sheath increases the speed of the impulse. A sodium channel at the end of the synaptic vesicles release Ca (Sodium). So the author does reduce the optimism of the reader into thinking the Stem Cell can solve all biological injuries or problems. Adult Stem cells. Adult Stem cells are undifferentiated that exist among differented cells. The Adult stem cell is unlike embryonic stem cells found in the inner cell mass of the blastocyst. The adult stem cell purpose is to repair damaged tissue. Scientist are finding adult stem cells in a number of different tissues: brain, bone marrow, peripheral blood, blood vessels, skeletal muscle, skin and liver. Adult stem cells have been harvested, multipled and used to fix a number of damaged tissues. Bone marrow has two types of stem cell: 1) hematopoietic stem cells, forms all the types of blood cells 2) stromal cells generate bone, cartilage, fat, and fibrous connective tissue. Brain has stem cells capable to generating the brain's three major cell types: astrocytes (neural tissue) and oligodendrocytes (A cell that provides insulation to nerve cells by forming a myelin sheath around axons