Why the embryonic stem cell debate has created positive results

A little over nine years ago, privately-funded scientists found a way to harvest embryonic stem-cells, after the Congress decided to prohibit federal funding of such research. As far back as November of 1998, embryonic stem cell research was already gaining criticism, yet certainly few Americans had heard of it then.

These days, everybody seems to have an opinion about stem cell research, a heated topic among political debates. While Americans who are in support of stem cell research have been constantly disappointed, even angered by the country's decision to hinder what could be one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in history to date, Congress's prohibition on federal funded research may be the most important catalyst in bringing about research in other ways to obtain stem cells... ways that would not involve the embryos of unborn children.

In November of 2007, Japanese scientists at the University of Wisconsin published a report in the November 22nd edition of the journal Science Magazine stating that they had discovered a way to easily revert adult skin cells back to stem cells, thus making them able to reproduce as any type of cell found in the human body. Not weeks later, Harvard researchers released a similar report having accomplished the same goal simultaneously and published the results in the December 21st edition of Nature. Then, on January 11, 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that researchers discovered a way to take one stem-cell from an embryo and turn it into a master stem-cell line.

So what does this mean for the medical field? It means that finally the ethical concerns that have stunted stem cell research for over a decade can now be overcome. No longer does a human embryo need to be destroyed to harvest stem cells. Because of the findings of the researchers at these institutions, doctors should be able to harvest skin cells directly from patients and re-introduce the stem cells that they become.

This kind of discovery is the kind that could make Star Trek-like medical procedures a thing of the near-future, instead of mere science fiction, and for that I am hopeful.