Stem cell controversy

Even though stem cell therapy discovery will open a new era for medical treatments, many people are against the stem cell related therapy or treatments. Stem cell therapy use embryonic cells to induce them to become other specialized cells and by using these induced cells, we can recover and repair damages in human bodies. However, some dissenter claims that stem cell therapy is another method of a murder because an embryonic cell is the beginning of the life since it is the cell that could become a baby eventually. Also stem cell therapy can lead to the development of cloning which became very controversial. By using stem cell, scientists can create an identical person of one individual, which is called a clone and in order to treat illness and diseases, scientists have to take out a certain part of clone and transplant it into the individual’s body. Opponents assert that the clone should be treated as a human being and taking an organ or a part of them is a murder. Also they said by using stem cell therapy and cloning, scientists are trying to become gods and these methods should be prohibited. In my opinion, it is clear why people are against cloning because what opponents claimed is absolute truth and a clone can be considered as a human being. However, I don’t understand why people are against using embryonic cells. Yes, these cells can become a baby but when scientists are using the cells for stem cell therapy, it is not a baby and it won’t develop that way. It is basically same thing as people eating eggs since eggs can become chicks eventually but we eat them before they become chicks so I don’t see why people are against the usage of embryonic cells for stem cell therapy.  

Olfactory mucosa used as a treatment for spinal cord injury

I was trying to look for a peer-reviewed article regarding Parkinson’s disease and usage of olfactory mucosa stem cell therapy but I couldn’t find any article from past three years. Another article I found is about using olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC) as a stem cell source for spinal cord repair. Like Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury has no cure available for patients. It is a permanent disability and it is impossible restore functions with current medical treatments. Based on information from this article, researchers discovered potential from OEC to cure this incurable disability. Researchers prepared five different groups of rodent and their backs were paralyzed by anesthesia in order to create similar situation as spinal cord injuries. Then they were treated with OED transplantation except the control group and experimenters record Cord Dorsum Potential (CDP), which shows the potential of spinal cord movement. By conducting OED transplantation to treat spinal cord injury, researchers were trying to test the safety and efficacy of OED transplantation. The result showed that all rodent groups treated with OED transplantation showed a significant improvement on CDP compared to the CDP of control group. The results did not only exhibit a massive improvement on the potential of spinal cord movement, but also proved that OED definitely has a chance to become a cure for the injury. Many people might think these results as negligible and useless because it is performed on rodents but from my perspective, conducting these experiments seem essential in order to develop the ultimate cure in the end. It is true that the results from animal based experiment are usually very different from human trials however, with continuous attempts on using OED as a cure will eventually lead to another discoveries and also will cause other people to more aware about olfactory mucosa.

Dr. Cattaneo

For this week’s blog post, I would like to introduce Dr. Elena Cattaneo, one of the most influential scholars in stem cell therapy area past couple years. Dr. Cattaneo was born in Italy in 1962 and received her Laureo Degree in Pharmacy and PhD in Biotechnology Applied to Pharmacology from University of Milano. After then, she spent 3 years working at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science – M.I.T in Prof. Ronald McKay’s laboratory and started to study neural stem cell differentiation. She is currently a director of the “Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases” at the Department of Biosciences and a co-founder of Unistem, University of Milan’s Centre for Stem Cell Research. In 2013, Dr. Cattaneo was selected as Stem Cell Person of the Year due to her research on the molecular pathophysiology of Huntington’s disease. The research focused on advancing embryonic and induced stem cell biology to obtain the medium-sized spiny striatal neurons that degenerate in Huntington’s disease. This research is significant because inducing stem cells to become neuron cells is the crucial method in order to develop a cure for neurodegenerative diseases. When this cure gets discovered, it is not only limited to Huntington’s disease but also for other diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, ALS and Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, Dr. Cattaneo continuously contributed to stem cell therapy area by publishing more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals, tutored more than 100 theses for PhD and graduate students and organized training events for scientific community and the wider public as a part of Unistem activities. Dr. Cattaneo is a great researcher who continuously goes beyond the regular scientific approach and also contributed to scientific community and public with many papers and activities. With scholars like Dr. Cattaneo, stem cell therapy seems like a possible treatment in near future for patients suffering from incurable diseases.