stem cell research debate

members of the adult stem cell research initiativeat the university of notre dame are investigating ground-breaking new ways to cure human diseases.stem cells have the unique ability to become any type of cell in the body, giving themgreat potential for medical therapies. because of the ethical implications associated withusing embryonic stem cells, researchers at notre dame are looking at the potential ofadult stem cells. professors david hyde and rebecca wingert utilize the zebrafish modelto study human disease. the zebrafish has the distinctive ability to regenerate deadoptical receptors using stem cells. professor hyde hopes to shed light on these mechanismswith the ultimate goal of finding treatments for blindness and potentially other degenerativediseases. "a variety of different diseases,

degenerative diseases in particular, currentlydo not have any sort of ability to be treated in the normal medical fashion, such as ifyou have a severe heart attack and heart tissue dies. stem cell therapy provides a way inwhich, theoretically, we can regenerate that dead portion of the heart. there is a varietyof other diseases that occur in which cell death occurs and stem cell therapy might bea good therapy for, such as different forms of blindness, parkinson's disease, alzheimer'sdisease. all of these different diseases are due to the death of the particular types ofcells that we hope we can regenerate through the use of adult stem cells. the initiativeon adult stem cells and ethics at the university of notre dame brings together researchersfrom every discipline to discuss the various

issues that are associated with adult stemcells, from science and engineering to law and philosophy. "notre dame has positioneditself as the premier catholic research institute in this country. people are going to lookto us for guidance on these sorts of issues and questions. so, our ethicists and lawyerscan speak to the ethical issues and the legal issues associated with using human embryonicstem cells versus adult stem cells. without the scientific underpinnings those argumentsbecome somewhat hollow. what we want to do at the university is to also build up thescience and the engineering aspects of using adult stem cells, so that we are making cutting-edgeprogress. we are making the initiatives that are showing that adult stem cell researchis a formidable approach in medicine. adult

stem cell research and therapy is one initialaspect of medicine. it's going to blow wide open in the coming decades. we hope to beable to educate scientists, lawyers, ethicists, theologians at the undergraduate level inthe breadth of this sort of context so that as they move up in their profession they havethat broad training, that broad education, and that then they can make an informed decisionand can help to get those informed decisions out to the general public." another wonderfulexample of how the support from the notre dame family has enabled significant progressfor adult stem cell research is a recent gift from michael and elizabeth galligher, whichsupports three new endowed professorships for the study of adult stem cells, includingthe work of professor wingert. "i think notre

dame is poised to make unique contributionsto the field of stem cell biology because our mission is to improve the lives of peoplearound the globe, and one of the promises of stem cell biology is that this could allowfor innovative new ways to treat diseases, both detect disease and treat it in ways thatare currently unknown." "so, at the university of notre dame we have a vision for creatingan adult stem cell research center, which we want to be able to allow the creation ofan organization which draws in the faculty from across the entire university. now wewant to bring the whole thing up to the next level. i think by having a group of youngfaculty coming in, it will really invigorate and build up that research program and will allow us totake that next huge step forward, which will gain

major prominence for the university and forstem cell research."