First human to be treated with embryonic stem cells

This week, US doctors at a company 'Geron' in Silicon Valley have been the first allowed to run trials on patients and have spent $170m on looking at spinal injuries. As reported in the Independent (alongside other newspapers and web articles), a man who was partially paralysed a as result of a spinal cord injury has become the first person to be injected with human embryotic stem cells created by IVF. In animal trials paralysed rats regained some movement after stem cell treatment. 14 days after the injury ther stem cells were injected, it is believed that by using stem cells early on there is a greater chance that the nerve cells with be repaired.

Embryonic stem cells can specialise into over 200 different types of body tissues and could be the answer to many uncurable conditions such as Parkinson's and spinal injuries. However in reality there is little clinical evidence that this treatment is safe or effective and it will take years of work to assess this. The phase I trials will analyse the safety.

The use of embryonic stem cells is a controversial issue. Some people (particularly Roman Catholics) believe that the soul is implanted from the point of conception and therefore the embryo is a person in it's own right. Discarding the embryo once the stell cells have been remove would be seen as murder and morally wrong. However many others would believe that although the embryo deserves respect; the human suffering from a fatal condition deserves more respect so we can justify using the stem cells from the embryo to ease the suffering of a human being. This debate is on-going and there will never be a universal opinion. I personally believe we are taking a step in the right direction; it is in our best interest to help those who have uncurable conditions and to minimise the amount of suffering. I hope to see more successful results from the research in the future.