Embryonic Stem Cells used to combat Parkinson's Disease

What if I told you there is a way to potentially cure Parkinson's disease in the future? The answer is yes! With the new revolutionary research that has gone in through embryonic stem cell research, scientists might unlock the greatest mysteries of these stem cells and use them to some day cure hundreds of diseases, once incurable to known man. One of the major diseases being Parkinson's Disease. In this essay I will be talking about the problem embryonic stem cells tries to solve, the solution of how embryonic stem cells will solve the problem, the scientific concept behind stem cells, the two benefits and limitations of these cells and finally the ethics involved in the succession of Embryonic stem cell research and usage.

The problem is that patients suffering from Parkinsons disease will not be able to move and control certain parts of their body as this disease affects the brain ability to control movement by prohibiting or damaging parts of the brain. Most people that suffers from Parkinson's disease generally inherits traits that can cause Parkinson's from their parents or a rarer case is that a recent study has found that it may be caused by a specific genetic mutation or certain gene variation that can appear and could cause Parkinson's. Parkinson's disease can also be caused by outside causes such as harmful toxins that could later cause the disease to take place, however this cause is rare. This disease can impact how a person will live it's life, not being able to control movement might mean a use of wheelchairs or other machines to support themselves, and not being able to control speech might cause communication issues. This disease, although not widespread can affect any people in the world at any age. Statistics show that currently 6.3 million people have Parkinson's worldwide and most affected are at age of 60 and above, with more men than women affected.

Figure 1: Dopamine-producing nerve cells
grown in the lab using embryonic
stem cells.
Source: http://www.eurostemcell.org/factsheet/parkinson%25E2%2580%2599s-disease-how-could-stem-cells-help

Embryonic stem cells can be used as a science application that can be used to treat patients with Parkinson's disease. This is the fact that the patient's brain suffering from Parkinson's disease do not have enough dopamine that allows messages to be sent to the parts of the brain responsible for movement. The disease causes disability by killing the dopamine-producing nerve cells in the brain. However the causes and mechanisms under this disease is unknown, scientist managed to grow dopamine-producing nerve cells by using embryonic stem cells, which could be potentially used to treat Parkinson's by replacing the lost nerve cells with healthy new ones. With these new and healthy nerve cells present in a patient with Parkinson's disease, they would be able to start to have full access to all of it's voluntary muscles and movement again normally. Also in lab-grown dopamine nerve cells they used dyes to label certain areas of the nerve cell, the green dyes are representing the neurons while the red-green chunks are representing the dopamine-producing neurons.

Figure 2: A diagram of what an embryonic
stem cell is capable of doing.
Source: http://liveaction.org/blog/stem-cell-research-the-basics-types-of-research-medical-status-and-ethical-drawbacks/

The scientific concept behind this is that embryonic stem cells are stem cells that originate in the early stages of an embryo, in the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, where cells present are pluripotent and haven't differentiate into all the other type of cells in the body, this meant they could produce more of themselves and turn into any type of cell in the body. This means scientists can extract these stem cells from an embryo and grow any types of cells present in the human body as they so desire by affecting it with certain specific chemicals, this can be used to grow different types of cells, tissues and even organs which could be used to regrow, repair or replace certain parts of the body.

Figure 3: The process where Researchers use
Embryonic stem cells to transplant
dopamine-producing neurons to a monkey
with Parkinson's disease
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/02/23/japanese-researchers-find-stem-cells-reduce-monkeys-parkinsons-symptoms.html

The benefit of using embryonic stem cells for treating Parkinson's disease is that currently, Stem cells are the closest potential treatment that could be used soon to treat Parkinson's. There has been a lot of research going in from the UK for 5-10 years on embryonic stem cell research and possibly other countries and currently scientist is able to create dopamine-producing nerve cells that has been tested with monkeys with the disease which makes embryonic stem cell a good candidate for the treatment for Parkinson's, as shown above and the picture on the left. All they need to do now is to find a way to implement this new knowledge to be used to treat actual patients with Parkinson's disease, such as to renew-ably make dopamine-producing nerve cells in the Brain of a Parkinson patient.

Another benefit of using embryonic stem cells is that it has the potential to reverse diseases by providing a renewable source of replacement cells for those suffering diseases such as Parkinson disease. This is real helpful for Parkinson's as it allows scientist to be able to produce a renewable source of dopamine-producing nerve cells which eliminates the need of constantly implementing new nerve cells on a routine-basis into patients with Parkinson's. Without a renewable source, patient's may need to take a daily routine of drugs and possibly implementation of new dopamine-producing nerve cells routinely, but that is not the case.

A limitation of this however is that a pluripotent embryonic stem cells often cause teratomas which are basically tumor-like, cancerous mass that often resembles a self fertilized cell which is differentiated but not fertilized. This may cause problems as if a embryonic stem cell is to gone rogue and cause teratomas in a patient with Parkinson's, it would mean that not only the dopamine-producing nerve cells will be damaged and non functional but areas around the neurons may develop teratomas which could cause a lot of unnecessary damage, worsening the situation. This is why Scientist are researching on improving their method of reliably preventing teratomas to develop in the first place.

Another limitation is the fact that embryonic stem cells can result in minor miscalculations, which could cause some growth of strange objects such as teeth, bones, hair and other objects where they're not intended to be, which often is resembling a tumor. The fact that once embryonic stem cells are injected, that they stay permanent means that patients that develop these physical strange growth will continue to grow until the remainder of the patient's life. This is an unfortunate problem as many studies involving the same research come up to the same answer. This means more research has to go towards embryonic stem cells to further improve this system, to decrease or eliminate the chance of these side effects of taking place before they could make stem cell treatment commercially available for use.

There are ethical issues that would affect the success of this potentially new treatment for many diseases out there. Over the years there has been ethical dilemma and controversy over embryonic stem cell use. People who are against embryonic stem cell research are to believe that the embryo constitutes life and has the potential to develop into a human being, it is then immoral and unethical to kill one's life to save another. Some say that we could already use adult stem cells that are currently being used in therapies, and thus there is not a need for continuing embryonic stem cell research. Some people that do support the claim believe that the embryo is not equivalent to a human life as it is still in the womb, and the supporters also contend that our world is full of diseases, and ethical concerns in regards to embryonic stem cell usage are not sufficient to discontinue promising therapy to save millions of lives.

These ethical controversy between a large group of people is the reason why we're not advancing in embryonic stem cell research as fast and as much as we could've done. If ethical dilemma are set aside, we could possibly be having treatment for Parkinson's and other types of diseases by today, but that is not the case. Ethical issues like an stating that an embryo already constitutes life and have the potential to develop to a human being is something that is debatable, but the solution has not been solved. Some say the solution is to use adult stem cells instead, which causes less tension between groups, but the potential of adult stem cells are limited as they're multipotent than their embryonic counterpart which is pluripotent, meaning it has more potential of curing a wider variety of diseases than adult stem cells could even manage to achieve. The video below shows how people view embryonic stem cells differently in a visual and metaphorical manner to further understand the ethics behind embryonic stem cell usage.

Figure 4: Embryonic Stem Cell Usage Controversy over many points of view.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry00bKl_77w

My last thought of the matter is that, embryonic stem cells has the potential to revolutionize the world we live in today by providing the practicality and potential of using embryonic stem cells closer than ever to cure Parkinson's Disease. The main points I had talked about was the problem that this scientific application is trying to solve, How does this solve Parkinson's disease, What are the scientific concepts behind embryonic stem cells, what are the two benefits and limitations of embryonic stem cells and Finally the ethics behind the succession of this application. We should all understand the concept and idea of Embryonic stem cell and be optimistic of the great potential that will all result from the research being conducted, to once it for all, treat Parkinson's and other various types of diseases, saving millions of lives in return.


Bibliography:

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"Parkinson's Disease: How Could Stem Cells Help?" EuroStemCell. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2014. <http://www.eurostemcell.org/factsheet/parkinson%25E2%2580%2599s-disease-how-could-stem-cells-help>.

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Holland, Suzanne, Karen Lebacqz, and Laurie Zoloth. The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2001. Print.