Stem Cell Research Facilities May Just Change The Future Of Medicine

By Martha Ward


Medical researchers have made great advanced during the past few decades. Many diseases that used to mean a definite death can now be treated successfully. In many other cases diseases have not been conquered yet, but new medication and treatment methods can add many years to the lives of patients. One can only wonder at what the next major breakthrough will be. Stem cell research facilities claim that they are on the verge of achieving a quantum leap forward.

Bone marrow transplants is not a recent discovery. It has been used for some years to treat patients suffering from various forms of blood cancer and other blood related diseases. In the past, however, marrow transplants were done to encourage the growth of new blood cells to replace those that were destroyed by the drastic intervention of chemo therapy. So far, results are mixed but specialists remain hopeful.

It would be wrong to think that a bone marrow transplant can cure cancer. It does not. Much research is being done, however, and researchers are hopeful that bone marrow transplants will indeed cure many types of cancer and other dread diseases. Unfortunately, progress is slow and time consuming and there is no question of a major breakthrough in the fight to conquer cancer within the foreseeable future.

Researchers do not focus on the use of bone marrow transplants for curing cancer exclusively. An entire separate avenue of research are looking at the potential of this therapy to replace damaged brain cells. If this research ever bear fruit, damaged brain cells will be replaced with healthy ones after a transplant. In this way the debilitating effects of Alzheimers and physical injuries to the brain will be reversed.

Researchers have also got high hopes that these transplants will prove to be the answer to may different types of heart disease, also because it promotes the growth of new cells. This will be a major breakthrough, because heart disease remains one of the main causes of death everywhere in the world. It is hoped that damaged cells inside the hear will be replaced by new, healthy cells and blood vessels.

Bone marrow transplants remain a controversial topic. It has many enemies that say that this type of transplant is simply too dangerous to even contemplate. They say that there is no clinical evidence that it makes a difference. They also point out that the cells to be transplanted are routinely harvested from the umbilical cords of babies not yet born. This, they say, will open the doors to very serious human rights abuses.

Another main complaint of critics is that research in this field are over optimistic and that they are still many years away from any useful progress. They create false expectations, critics accuse, simply to obtain more and more funds for their research projects. There are no breakthroughs in the pipeline, say the critics and it is wrong to raise the hopes of desperately ill patients.

Everyone would welcome drastic new solutions to old problems. Every time that a single disease is defeated, it is a triumph for the medical field. Whether bone marrow transplants will be the next miracle cure or not remains to be seen. One can hope, however.




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