What are the pros and cons of embryonic stem cells?
ES (embryonic stem) have many uses. They are the only cell line which can be both immortal and yet have a normal karyotype (cancer cell lines can also be immortal but often contain aneuploidies). This allows scientists to study the development of stem cells into any terminally differentiated cells (cells which have no potential to form another type of cell), thus giving an understanding of normal development and also to investigate the effect of genetic mutations on differentiation and development. In terms of therapeutic usage, stem cells show great promise for regenerative medicine. If scientists are able to partially differentiate an ES cell to a certain type of cell (for example a neuronal cell) they could transplant cells into patients to replace previously damaged cells (for example to repair spinal cord damage or pancreatic cells). One of the cons of ES cells currently is they are not fully understood. A recent case of a young boy in Russia comes to mind: In 2002, the boy underw
