Assignment 2 (1) (1)

Letter of Transmittal

CEO,

Company ABC,

Dear Sir/Madam,

Enclosed is the final report on my assignment, preliminary investigation which you commissioned. This report evaluates and endorses the types of stem cells that Company ABC ought to employ subject to associated ethical, and legal, contemplations. Considering that the Company ABC possesses a gene therapy intervention with the capability of reducing microcephaly’s growth in fetuses of pregnant mothers infected Zika virus.

The company should seriously consider using human embryonic stem cells that are 14 days and older. This follows from the fact that evidence from previous clinical trials, demonstrates a 100% reduction in microcephaly development. It is pertinent to ensure that the therapeutic cloning techniques to be used in producing the embryonic stem cells are formulated in a manner that does not subject the participants, particularly the pregnant women, to nauseating treatments. I register my gratitude for allowing me the opportunity to handle this research and make necessary contribution. I t is my belief that you find this report of great use.

Sincerely yours,

Assignment 2

Name: Reetu Sharma

USQ ID: 0061084112

Applied Business Research and Ethics

Subject code: MBA8000

Due Date: 11 October 2016

Table of Contents

Abstract

The fascinating characteristic of stem cell research is the political ambience it has been imbued with since its onset. Formerly innate into a conventional playing field, the confines on stem cell research were certainly not as uncluttered as they are today. This was due to the fact that they were being stifled by dogmatic outlooks for a number of years. Many instances of debate as well as voting in a bid to back stem cell research were dissuaded by separable sentiments of individuals possessing the influence and power to do so. Currently, stem cell research has become more open and accepted following the technological progressions, and to some extent a fluctuating political disposition. However, this liberty inspires more ambitious clinical trials and research to be undertaken. Consequently, it is imperative to permit the sector to advance scientifically, deprived of ensuing to disgraces or scamas is the case of other novel medical applications and remedies have in the past.

In recent times in the scientific sphere, the arena of embryonic stem cell research has gained popularity and subsequently attracting numerous heated debates. Professionals in stem cell research pledges that this will be the future of medicine. This implies that stem cells will form the cure to all the incapacitating diseases and illnesses of modern day, among them being Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and cancer as well as nerve damage. The reality regarding embryonic stem cell research is that it is not as optimistic and as radical as it seems. Many difficulties that will contradict the use of stem cells have already started to emerge, particularly in areas regarding to health risks to the patient, human rights and opportunity costs (Gupta 2011). Considering all the problems as well as jeopardizes that research on embryonic stem cells will precipitate, the only viable solution is to terminate all research activities prior to occurrence of enduring consequences detrimental to society.

Introduction

The fundamental theory of stem cell research is the unique ability of the stem cell to replicate for an indeterminate amount of times together with its capability to differentiate into any type of cell in the body. This is disparate from normal cells in the body that typically divide for only definite amounts of time and they persist being a single cell type. While this concept sounds encouraging, the concept of using embryonic stem cells with an aim of curing main diseases has numerous flaws and there exist a considerable number of hurdles that science and research ought to overcome prior to embryonic stem cells being used in medicine.

The master cells in the body are the stem cells. The finest stem cells occur in a comparatively young embryo. Distinct from normal body cells, the embryonic stem cells reproduce indeterminately turning into any other type of human cell. It is therefore easy to understand why scientists were delighted to discover this natural phenomenon. Pro-life campaigners are taking a predominantly firm divergent stance against this new area of research. Some pro-life supporters have gone to the extent of labeling it as being worse than abortion. It is important to note that the difficulty isn’t the research itself, but the techniques it employs, for instance, the dichotomization, manipulation, and contentious interference of human embryonic stem cells. While majority of people consider the issue of stem cell research as well as stem cell therapy as ethically and morally wrong, others consider the research on stem cells as the next stage in modern medicine.

Research Method

By and large, in the present study, the researcher uses an exploratory research method. That is because the researcher is merely keen on exploring the research questions on which the study is hinged rather than focusing on conclusive, as well as final, solutions or answers to the questions. The method, even though it does not afford the researcher conclusive evidence, helps him get an improved appreciation of the questions and the related problem of choosing an ethical, as well as legal, means of getting stem cells especially for instrumental usage (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2012). The researcher settled for the method owing to varied reasons. First, the method is adaptable and flexible regarding change. Second, it lays the basis for prospective studies effectively. Third, it helps save resources such as time by establish the nature of the studies that should be pursued ideally from the onset.

What are Stem Cells?

Stem cells are non-specialized cells with the innate ability to develop into more specified cells to aid with certain body and biological functions. Cells are considered to be the basic building blocks of the human body and they make up the skin, muscles, bones, and all of other internal organs. Cells are compulsory for bodies to live and thrive. It is crucial to note that there are over one-hundred dedicated cells in the human body. There is need to advocate for stem cell research following the superfluity of potential benefits to the medical field. Medicine in modern times is advancing rapidly with an effort to formulate more effective cures and remedies for diseases besides new techniques for treating illness. One of the most promising new techniques in practice today is stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy is considered as a collection of new techniques, and technologies, that depend on supplanting unhealthy or dysfunctional cells with healthy, functioning ones (Gupta 2011). These techniques are being employed to treat a wide spectrum of disorders. In an effort to appreciate the significance of the discovery of stem cells, it is vital to comprehend the terms and definitions that pertain to stem cells.

A stem cell is consequential from a human embryo and scientists are in a position to keep these stem cells alive and make them reproduce after extraction. A human embryo comes into life following the fusing of one sperm and one egg. Once the embryo is formed it starts to replicate itself. Embryonic stem cells are derived from the portion of the initial stages embryo that eventually will produce a complete human body. Because embryonic stem cells originate in this primordial stage, or having existed from the beginning, they retain the pluripotent the ability to form any cell type in the body (Hyun 2010). To cell line create an embryonic stem cell, scientist remove the inner cell mass from a blastocyst created in the laboratory, usually left over from an attempt at in-vitro fertilization. The inner cell mass or (ICM) is placed on a plate containing feeder cells, to which it soon attaches. In a few days, new cells grow out the inner cell mass and form colonies (Lisker 2003). These are formally called embryonic stem cells only if they met two criteria: they exhibit indicators identified to depict embryonic cells and undergo several generations of cell division, or passages, indicating that they institute a stable, or eternalized (Gupta 2011).

Benefits of Embryonic Stem Cell

There are people who agree that there are benefits to embryonic stem cell research. Scientists believe that embryonic stem cells are more versatile. Although some may argue that embryonic stem cell research is unethical, many of the embryos are willingly donated. Supporting or opposing embryonic cell research is an individual decision. It appears that the moral decision is the reason a considerable number of individuals will either bolster or be opposed to embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic cell research has its points of interest as well as inconveniences. One of the preferences is that it can cure ailments, for instance, diabetes and different maladies. However, the impediment is the expense of the embryonic stem research. It’s exceptionally costly to fund stem cell research. It is reasonable to advocate for stem cell research in light of a wide range of advantages that embryonic stem cell research can have on individuals (Hyun 2010). The likelihood of curing infection that was regarded to be hopeless is now exceptional.

There has been a civil argument about stem cell research since 1998 when the research groups of James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin and John D. Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine reported the seclusion of human embryonic stem cell (Hyun 2010). In any case, before anybody ought to take a side, one must recognize what an embryonic stem cell is an immature microorganism is an unspecialized cell portrayed by its capacity to self-restore by mitosis while in undifferentiated state, and the ability to give rise to different separated cell types through cell separation (Lo & Parham 2009). There are three sorts of stem cells in the human body: embryonic, hematoietic, and adult (Lee). Hematoietic stem cells originate from the blood of the umbilical cord (Lisker 2003). Grown-up immature cells are taken from different parts of the body, including the bone marrow or tissue. Embryonic stem cells come from a blastocyst, which is an eight-celled human embryo. The blastocyst must be destroyed to acquire the undifferentiated cells (Lo & Parham 2009). Researchers seek to work with embryonic stem cells since they are undifferentiated cells, which imply they can change into any cell type in the human body. Be that as it may, there is debate with embryonic undeveloped cells on the grounds that the blastocyst can possibly turn into a baby.

In any case, the protest is liable to two prevalent issues. Firstly, the obliterating of stem cells includes the pulverization of the embryonic cells at the blastocyst stage (normally 6 days old), and in the occasion the pre-fetus at this stage is perceived as a person with natural right to life, it would deny embryonic cells formation whether the blastocyst were subsequent of remedial cloning or as an aftereffect of a surplus unfertilized egg (Kiatpongsan & Sipp 2009). Besides, the restorative cloning utilizes the same strategy as the one utilized as a part of the underlying phase of conceptive cloning, in which an enucleated egg is transplanted with a substantial cell core and embedded in a defenseless uterus in an offer to create a newborn child. The improvement of restorative cloning may consequently be feared to make a path for a generally unsatisfactory use, and this danger might be considered adequately incredible to forbid remedial cloning leave alone the potential advantages to patients (Larijani & Zahedi 2008).

Therapeutic Cloning as Legal and Ethical Procedure for Company ABC to Create Embryonic Stem Cells

Therapeutic cloning that is designed towards creating HESCs for instrumental application is illicit in some country states. For example, it is illegal in all member countries of the European Union. The eighteenth article of the ECHRB (European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine) bans the development of embryonic stem cells for use in accomplishing research targets. In other countries, the therapeutic cloning is legitimately admissible (Lisker 2003). Company ABC ought to get the stem cells it requires to actualize the quality treatment intercession fit for lessening microcephaly’s advancement in embryos whose mothers are Zika virus positive from countries that permit embryonic stem cell research.

The creation of embryonic stem cells from unfertilized eggs transplanted with a core from a patient cell may bring about immunological enhancement of tissues in acquired or serious degenerative illnesses (Koch et al. 2013). As of now, research and additionally advancement of human embryonic stem cells is forbidden in numerous parts of the world, while in some exclusive the utilization of embryonic stems cells made from the blastocyst phase of prepared eggs in surplus from fertility treatment is allowed (Schuklenk & Ashcroft 2014). With undeveloped cell based treatment being conceivably valuable to patients with extreme ailments and with helpful cloning offering an approach to produce clinically predominant embryonic cells, the ebb and flow imperviousness to allowing this strategy to be created through research might be considered in itself unscrupulous at the onset (Hyun 2010).

How to Obtain the Stem Cells for Use in Theraupetic Cloning

Cells with the genetic factors that reduce microcephaly’s growth in fetuses of pregnant mothers infected Zika virus will be obtained from somatic cells drawn from any body tissue. Their nuclei, carrying the factors, in the cells will be removed. They nuclei will be injected into unfertilized ova whose nuclei will also have been removed previously. The reconstituted ova will commence subdividing typically.

Ethics and Restorative Cloning

From the perspective of restorative cloning, Company ABC can obtain the embryonic stem cells it requires to actualize the quality treatment intervention aimed at lessening microcephaly’s advancement in embryos of pregnant mothers with Zika virus. Generally, considering the elusive sloppy opposition of acquiring human embryonic stem cells by use of therapeutic cloning, we find that cloning is ethically traversable. Consequentialists hold that the cloning will unavoidably result into to what they consider as conceptive cloning. That disputation by the consequentialists does not hold. In the event that one considers conceptive cloning as ethically impermissible completely, it is sensible to issue a particular prohibition on it rather than issuing bans on other cloning applications whose nature is non-regenerative (Gupta 2011). Those also opposed to therapeutic cloning oppose that the embryonic stem cells resultant of cloning goes for isolating foundational embryos that might be employed as a part of legitimizing the use of the embryos in starting pregnancy and their vocation simply as a course for the era of sufficient transplantation cells. Such pregnancy would without a doubt be upset by the accomplishment of the fitting formative stage.

It can be viewed as that the forthcoming of an in vitro blastocyst to progress into an embryo resulting to a formation of dependent approaches, including fruitful implantation, repartees an extraordinary moral standing paying little heed to whether the blastocyst is an outcome of in vitro treatment or an impact of nuclear transference from a substantial cell to an unfertilized, enucleated egg cell (Larijani & Zahedi 2008). The “likelihood” talk about has been instrumental in fighting for the complete human moral status of the prepared egg from preparation headlong. This infers what may absolutely, without outside intervention, form into a human being ought to be taken as a person normally (Schuklenk & Ashcroft 2014).

In the sternest sense, “likelihood” means the way that a substance can accomplish or get to be something that in the present minute isn’t. This involves one, recognizing that it keeps on being what it is in some key angle, and two that the potential is characteristic, suggesting that it needn’t bother with something essential from the outside (Gupta 2011). In this way, the in vitro blastocyst having inactivity for personhood does not meet both of these two conditions. Clearly the blastocyst can’t be an infant human, it perhaps will get to be one, keeping in mind this movement could occur in the ordinary course of occasions, it might likewise form into two or more kids or it won’t not create by any stretch of the imagination, whether by way of discontent or by a decision not to embed the treated or trans-nuclear egg. It can in this manner be deduced that it may be viewed as that nor is character unavoidably moderated nor is the advancement self-deciding devoid of outside conditions and at risk decisions by different players (Lo & Parham 2009).

While the in vitro blastocyst may shape a vital establishment for the resulting improvement of an individual it is not one in itself. In this manner, the human moral status can’t be closed from a status which it doesn’t naturally have at the onset (Koch et al. 2013). Regardless, subject to the key part the prepared egg or blastocyst has in the advancement of the hereditary milieu from which an individual could emerge it may be considered to be some unmistakable esteem or moral status on it or even regard it as though it were a human individual (Hyun 2010). Whether such moral speculation is very much established falls outside the center of this report.

Embryonic stem cell research in the light of therapeutic cloning offers a gigantic potential for clinical applications including the utilization of embryonic stem cells as a course to quality enhancement and cell substitution treatment in regenerative solutions (Lo & Parham 2009). Also, embryonic stem cell research may, sooner rather than later, endorse in vitro organogenesis and eradicate senescence. The blend of helpful cloning and quality treatment gives a gigantic imminent to patient-particular rescue of a hereditary transformation of the loss-of-capacity kind, following exhausted movement of a particular protein (Koch et al. 2013). Embryonic stem cells combined with helpful cloning utilized as a part of cell substitution treatment offers the chance to create endless types of tissues, some of which incorporate osteoblasts that are instrumental in counterbalancing osteoporosis, and spinal cord recovery following injury (Schuklenk and Ashcroft 2014). The ensuing recovering of motility could come about into clinical applications for loss of motion in people by method for restorative cloning. Fascinatingly, embryonic stem cell research together with therapeutic cloning can offer an answer for low human oocyte, attainable quality and influencing restorative way to deal with equivocate infertility. As reported by Lo and Parham (2009) replica gametes can be created by haploidization, by utilization of embryonic stem cells separation in an enucleated oocyte set to embrace meiosis once actuated. One researcher acclimatized the core of a human cumulus cell into an enucleated allogeneic oocyte (Gupta 2011). They acquired a 50 percent achievement rate in haploidization, with two out of the six replica oocytes being adequately treated in vitro and defrosted for plausible implantation (Hyun 2010).

It is accentuated that the reconstructing of physical cells for motivations behind creating initiated pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) bypasses the moral concerns that are unequivocal to embryonic stem cells (Larijani & Zahedi 2008). Indeed, even along these lines, there are hazardous moral binds with any human stem cell (hSC) together with the giving of biological materials for hSC research, introductory clinical trials for hSC treatments, and in addition regulation of hSC exploration (The Irish Council for Bioethics 2008).

Recommendations

Company ABC should procure or develop human embryonic stem cells that are older than 14 days for use in stemming microcephaly advancement in embryos of mothers infected with Zika virus as opposed to using adult stem cells.

The company should ensure that the embryonic stem cells it uses are obtained via through therapeutic cloning.

Conclusion

There is notable opposition in regards to the moral acceptability of developing embryonic stem cells for particular research purposes, particularly where they include clinical applications. Traditional stereotyping ethicists put on a show of being having two viewpoints with respect to the reasonability: Fetalist and women’s activist. The ordinary fetalist zeroes in on fetuses’ ethical worth, while the common women’s activist highlights on the dignity of pregnant women, particularly the ones donating oocytes. The pregnant women donating the oocytes are basic players in the usage of the quality treatment mediation fit for decreasing microcephaly’s advancement in babies whose mothers are infected with Zika virus in situations where the imperative stem cells are employed in therapeutic cloning. There are varied perspectives on whether there is a key benefit between the creations of embryonic stem cell research and utilizing excess IVF developing embryos as a part of scientific research. Since Company ABC ought to procure and develop human embryonic stem cells instead of using adult stem cells, the embryonic stem cells can be obtained via through therapeutic cloning. Basically, this implies that the creation of stem cells through the use of therapeutic cloning are focused on an instrumental application. Creating stem cells is totally applied as a part of contributory applications and subsequently the ethical standings are similar in both cases. Additionally, the relative qualification comes in when the target of the related treatment procedures are considered. It is really extravagant to think about each common IVF connection as encapsulated by fetuses whose creation is a goal in itself. Actually, the goal is unraveling automatic conditions. For instance, microcephaly advancement in embryos of mothers infected tainted with Zika infection.

References

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Hyun, I 2010, “Allowing Innovative Stem Cell‐Based Therapies Outside of Clinical Trials: Ethical and Policy Challenges”, The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, vol.38, no. 2, pp.277-285.

Kiatpongsan, S & Sipp, D 2009, “Monitoring and regulating offshore stem cell clinics”, Science, vol.323, no. 5921, pp.1564-1565.

Koch, VG, Roxland, BE, Pohl, B & Keech, SK 2013, Contemporary Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Research, Stem Cells Handbook.

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Lo, B & Parham, L 2009, “Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Research”, Endocrine Reviews, vol.30, no.3, pp.204-213.

Saunders, M, Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A 2012, Research Methods for Business Students, Pearson Education Limited, New York.

Schuklenk, U & Ashcroft, R 2014, “The Ethics of Reproductive and Therapeutic Cloning (Research)”, Monash Bioethics Review, vol.19, no.2, pp.33-44.