Stem cells can be defined as "master cells that can reproduce indefinitely to form the specialized cells of tissues and organs". The practice of cloning human embryos is very beneficial in producing embryonic stem cells that would eventually replace a person's damaged tissue. The umbilical cord blood contains stem cells capable of producing bone marrow that could later be used to combat blood disorders and diseases. Therapeutic cloning is a technique in which pre- embryonic tissue cloned from human donors who are suffering from a variety of diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes would be used to produce stem cells. Medical researchers think that these stem cells might then be induced to grow into the kind of healthy cells that are needed and injected back into the original donor without risk of rejection (since they have the donor's own DNA), thus curing otherwise fatal illnesses). Some recent research suggests that therapeutic cloning may not be the only way to get stem cells with matching DNA, as it may be possible to trick the adult human body into producing new stem cells. Stem cells derived from human embryos could lead to cures for some of humanity's most devastating illnesses--but to get to the little knots of magic tissue, doctors have to destroy the embryos, which might otherwise one day become babies.
Biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology Inc. (ACT), based in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the human cloning breakthrough was aimed not at creating a human being but at mining the embryo for stem cells to treat diseases ranging from Parkinson's to juvenile diabetes. Michael West, chief executive officer of ACT hopes to further treatment of ailments such as diabetes, cancer, AIDS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's disease (Gallagher, 2001). Sounds more like an attempt to improve life than destroy it........
