Academic Review 2024

68 ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

would be difficult but would reduce the moral conflicts of using embryonic stem cells. ‘This is going to create a moral and financial challenge for Catholic healthcare workers, Catholic medical researchers, Catholic hospitals, and a moral and healthcare challenge for Catholic patients and pro-life individuals who will someday need these advanced medicines that need to be free of cells that are created from abortion’ (Moy, 2021). Another Catholic scientist, Dr Kamath, warned that if alternative processes are not developed, Catholic hospitals could face dilemmas about what treatments they offer. If they offer treatments that are derived from embryonic stem cells, Catholic patients might resist the treatments (Jones, 2019). This indicates the need for further research into iPS cell therapies as many patients require stem cells to treat their diseases but may refuse treatment as they have moral and ethical objections. If iPS cell processes were further developed, then more people could undergo the treatment without ethical or religious complications. As demonstrated, induced pluripotent stem cells from the somatic cells of patients with subsequent homologous recombination-based gene correction have raised hopes for curing an array of diseases caused by genetic mutations. In terms of the ethical concerns, the use of iPS cells is less contentious. They involve no loss of life, and it can be argued that they directly benefit research as they are a more useful source than adult stem cells as iPS cells are pluripotent. However, due to the short time that iPS cells have been the subject of research, it is not yet considered a viable commercial clinical treatment. In time, with more research, it can be argued that iPS cells will be the new ethically viable future for stem cell research. CONCLUSION FOR INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS

An experiment by Dr J Gurdon was carried out to show the full potential of iPS cell research. Gurdon and his colleagues showed that adult frog stem cell nuclei can be reprogrammed after transfer into enucleated oocytes, which have the potential to develop the membrane for tadpole development (Okita & Yamanaka, 2011). This research opens up some ethical concerns as it shows that iPS cells have the potential to become embryos if exposed to the right conditions. Further issues arise from iPS cell research as virus DNA and RNA are currently used to introduce embryonic genes and it has been shown to cause cancers in studies that have been carried out on mice (Lo & Parham, 2009). Due to this research being so new, the methods to ensure reproducibility and maintenance to create differentiated tissues are not certain and the cancerous side effects are still mostly unknown. This process of testing on animals leads some stem cell donors to object to their cells being injected into animals. For instance, they may oppose animal research and testing, or they may have religious objections to the mixing of human and animal species. This has raised ethical concerns about animal wellbeing and the destruction of life for a scientific test. Some people argue that the possibility that human lives may be saved as a result of animal testing outweighs the loss of life through testing. ETHICAL CONCERNS Pro-life organisations view iPS cells as the most ethical and religiously acceptable option out of all stem cell processes. Dr Alan Moy, co-founder of the John Paul II Medical Research Institute which is a Catholic organisation, states they have found a virus- and oncogene-free process. This research has the potential to reduce the cancerous properties of iPS cells. Dr Moy said in an interview in 2019 that finding new alternatives through iPS cell treatment The future of stem cell therapies The future of stem cell therapies is at present almost impossible to predict. There are so many new technologies including single-cell transcriptomics which allows scientists to analyse thousands of genes in thousands of cells at any one time, spatial transcriptomics, lineage tracing using barcoding methods, state-of-the-art microscopy and more that will help scientists to understand stem cells better than ever before (Aldridge & Teichmann, 2020). At the same time, many treatments and

new therapies for various diseases are in the developmental stage and will commence clinical trials over the next few years. Further advancements, such as identifying stem cells with the mutations that are causing disease, coupled with the ability to edit DNA with limited, if any, off-target effects, will allow all specialised cells produced by the body to be “normal.” The definition of “normal” here refers to the absence of