Stem cells, particularly pluripotent stem cells, hold significant promise for developing therapies for diseases and disorders for which there are no current treatments and for regenerating human cells, tissues, and possibly even organs. However, to be able to translate stem cell research into therapies, researchers must first address many scientific, ethical, and regulatory hurdles. The need for researchers and sponsors to demonstrate progress and the hopes of patient groups for new therapies have pressured researchers to move quickly into clinical trials and encouraged the opening of clinics offering unproven and unapproved stem cell treatments. This book tells the story of the development of the field, and identifies the ethical issues and challenges stem cell translation raises. It will be of interest to ethicists, scientists, and regulators working in the stem cell field, as well as the general reader following scientific developments.

Stem Cells: An Insider's Guide is an exciting new book that takes readers inside the world of stem cells guided by international stem cell expert, Dr. Paul Knoepfler. Stem cells are catalyzing a revolution in medicine. The book also tackles the exciting and hotly debated area of stem cell treatments that are capturing the public's imagination. In the future they may also transform how we age and reproduce. However, there are serious risks and ethical challenges, too. The author's goal with this insider's guide is to give readers the information needed to distinguish between the ubiquitous hype and legitimate hope found throughout the stem cell world. The book answers the most common questions that people have about stem cells. Can stem cells help my family with a serious medical problem such as Alzheimer's, Multiple Sclerosis, or Autism? Are such treatments safe? Can stem cells make me look younger or even literally stay physically young? These questions and many more are answered here.A number of ethical issues related to stem cells that spark debates are discussed, including risky treatments, cloning and embryonic stem cells. The author breaks new ground in a number of ways such as by suggesting reforms to the FDA, providing a new theory of aging based on stem cells, and including a revolutionary Stem Cell Patient Bill of Rights. More generally, the book is your guide to where the stem cell field will be in the near future as well as a thoughtful perspective on how stem cell therapies will ultimately change your life and our world.

Fast-moving and ever-changing, stem cell science and research presents ongoing ethical and legal challenges in many countries. Each development and innovation throws up new challenges. This is the case even where new developments initially seem to solve old dilemmas. Sometimes it becomes evident that new science does not in fact solve old problems and, for that reason, the ethical issues remain. In recognition of this, this book presents innovative and creative analyses of a range of ethical and legal challenges raised by stem cell research and its potential and actual application. The editors of this collection have brought together experts from ethics and law to bring fresh perspectives on the use of and research on stem cells. The chapters in this collection range across a number of different issues in the debate on stem cells, from the ethical dilemmas of conducting stem cell research to those of the clinical application of stem cell technology. Each chapter gives an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the ethical or legal issues at stake. The early chapters give engaging new expositions on the permissibility of using embryos in stem cell research, in particular challenging our views about how we view and 'construct' the embryo in debates regarding stem cells. Later chapters move on to actual and potential clinical uses of stem cells and present novel arguments about these.

Fiction. LGBT Studies. Finalist for the American Library Association GLBT Fiction Award. "Guess deftly performs the parlor trick of handling several different voices, switching fluidly from perceptive Caddie to the clipped cadence of masculine Jo to jaded Selena. This Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore for the 1990s celebrates the differences between people without fudging the loneliness that these entail. Guess's attempts to put a Midwestern spin on magical realism are blessedly rare: in a book loaded with so many natural surprises, any supernatural extras would be gilt on the lily"—Publishers Weekly.

"What the editors have managed to accomplish with Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate is very significant. The book is well-informed, sophisticated, and attends to the moral and scientific complexities of stem cell research, rather than sweeping them under the rug. This book encompasses the complexities without sacrificing the other main virtue of the collection: to definitively illuminate the debate for all."—Jason Scott Robert, author of Embryology, Epigenesis, & Evolution: Taking Development Seriously

An up-to-date guide on the stem cell controversy and the discovery, hope, and fear that surrounds...

Is it acceptable from an ethical point of view to use stem cells from human embryos for scientific research and clinical therapy? And what are the weaknesses and strengths of various opinions and positions when they are critically evaluated? These are the main problems dealt with in this book. The various chapters as a whole give a comprehensive, many-sided and balanced discussion of the subject. The book contains contributions from biological, medical, social, political, philosophical and theological perspectives. The authors have been chosen because of their professional competence, many of them being respected scholars on a top international level. They give an updated contribution from their own discipline in order to enlighten the different aspects of the common theme. The authors cover various positions and evaluations with regard to the question of the use of embryonic stem cells for research and therapy. The book is written for several audiences: a) scholars and professionals working with stem cell research or with the ethical questions arising from this field (people from biology, medicine, law, philosophy, theology etc.), b) advanced and graduate students within the same professional disciplines and c) politicians and the general public interested in the burning ethical problems which are intensively debated in many countries.