Stem cells and infertile couples

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Thousands of couples around the world are devastated every year by their inability to conceive children. Treating infertile couples is a multibillion-dollar industry that employs various methods and treatments to help couples conceive a child. However, after years of treatments, many couples still find themselves childless, and out of money.

A recent report on the potential of using sperm and eggs created from adult stem cells provided a rather positive reaction in this regard. Because creating such sperm and egg cells does not result from using damaged or destroyed embryonic tissues, ethical and moral issues were overcome, because this new research does not require the use of destroyed embryonic tissue cells. As a result, many feel that research and development in this field should continue.

"There may be ethical issues at later stages, but at this stage, the main ethical issue is to ensure that science can continue," says John Harris, professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester.

The creation of sperm or egg cells created from adult stem cells for the use by infertile couples is a least a decade or more away, cautions Harris. Extensive scientific work and research is required before any such pluripotent stem cell derived gametes, or eggs, would be ready for use in the human fertilization process.

Such research and developments may also help to provide treatments and cures for genetic diseases, but ethical and moral concerns regarding manipulating human embryos may provide hurdles for these studies to overcome.

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