For 2 Debates 2009 Carpe Diem School

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name's Catalina Marquez. I am the second speaker in the proposition team.

• Today, the access to embryonic stem cells is limited. Many researchers have suggested “Adult Stem Cells”. In the case of “Adult Stem Cells” the results are not the same as embryonic stem cells, and the success rate of the therapies is expected to be lower.

• Scientists against the practice of Embryonic Stem Cell research have suggested Adult S.C. because they can be extracted from the patient’s body without problems. However, they can be used only for the organ that they were extracted from. For example, if you remove a stem cell from a human brain, that stem cell can only turn into another brain cell.

• As a result of this phenomenon researchers believe that Adult Stem Cells are not as versatile - and adult stem cells can not be manipulated - and are not as capable as embryonic stem cells to adapting to all cell types.

• Adult stem cells at the moment of their division they produce more than they supposed to do and there are more possibilities that some type of tumors or cancer could be generated from the time that they were re-inserted as a result of the cells over-replicating.

• The results of experimental Adult Stem Cell treatments, that were realized with animals, produced a 70% of death in the animals that were used at these experiments.

• The treatments with Adult Stem Cells can be longer than with the others because they have different characteristics and ways of working. Because they are less basic, scientists need more time to coerce the transformation of the cell into the proper cell type – even though the Adult Cells can only transform into their specific type, they may randomly transform into an unnecessary cell type – therefore close observation and manipulation is necessary.

• Adult Stem Cells are limited to regrowing or repairing genetic tissue – and because they are already predisposed towards specialization, they don't offer the same information about disease prevention issued by Embryonic Stem Cells.

• Whereas, Embryonic Stem Cells differentiate and reproduce from their most basic form, and can therefore reveal startling information into the nature of cancer, and the genetic disposition of cells towards certain diseases like diabetes. The promise that Embryonic Stem Cells offers is startling in its scope. And the only thing preventing the realization of these benefits is the misunderstanding people have of its potential.