The two types of stem cells we are going to focus on are adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells.
See "What are Stem Cells?" post: http://g4stemcells.blogspot.com.es/2016/02/what-are-stem-cells.html
Once we have now a clear idea of what each of these cells are, we can run through the advantages and disadvantages when applying these for human welfare.
Starting up with adult stem cells, the first advantage which comes to mind compared with the use of embryonic ones, is the fact that extracting stem cells from an adult human body doesn´t make any harm, for example harvesting them from the individual's blood or fat without any danger.
The other main advantage is, that they are capable of being transformed into pluripotent stem cells, allowing them to have the advantages of embryonic cells without the need of destroying human embryos, which is the main ethical problem scientists have to face when working with embryonic cells.
In terms of the disadvantages, adult stem cells have a determined cell type, this means that they cannot be changed into tissues that differ from the ones that they came from, therefore, these can only be used in certain processes which involve the same type of tissue from which they were originated.
In the other hand, embryonic cells constitute the other point of view, the other side of the argument. These have a considerable number of advantages, but negated with an, for some people, inconditional disadvantage, which is killing the embryo to get the stem cells. Obviously, this embryo is 4-5 days old, and has specially been created for this purpose, with an in vitro insemination.
The advantages of this method are the following:
- These stem cells offer a great number of opportunities, as they are undifferentiated which permits them to be used in any part of the body, differing from adult ones which can only be used in certain cases, so basically embryonic ones can cure a greater and incredibly huge variety of diseases.
- Another advantage is that this investigation could help to develop cancer research, which would be extremely beneficial for the whole scientific community.
In terms of the disadvantages, apart from the main one which I mentioned at the start, being this one the destroying of the human embryo, the other main disadvantage, which throughout time will start to be less and less significant, is the fact that embryonic stem cell research is still pretty undeveloped, which can possibly lead to several perjudicial anomalies in the process which are yet to be solved.
Bibliography:
https://sites.google.com/site/stemcellresearchdebate/argument/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-embryonic-stem-cells
https://sites.google.com/site/stemcellresearchdebate/argument/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-adult-stem-cells
Good Job comparing and contrasting the two types of stem cells but it would have been better to look at if it were in the format of a t-chart. Also, even though you were not focusing on it, you should have acknowledged the presence of chord blood stem cells.
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