RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Bioethics of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells: Will Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells End the Debate?
Julia C.Watt1, Nao R.Kobayashi*, 2
O'Brien Institute, 42 Fitzroy Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3065 Australia.
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 2
First Page: 18
Last Page: 24
Publisher Id: TOSCJ-2-18
DOI: 10.2174/1876893801002010018
Article History:
Received Date: 11/09/2009Revision Received Date: 10/03/2010
Acceptance Date: 11/03/2010
Electronic publication date: 11/10/2010
Collection year: 2010
© R.Kobayashi et al.
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The ethical debate surrounding human pluripotent stem (PS) cell research is mainly due to use of human embryonic stem (ES) cells. It has been suggested by many that human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells would end the debate due to their non-embryonic origin. This review examines the ethical issues surrounding the use of iPS cells and their ES cell counterparts, and argues that while iPS cells are in many ways ethically less contentious, they will certainly not end the debate.
Keywords: Embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, somatic cell nuclear transfer, germ line, ethics, moral status, beneficence.
