Today was the day of the final, and me and Jesus spent the day finishing up our term papers. Mine is nearly complete, and Jesus' is as well. Over the break we will be emailing Dr. Jay Schneider, a scientist currently studying stem cells at UT Southwestern. Hopefully he will be able to show us the process like we had originally planned.

Winter break is coming up soon! We will also try to schedule a meeting with Dr. Schneider over the break.

With our term paper due date coming up soon, and finals next week, we spent the day working on our papers. The term papers are about our personal experiences in our research and what we have learned about our thesis. While it will have information about our topic, the main focus will be about the progress we have made.

Representatives from Jostens are coming today, many of us forgot to fill out the order sheets for the graduation packets. We spent a couple of minutes filling those out. The semester term paper is due in a few days and even though we still have some time both David and I have decided to start working on them to reflect on what we have learned this semester. Our meeting with Dr. Grinnell has left us with new questions that we are still trying to research.

In the previous post we discussed one of the main factors that prevents the formation of universal ethics guidelines with stem. One thing we would like to emphasize is that there is no issue with finding solutions to diseases and defects with stem cells, research can still be done. The problem individuals and organizations have is with the therapy used in the process.


http://www.eurostemcell.org/factsheet/embyronic-stem-cell-research-ethical-dilemma

This article discusses many of the issues we discussed with Dr. Grinnell including the issue of "what moral principle should we choose?"

•  "The duty to prevent or alleviate suffering"
•  "The duty to respect the value of human life"

     As mentioned in the last post one factor that affects the establishment of universal ethics guidelines are the inter-looped cultural differences. For example, in embryonic stem cells one of the biggest questions is what defines "Death."

     There are four main time periods where the definition of death shifts.

•      Cell Viability- 1month

•      Development Arrest- up to 4 months
• cell growth is stunt meaning that no further development could take place

•      Cardiovascular- 5-9 months
• Heart stops

•      Neurological- 7-9 months
• Brain can no longer function (brain dead)

http://euthanasia.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000197

This article from pro con reflects some of the different descriptions of what death is considered.

Over the break, me and Jesus visited Dr. Grinnell at UT Southwestern.
The trip there was pretty bad though, my dad dropped us off at the south campus, while his office was in the north campus. It took us about half an hour to walk over, and we showed up late.

However, once we were there, the meeting itself was very productive and we were able to ask our questions and learned much about the process.
I took notes on the discussion, and will be using them for further research and in our presentation.

Dr. Grinnell had a PowerPoint presentation that explained multiple types of stem cells and discussed the definition of "Death" to explain when "Life" is considered.

Our meeting with Dr. Grinnell will be tomorrow, and we have typed up a list of questions to ask him. Hopefully the meeting will go well with no problems.

Questions

• Summary of stem cell research (embryonic ones)
• What exactly do you do (in detail)
• How your field pertains to this research
• Experience in the field (Length of work, degrees)
• Your take on the use of embryonic stem cells (whether or not you agree it is ethical)
• How exactly are these stem cells obtained? Where?
• Have you ever performed/seen the process of extraction before, in person?
• Is it true that adult SC are just as good as embryo, and even have some advantages?
• As an individual who has studied SC and has done your own research what response have you obtained from the general public? Fellow comrades?
• If you were to give us any advice as to which way we can move  his research along what would you say?
• If we were to have another meeting what would you like to see done on our part?

These questions will hopefully guide our discussion and help us learn more about the ethics.

Dr. Grinnell has agreed to a meeting, and we will be visiting him on Wednesday. The meeting is set at 11, and this will be our first meeting with either of our mentors. Still no word from Dr. Hamra, and it may be possible that Dr. Grinnell is going to be our only mentor.

In class today, Jesus and I continued our research on stem cells, and for some of the class finished up college apps for the December 1st deadline.

I found a really long research paper over stem cell research. The bibliography is here, since the file is in PDF format. It will take longer than today to read the paper.

van Laake, Linda W., et al. "Human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes survive and mature in the mouse heart and transiently improve function after myocardial infarction." Stem Cell Research 1.1 (2007): 9-24.

http://usliberals.about.com/od/stemcellresearch/i/StemCell1_2.htm

We found this link today. I personally had not payed much attention to the decisions the presidents had to take until I read the excerpt of Dr. Frederick Grinnell. In one section he discusses how President George W. Bush cut the funding for embryonic stem cell research, however, according to this article in 2009 President Obama lifted the ban and began funding the research once again:

         "Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research, from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit, and from a government willing to support that work..."

Here we not only see individual belief, but also a change in belief and aspirations of a nation as a whole. As a result we now begin to see a greater support for the use of these embryonic stem cells.

No responses from Dr. Hamra yet, but we have begun delving deeper into the actual process of stem cell research. In our previous conversations with our mentors, I realized how much I actually don't know about the process, besides the basics and a general overview. There is much more to what is done and how scientists view stem cell research.

Hopefully the scientist who performs this research can meet up soon, but with the holiday season coming it may be hard to find a time to meet up.

Dr Frederick Grinnell sent us an excerpt of his paper on the ethics of stem cell research, and the paper is about 10 pages long. I don't know if I have permission to post it here, but I'll ask and if it is allowed I will add it.

Dr Grinnell also answered our questions, and I have requested a meeting with him as well. Dr Hamra has not responded to our request to have a meeting, so we are now awaiting a response from both of them.

Neither of our possible mentors have responded since last time. I showed the questions with Jesus, and we tweaked a couple. Of course, more questions will come along as we talk to our mentors and they provide us with more information.

Dr. J will be assisting us with the survey, although we will be doing the work and she will just comment on it. We also have taken a look at the survey guidelines to understand what we're allowed and what we're not allowed to ask.

Thankfully both of our mentors have responded. One, Dr Kent Hamra, has asked if we wish to meet in person or have a Skype/cell phone group call. I have asked to meet in person, to see exactly what Dr. Hamra does, and to observe the process.

Dr. Frederick Grinnell is the other person we have contacted. His focus is more on the ethics of stem cell research, which is more of our focus. He has asked for a list of questions, and I have begun typing up what we need to ask him. Here is the current list of questions I have made, and others will be soon added.

Ethics Questions

For survey purposes:

• Do you know what stem cell research deals with?
• Do you believe that the study is ethical and does not violate human rights issues?
• Do you have any thoughts on whether this violates religious views?

After this part, give a brief overview of the research, and how human rights could be violated. Mention embryonic stem cells as well as the religious aspect.

• After hearing the description, has your perspective changed in any way?
• If so, do you agree more with stem cell research?
• Do you still believe any form of human rights are violated?

General questions:

• What exactly do you do in this field?
• What has your research led you to believe about embryonic stem cell research?
• What do other scientists believe?
• Are scientists ever bothered by the idea that lives are being taken from these cells?
• Do you agree with what is being done wholeheartedly?
• Additional thoughts on the ethics?

Unfortunately our mentors have not responded so we have not been able to meet up with them to discuss our thesis. We have emailed them once again and  hopefully find a more efficient way to contact them for future purposes.
As for our research, we have found many sites that have similar information. We will now start to condese our gathered materials to analyze it and move forward to more detailed sections.

Today, since the November 1st applications are due tomorrow, both of us finished up some Baylor apps and other college apps.

We did a bit of research for our thesis as well, and found this info:
http://www.eurostemcell.org/factsheet/embyronic-stem-cell-research-ethical-dilemma

The ethical dilemma

Embryonic stem cell research poses a moral dilemma. It forces us to choose between two moral principles:

• The duty to prevent or alleviate suffering
• The duty to respect the value of human life

In the case of embryonic stem cell research, it is impossible to respect both moral principles. To obtain embryonic stem cells, the early embryo has to be destroyed. This means destroying a potential human life. But embryonic stem cell research could lead to the discovery of new medical treatments that would alleviate the suffering of many people. So which moral principle should have the upper hand in this situation? The answer hinges on how we view the embryo. Does it have the status of a person?

Further within the article is more info on the ethics and the debate over whether or not this type of research is ethical.

Today while looking up info on stem cell research, we came across another website with a plethora of information on the ethics of the process.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stem-cells/

The outline includes:

1. The Ethics of Destroying Human Embryos for Research

• 1.1 When does a human being begin to exist?
• 1.2 The moral status of human embryos
• 1.3 The case of “doomed embryos”

2. The Ethics of Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells in Research

3. The Ethics of Creating Embryos for Stem Cell Research and Therapy

4. Stem Cell-Derived Gametes

Bibliography

Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

• Cited Resources
• Other Resources

Related Entries

This will be very helpful, as it is a Stanford article and the information here is sound. We will be using this info in our presentation.

http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/pros-and-cons-of-stem-cell-research.htm

This is one of our sources we found useful.
An excerpt from this site:
Pros and Cons of Stem Cell Research - Embryonic Cells The pros and cons of stem cell research come to the surface when we examine the third source of stem cells - embryonic cells. Embryonic stem cells are extracted directly from an embryo before the embryo's cells begin to differentiate. At this stage the embryo is referred to as a "blastocyst." There are about 100 cells in a blastocyst, a very large percentage of which are stem cells, which can be kept alive indefinitely, grown in cultures, where the stem cells continue to double in number every 2-3 days. A replicating set of stem cells from a single blastocyst is called a "stem cell line" because the genetic material all comes from the same fertilized human egg that started it. President Bush authorized federal funding for research on the 15 stem cell lines available in August 2001. Other stem cell lines are also available for research but without the coveted assistance of federal funding.

So what is the controversy all about? Those who value human life from the point of conception, oppose embryonic stem cell research because the extraction of stem cells from this type of an embryo requires its destruction. In other words, it requires that a human life be killed. Some believe this to be the same as murder. Against this, embryonic research advocates argue that the tiny blastocyst has no human features. Further, new stem cell lines already exist due to the common practice of in vitro fertilization. Research advocates conclude that many fertilized human cells have already been banked, but are not being made available for research. Advocates of embryonic stem cell research claim new human lives will not be created for the sole purpose of experimentation.

Others argue against such research on medical grounds. Mice treated for Parkinson's with embryonic stem cells have died from brain tumors in as much as 20% of cases.¹ Embryonic stem cells stored over time have been shown to create the type of chromosomal anomalies that create cancer cells.² Looking at it from a more pragmatic standpoint, funds devoted to embryonic stem cell research are funds being taken away from the other two more promising and less controversial types of stem cell research mentioned above.



This source can help greatly with the ethics and the research process.

I was not able to post on Friday due to technical difficulties, but we have finally received a reply from one of our prospective mentors, and has agreed to help us on our senior thesis. We have emailed him again to see when or how we can contact him in a more efficient manner. We have a good list of sources from which to build our knowledge and presentation, however, his help can be very beneficial. As for our second mentor we are still waiting for a response. Our next priority now is to draft the survey and review it with our statistics teacher.

Today was picture day, and we stood in line forever trying to get our pictures taken. After, we worked on college apps and I replied to one of the people who Dr. Ravnik suggested. However, the other person who I contacted has yet to reply, which is worrying. Thankfully one person has responded, and if we get at least one mentor we should be alright.

Dr. Ravnik has contacted me back, providing the emails of two people at UT Southwestern. One specializes in the ethics of the research, which is exactly what we need. The other actually does research in the lab, and could aid us in understand scientific perspectives. I have emailed both of them today, requesting any assistance they can give. Hopefully they respond soon, as we really need a mentor/mentors.

Today, several of our peers presented their thesis projects. Now that we have seen what is somewhat expected of us we can prepare for our presentation on Wednesday. Our power point can now be revised and edited to make it adequate for this presentation.

Sorry about this post, we worked on our thesis after school. However, posting completely slipped our minds so we're posting now.

We finished up the annotated bibliography, adding to our sources until we had 11. The annotations we wrote will help in the future to remember what each source is for and help to organize the info easily.

Due to the storm, it was hard to post online also caused problems, since I lost internet for a while. 

Today we worked on our outline for the presentation, and thought out some questions to ask for the survey.

Possible questions include:
Do you know what stem cell research is?

If no, brief overview of the research, as unbiased as possible:
"Stem cell research is when an entire zygote or cells off of your body are taken directly, and created into stem cells. These are used to form new body parts such as ears, skin or muscles for that person."

Do you believe this is an efficient way to help people recover from disasters or accidents?

Talk about the ethics/morality of this:
"Some argue that this is unethical because the zygote is used up completely, and the fertilized egg is destroyed."

What is your take on this? Is it unethical or is it fine?


We will also be reshaping our model into this:
-Overview
-Current research
-Procedure
-Ethics for and against
-The survey
-Our take on ethics
-Conclusion

With this, we have about 10 minutes for the first 3, and 20 for the ethics, survey and our conclusion.

We have contacted Dr. Ravnik and are awaiting his reply. In the meantime we are working on expanding and annotating our bibliography.

Jesus and I both worked on College apps up until B lunch. After that we did more research on stem cells and got Dr. Ravnik's phone number so we can contact him about info. We are planning on asking a scientist in the field to help us with our project.

Today we discussed a few of our sources, worked on senior survey and took internship badges

Today surveys were released and resumes were due. Although the survey needed to be replaced, we already looked at it. We finished up our resumes, updating them with new summer activities and this year's clubs.

Today we set up the presentation, and how we're planning on breaking it up into parts which will be within the time requirements. The idea follows as:
-Overview
-Ethics for and against
-The survey
-Current research
-Procedure
-Pros and cons
-Possible addition
-Conclusion

Overall 30 minutes is the idea time, 10 for each 3 parts, and 10 for the last two. We plan to do a part on ethics, but move over more towards possibly adding a step to the process to make it more efficient.

Today, the counselor came and spoke to us about college applications for most of the class. We filled out forms on our situations dealing with college.

For our senior thesis, we are working together to examine the morality of stem cell research in modern medicinal practices. Today we worked on the basis for our thesis, and how we are going to split the research and how to present the project. We plan to use a study, using a survey or a research paper to present this thesis.