Topic: Stem Cells Subject Assignmnet

Order Description

Background:
Stem cells and their possible usefulness in treating a range of human conditions have generated a great deal of interest in both the popular and scientific press. You will be provided with two articles:
1. Source: The Independent – an online newspaper, ‘ Once they were blind, now they see. Patients treated with cells from human embryo’. Note how little explanation of the biology behind the “breakthrough” is provided. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/once-they-were-blind-now-they-see-patients-treated-with-cells-from-human-embryo-6293706.html
2. Source: The Lancet – a medical research journal ‘ Embryonic stem cell trials for macular degeneration: a preliminary report. Schwartz et al., 2012, 379:713-720
Writing Task:
Your task is to write an article that explains why there is so much excitement about using stem cells to treat degenerative disease and what exactly is done to the cells.
This is an exercise in writing, not in researching and reading the scientific literature. You should be able to get much of the basic information from your lecture notes and associated readings. You may need to use the scientific literature for specific information not covered in your text book.
To help you, the scientific report (see 2 above) that describes the work quoted in the newspaper article is provided.
By the end of the article, it should be clear to your reader what a human embryonic stem cell is, how differentiated progeny can be generated and why differentiated progeny rather than stem cells were used therapeutically. Please indicate why the eye is more amenable to this form of therapy than perhaps some other organs. You should also summarise what are some of the problems associated with using human embryonic stem cells.
The essay should be no longer than 1200 words.
The style of the article should be, as one would read in New Scientist or Scientific American.
Include helpful illustrations and diagrams.
Referencing
You should reference in Harvard Style
In text citation should be in the form (Smith, 2009) or Smith and Jones (2009) or Smith et al. (2009) when there are three or more authors.
In the bibliography, the same two author reference would be listed as:
Smith, AA & Jones, BB, 2009, Induced pluripotent stem cells in medicine. Science 1456(2): 435-439.
Books are listed as:
Author AA, Title of book, Year, Edition, Publisher