| article |
| A Philosophical Reflection on the Biological Identiy |
| A Philosophical Reflection on the Biological Identiy Jongduck Choi (Sangji Univ.) – abstract – The research of the stem cell heads toward a revolutionary development in genetic therapeutics. But we must have a attention its ethical problems. At this point, we would make a social agrement or legally contract, as like a prohibition of embryo-research for a reproductive purpose, a sufficiently informed consent of embryo donation or no financial inducements etc, .But it need more, I think, a ontological question; such like what biological self is. The Philosophical approach of Stem Cell Research shall be consider the difference between the substantial view of traditional identity and relational view of biological identity. Through the substantial view of identity, we have got a knowledge the physical entities. But we must use the relatedness-oriented Identity concept, if we take a situation on the biological entities such as a stem cell. My article will be show that the relational concept of Identity may be worthwhile for the stem cell research, because of its immunological interactions. A stem cell is a special kind of cell that has a unique capacity to renew itself and to give rise to specialized cell types. Researchers hope that the study of human stem cell will lead to a better understanding of cell function, cell differentiation, and human development. Standing in the way of research are questions about how we should use human embryos. For those who view embryos as human lives deserving of the same respect as a child or adult, research that kills embryos is no more acceptable than would be research that killed adults. For those who view embryos as a collection of cells akin to other human tissue, research is acceptable and relatively uncontroversial. Embryonic stem(ES) cells and adult stem cells have different functions and characteristics. Embryonic stem cells come from embryos formed by in-vitro fertilization of a human sperm and germ. Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. In contrast, adult stem cells can be harvested from the blood, bone marrow and tissue of adults. Adult stem cells are but generally limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin. It’s unclear also, whether adult stem cells will prove as versatile as embryonic ones. The use of the patient’s own adult stem cells would mean that the cells would relatively not be rejected by the immune system. This represents a significant advantage as immune rejection is a difficult problem that can only be circumvented with immunosuppressive drugs. There are various immunological issues with embryonic stem cells. Immunological rejection is likely to be an important problem. Little attention has been paid to the immunogenicity of transplanted fetal or ES-cell-derived tissues or to the need for immunosuppression. Overcoming the immune response must have a prominent role in the development of hES-cell therapeutics. It also means that the need for fetal and adult cells as a source of stem cells for medical research may soon be eclipsed by the more readily available and less controversial adult stem cells. It may be provable that the problem of immune rejection may also be circumvented if an individual’s own adult cells can be used. But in order to solve fundamentally this problems, we must approach the philosophical understanding of a biological identity. For scientist’s experimental approach could not avoid unexpected additional immunosuppressions. |