Roscoe Bartlett: “there have been a number of articles in the recent press relative to stem cell research, with particular reference to…”

“there have been a number of articles in the recent press relative to stem cell research, with particular reference to embryonic stem cell research. I thought it might be well in starting this little discussion to take a look at what we mean by stem cells. I have here a chart which shows in very abbreviated form the development of an early embryo. It starts out with the zygote, which is the fertilized egg; and then it skips a couple of stages of development, and it goes through the blastocyst, and then it goes to the gastrula. By the time the embryo gets to the gastrula stage, the cells have already differentiated to the place that we have three different kinds of somatic stem cells. This is the ectoderm, and the mesoderm, and the endoderm, and then those very specialized cells, which in the female will be the germ cells in the ovary, the ova, and in the male will be the millions and millions of sperm that are in the gonads of the male.…”