Mentorship

For this project, I had three mentors.

My first mentor was Dr. Shukrat Mitalipov from the Oregon Primate Center located at OHSU. He was very knowledgeable about stem cells research and cloning and explained the process to me in very easy to understand terms and language. I have listed his explanation in the various pages explaining Stem cells and cloning on my site. Some of the very interesting tidbits that I gained from him are listed below:

---Did you know that the Oregon Primate Center has cloned a primate before? The most successful cloned primate they got was one they named Netty who is now 10 years old!

---The end of diabetes is near! Scientists in Israel managed to transform a totipotent stem cell into a cell producing insulin. This process is not yet approved by the FDA but if approved, many cases of type 2 diabetes will decrease.

---Adult stem cells are found everywhere in tissues in the body except for the brain.

---One of the uses of cloning can be to bring back endangered species such as the wolf which has been hunted to nearly extinction.

---Of all the embryos cloned, only 10% of them survive.

My second mentor was an Hindu priest I interviewed to find out what the Hindu religion says about the research of stem cells. Here are the key facts that I captured in speaking with him:

The Hindu religion says that everything comes from god including the life in a cloned organism. We just take all the ingredients and put them together to create the cloned organism but the ingredients for that are created by god. So when cloning, DNA is required which only god can make. The soul is created by god so in a cloned organism, the soul is not created by us but god.
So if you were wondering if the Hindu religion supports stem cell research, the answer is yes. Stem cell research flourishes in India because there is no politics or religious concerns opposing it. "A big reason why stem cell research flourishes in India is the absence of any religious or political opposition. The Hindu religion does not consider experimenting with human embryos developed by way of in vitro fertilization of human eggs (that creates test-tube babies) immoral." This was a passage from an article I found at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GL02Df02.html .  Keep in mind that the information I got is the opinion of just one Hindu priest so it cannot represent the entire Hindu population.  Thus according to my mentor, killing an embryo is considered "OK" by the Hindu religion as long as it is for a good cause.

My third mentor was a Christian pastor by the name of Pastor Kevin who I interviewed to find out what the Christian religion says about the research of stem cells. Here are the key facts that I captured in speaking with him:

Due to the size of the Christian religion, different Christians have different views on stem cell research. The information I got from Pastor Kevin was his thoughts and therefore, did not represent the entire Christian religion.

Pastor Kevin believed that the killing of embryos to research them is not good because the lord has put every organism on earth for a reason. Killing or abortion would just destroy the purpose of its existence. If a mother would have liked to have an abortion while having a child, the best thing to do would be for someone else to adopt the baby instead of having it killed to fulfill its purpose. At the church I visited, the people of it would adopt any baby that was born but was unwanted by its mother who attended the church. Thus, Pastor Kevin was against stem cell research. He also told me that cloning is not a good thing because organisms should not be played around with, even if it would help solve a problem. The lord would have made clones for everybody if it was necessary but didn't for a reason. Click here to view a script from the Bible referring to stem cell research.