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"Stem Cell Research" Research Paper

On the way to my bedroom, I heard my mother crying. She's not the type of woman to be crying at eleven o'clock on a beautiful Saturday morning. Her door was slightly ajar as I heard her teary voice say, "I can't do this anymore. I'm so tired of having to check my sugar levels just to have a snack." I crept back to my bedroom and closed the door. I felt so bad for my mother who has been battling diabetes for the past ten years. An active woman who manages to juggle her family and her career, mom puts on a good front. She's told me on occasion, "I won’t let this diabetes take over my life." However, just now standing outside her bedroom door, I realized the heavy toll diabetes was inflicting on her life.
For a Type I diabetic, a high blood sugar level can be fatal. Anytime my mom wants to eat anything, whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack, she must check her blood sugar level to know how much insulin to give herself. Living with such a condition takes its toll on the many people suffering from diabetes. Other diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s still have no cure either. In the near future, curing these diseases and several others may be possible due to the promising new method, stem cell research.
In order to explain the benefits of stem cells, it is important to understand what a stem cell is. There are two types of stem cells: embryonic and adult. Embryonic stem cells are found in the early stages of an organism’s development. Since they are found early, they are undifferentiated, meaning these stem cells have the potential to become any type of cell. They are also known as pluripotent cells. Adult stem cells are found in children and adults and are considered differentiated because they have already begun changing into a certain cell type with specific functions of the body, such as skin, blood, and nerve cells. Since embryonic stem cells are like a "blank slate," their flexibility makes them more favorable over adult stem...