Q: My question is regarding stem cells and their usage in treatment.
Stem cells are ‘blank’ cells that have the potential to become any cell in the body e.g. heart, brain, muscle, etc.
Primarily, stem cells are taken from two sources:
1. Human embryos that are between 3 to 5 days old. The cells are usually taken from embryos that are fertilized in a lab (not in the womb).
2. Adult tissue. In this case, the stem cells can be taken from bone marrow, fat tissue (e.g. in the buttocks), blood, amniotic fluid (the fluid in the womb around the baby), the umbilical cord and many other parts of the body.
These stem cells can be harvested from the patient himself or from donors.
After the stem cells are harvested, they are ‘grown’ (cultured) in the laboratory where they multiply into more cells (daughter cells) until the number of cells is sufficient for treatment purposes. They are then used for treatment in some of the following ways:
1. The stem cells are manipulated in the lab to become (for example) heart cells. These heart cells are then injected into a damaged heart where they repair the damage to the heart. In a similar manner, the stem cells can be manipulated into brain cells and injected into the brain, spinal cord tissue and injected into the spinal cord, etc. These stem cells then repair whatever damage is found in the organ into which they are injected.
2. In some cases, if (for example) a patient has a damaged organ, the doctors can use stem cells to grow him a new organ in the laboratory. This has already been achieved in 2011 where a woman with a damaged windpipe had a new windpipe grown with stem cells and transplanted into her body to replace her damaged windpipe.
In which cases will stem cell treatment be permissible in Shari’ah?
Similarly, is IVF permissible in the case where the husband and wife do not have children?
