Text and Photos By Ruth G. Mercado

CEBU, Philippines - Then He took a bone from one of his ribs and from that rib, God made a woman. She was called Woman because she was taken out of the rib and bone of a man. In what is recorded as the world’s first surgery is perhaps also the world’s only successful stem cell regeneration. How did the Master Surgeon clone a woman out of a man?

Doctors at the Chong Hua Hospital engaged in slicing and splicing – not with scalpels – rather in discussions on the promise and the price of stem cell therapy. Despite its awesome science and medical inroads in genetic engineering, the issues were not medical. Rather it was ethical. Chong Hua Hospital doctors could not quite agree if stem cells would be used as a therapy for primary health or for well being.

Where seems to be the problem? One stinging and sensitive issue was whether or not the use of human embryos as sources of stem cells is abortion? Is it true that stem cell therapy can make a person look seven years younger? Will the cessation of stem cell therapy injections turn a patient eventually into a monster?

Let’s begin from the beginning. All of us – meaning you and I – young or old – man or woman are made up of cells. The best proof that you and I are made up of cells is not in medical books. It’s in the Bible. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” This is recorded in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. Science and medicine took off where the Scripture left a cliffhanger.

The Bible did not say much about what kind of cells are in the body. Today science and medicine explain that there are two kinds of cells in the body. There are those that are unspecialized and replicate and those that are specialized and cannot replicate easily. Stem cells are the kind of cells that are unspecialized and replicate or proliferate easily.   You might ask, what is the significance of unspecialized cells? It is because of these unspecialized cells that the human body has a reserve of cells for internal repair. Because these cells replicate and proliferate without limits, unspecialized cells or stem cells serve as the body’s internal repair system. So long as a person is alive, his stem cells continue to replicate. The other thing about stem cells is that this can replicate into specialized cells. What do I mean? For instance our brain cells and heart muscle cells are specialized cells – meaning these cannot replicate easily. What happens is that stem cells in the process of replicating or replacing can give rise to specialized cells. So when your heart cells or brain cells need to be replaced, stem cells come into the rescue and specialize into the very kind of cell that your body needs. Pretty nice and fascinating, isn’t it? That’s God at work. Where did man tamper and get into the picture? (FREEMAN)