LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 395

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 395

Human embryonic stem cell—A type of pluripotent stem cell
derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst.

In vitro—Literally, “in glass’; in a laboratory dish or test tube; an
artificial environment.

In vitro fertilization—An assisted reproduction technique in
which fertilization is accomplished outside the body.

Inner cell mass—The cluster of cells inside the blastocyst. These
cells give rise to the embryonic disk of the later embryo and,
ultimately, the fetus.

Long-term self-renewal—The ability of stem cells to renew
themselves by dividing into the same non-specialized cell
type over long periods (many months to years) depending on
the specific type of stem cell.

Mesenchymal stem cells—Cells from the immature embryonic
connective tissue. A number of celltypes come from
mesenchymal stem cells, including chondrocytes, which
produce cartilage.

Mesoderm—Middle layer of a group of cells derived from the
inner cell mass of the blastocyst; it gives rise to bone,
muscle, and connective tissue.

Microenvironment—The molecules and compounds such as
nutrients and growth factors in the fluid surrounding a cell in
an organism or in the laboratory, which are important in
determining the characteristics of the cell.

Mitochondrion—Any of various round or long cellular
organelles...that are found outside the nucleus, produce
energy for the cell through cellular respiration, and are rich
in fats, proteins, and enzymes.*

Neural stem cell—A stem cell found in adult neural tissue that
can give rise to neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes.

Neurons—Nerve cells, the structural and functional unit of the
nervous system. A neuron consists of a cell body and its
processes, an axon, and one or more dendrites. Neurons
function by the initiation and conduction of impulses and
transmit impulses to other neurons or cells by releasing
neurotransmitters at synapses.

Passage—A round of cell growth and proliferation in cell
culture.

Plasticity—The ability of stem cells from one adult tissue to
generate the differentiated cell types of another tissue.

Pluripotent—Ability of a single stem cell to develop into many
different cell types of the body.

Proliferation—Expansion of a population of cells by the
continuous division of single cells into two identical
daughter cells.

Regenerative or reparative medicine—A treatment in which
stem cells are induced to differentiate into the specific cell
type required to repair damaged or depleted adult cell
populations or tissues.

Reproductive Cloning—The use of technologies of cloning to
produce a new individual animal or human. Reproductive
cloning replaces the fusing of gametes (sperm and egg) with
techniques that take a full set of paired genes from a bodily
cell and that use this set in an egg that has been emptied of
its own genetic instructions. The resulting individual has the
same set of paired genes that the donor of the cell has and is
sometimes called a “delayed identical twin” of the donor.**

Reproductive Technologies—Term referring to a variety of
technologies that have been developed to address problems
of human infertility.**

Signals—Internal and external factors that control changes in cell
structure and function.

Somatic stem cells—Another name for adult stem cells.

Stem cells—Cells with the ability to divide for indefinite periods
in culture and to give rise to specialized cells.

Stromal cells—Non-blood cells derived from blood organs, such
as bone marrow or fetal liver, which are capable of
supporting growth of blood cells in vitro. Stromal cells that
make this matrix within the bone marrow are also derived
from mesenchymal stem cells.

Subculturing—The process of growing and replating cells in
tissue culture for many months.

Surface markers—Surface proteins that are unique to certain
cell types, which are visualized using antibodies or other
detection methods.

Surrogacy—tThe practice of having a woman who is not
intended to be the social mother of the child provide the
womb in which the child develops until it is able to be
born.**

Teratoma—A tumor composed of tissues from the three
embryonic germ layers. Usually found in ovary and testis.
Produced experimentally in animals by injecting pluripotent
stem cells, in order to determine the stem cells’ abilities to
differentiate into various types of tissues.

Transdifferentiation—The observation that stem cells from one
tissue may be able to differentiate into cells of another
tissue.

Trophoblast—The extraembryonic tissue responsible for
implantation, developing into the placenta, and controlling
the exchange of oxygen and metabolites between mother and
embryo.

Undifferentiated—Not having changed to become a specialized
cell type.

Notes

|. The Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR)
discussed many aspects of IVF in its 1996 report Christians and
Procreative Choices: How Do God’s Chosen Choose? (see pages
34-39) and in its 2002 report What Child Is This? Marriage, Fam-
ily and Human Cloning (see pages 9, 17-21). In the 1996 report,
the problem of decisions not to transfer embryos is said to be “of
the utmost seriousness” (38). “When embryos explicitly created
from within a marriage are denied the possibility of nurture in the
womb that God created to receive them,” says the report, “then the
unique and sacred expression in the embryo of the one-flesh union
of marriage is subject to distortion and diminution” (39). In the pres-
ent report the matter of protecting pre-implantation embryos is
addressed in much more detail (cf. footnote 18 in the 2002 report),
and our focus is on Christian participation in public debate con-
cerning the use of embryos for medical research and therapy.

2. Christian Care at Life’s End, A Report of the Commission
on Theology and Church Relations of The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod, 1993, 26-30. This principle is used in the CTCR’s
1993 report as a way of summing up biblical teaching about Chris-
tian care for others at the end of life, and it is used in a similar fash-
ion in the present report with regard to beginning-of-life issues.
Other complex and challenging ethical issues such as war and cap-
ital punishment require careful examination of scriptural texts that
are specifically relevant to these issues and that require the consid-
eration of additional factors (e.g., the divinely-instituted role of civil
government to care for its citizens by protecting them from those
who seek to do them harm). For further information, see the CTCR
reports Guidelines for Crucial Issues in Christian Citizenship
(1968), Report on Capital Punishment (1976), and Render Unto
Caesar...and Unto God: A Lutheran View of Church and State
(1995). The reports of the CTCR can be found online at
www.lems.org/cter.

2007 Convention Workbook