backtop

Print E-mail del.icio.us 140 comment(s) - last by Moishe.. on Jun 28 at 10:04 AM
As one door comes to a close in U.S. stem cell policy, a group of Japanese researchers lay the blueprints for a technique that may bury the ethical stem cell hatchet forever

A bill recently passed by the Senate, which would lessen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research by allowing federally funded experimentation on frozen embryos that fertility clinics currently throw away, is expected to soon be vetoed by U.S. President Bush.

"If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers would for the first time in our history be compelled to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos," stated the president. Bush vetoed a similar bill last year, and instituted a ban in 2001 on federally funding the creation of new embryo-derived stem cell lines.

Stem cells are cells that are pluripotent: they are undifferentiated, and have the ability to become almost any kind of tissue. During the differentiation process, certain stem cells respond to different growth factors and signals and evolve into terminally differential cells such as skin cells or immune cells. Stem cells are also unique in that they are endlessly replicative, dividing faster and for longer periods of time than other cells.

Scientists found that stem cells could be induced in vitro to form different kinds of tissues. It was believed that only stem cells had this ability, but as research evolved, it was discovered that somatic cells, or those that have already differentiated into body tissue, could be reprogrammed into embryo-like stem cells.

A group of scientists at Whitehead Medical Center in Massachusetts confirmed the "reprogramming" theory when they published a paper on a new method of converting a normal cell line into a stem cell-like colony in the magazine Nature on June 6, 2007. This group, Wernig et al., modified a process previously used by Takahashi & Yamanaka in 2006.

According to Richard Doerflinger, a spokesman on stem cell issues for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, using the Takahashi & Yamanaka method for creating the pseudo-stem cells, “raises no serious moral problem, because it creates embryonic-like stem cells without creating, harming or destroying human lives at any stage.”

The psuedo-stem cell creation technique was proven to work on mice skin cells.  Both teams are confident any eventual efforts on human skin cells will also yield similar results.  However, perhaps most importantly, this research will continue even with the president's upcoming veto on embryonic stem cell bill.

Kathrin Plath, one of the U.S. researchers that confirmed Takashi & Yamanaka's experiment, claims, "It’s opened up an entire field of research. There will be so many who will find this interesting who can [do] it."

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Great news
By Clienthes on 6/14/2007 7:05:31 AM , Rating: 3
I'm very glad to hear that they found a way to get stem cell-like effects without the moral dilemma.

I wonder if this would have been done as quickly without the ban on embryonic tissue research.




RE: Great news
By James Holden on 6/14/2007 7:10:40 AM , Rating: 4
The original research wasn't done in the US, and embryonic cells are pretty hard to get no matter what country you're in. So my inclination is this probably would have happened anyway - but im glad it did.


RE: Great news
By dever on 6/17/2007 3:00:27 PM , Rating: 3
Yes, there's not actually a ban that I'm aware of. But, the restrictions on confiscating the earnings of citizens to fund morally questionable practices probably has helped to spur research in competing technologies.

The main issue here is government funding. Any time you tax individuals and distribute that money to a favored specific industry, everyone loses.

If you are a reasonable person and believe life does not begin until birth, then please realize that there are other reasonable people who believe that life may begin earlier.

Forcing those people to pay, through taxation, for something that they might find to be morally repugnant, is depriving them of essential liberties.

This is a great issue for people to stand back and see the many problems that occur when government is involved in redistributing our money, no matter how you perceive the morality of embryonic stem cell research.


RE: Great news
By Schadenfroh on 6/14/07, Rating: 0
RE: Great news
By DocDraken on 6/14/2007 8:06:37 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
I can understand the concern that some people have about where it might lead in terms of commercial fetal harvest (possibly paying people to have abortions).


That's rediculous. It's not a binary issue where it can only be completely unregulated mayhem or nothing. Of course there have to be laws and regulations so there can be nothing like commercial fetal harvesting, but that doesn't mean you can't do research on embryons that would have been thrown away anyway.


RE: Great news
By RShick on 6/14/2007 9:21:09 AM , Rating: 5
A breakthrough, yes, but far from a suitable alternative at the moment...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/06/stem.cells.ap...

quote:
In any case, scientists said, the advance does not mean that research that involves getting stem cells from human embryos should now be abandoned. "We simply don't know which approach ... will work the best," said researcher Konrad Hochedlinger of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who led one of the three teams.


quote:
The technique used in the mouse studies could promote cancer in any patients getting therapy based on iPS cells, so researchers emphasized that a new approach that avoids that hazard would have to be developed.


The DT article didn't mention anything about the increase in the risks of cancer using this therapy, I just wanted to get across that while similar to stem cells, they are not identical; and they pose riks that regular stem cells have not shown to this point.

Food for thought...


RE: Great news
By Leona on 6/14/2007 4:22:33 PM , Rating: 2
I have not heard anything about how the new technique can promote cancer.

Stem cells, when mutated enough to turn into cancerous cells, are highly malignant simply because of their "enlessly replicative" abilities. Is this the cancer-promoting factor, or does it have to do with the genes that are engineered into the skin cells that make them stem cell-like?

I would love a reference, if you have one. The one you posted does not give a reason.


RE: Great news
By brandonmichael on 6/15/2007 8:26:35 PM , Rating: 2
It was in the article.

"The technique used in the mouse studies could promote cancer in any patients getting therapy based on iPS cells, so researchers emphasized that a new approach that avoids that hazard would have to be developed."

Read the link.


RE: Great news
By bioorganic on 6/16/2007 1:09:15 AM , Rating: 2
This is nothing close to a "therapy" at this point. Anytime you ectopically express new genes you're pretty much eliminating the possibility that it will be used clinically. At this point, these results are in the proof of principle stage. The next step will be duplicating these results in human cells. Then the goal will be to slowly mimic the effects of each transcription factor w/ small molecules. Then and only then, will something like this have any practical relevance.


RE: Great news
By DocDraken on 6/14/2007 8:02:37 AM , Rating: 3
What moral dilemma? The only reason the US has such a restrictive policy on stem cell research, whereas the rest of the world doesn't, is that religious fruitcakes have too much power in the States. But I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise, considering that about 50% of the population still believes the earth is less than 10000 years old and that evolution doesn't exist.

When religion is not kept in check and away from politics it starts to suppress knowledge and science that goes against the religious dogmas. If you're not careful the US faces it's own dark age of ignorance, religious intolerance and suppression of science and free thinking. Quite like what happened during the middle ages. Best case scenario, you just get left behind with regards to biotech.


RE: Great news
By Moishe on 6/14/2007 8:29:43 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
What moral dilemma? The only reason the US has such a restrictive policy on stem cell research, whereas the rest of the world doesn't, is that religious fruitcakes have too much power in the States.

You're obviously very tolerant and reasonable... and a troll. After all, all religious people are "fruitcakes"... right? Your arrogance and intolerance are disgusting.

Like it or not the U.S. is the largest superpower on earth (right now) and it got it's start from a lot of people, especially including the religious. You've got no backup to prove that religion and science are mutually exclusive. There have been *some* religious folks in history who have railed against science and I'll admit that they were as foolish as can be, but you cannot truthfully say that it has been the majority. Many people in science today are religious.
quote:
But I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise, considering that about 50% of the population still believes the earth is less than 10000 years old and that evolution doesn't exist.

I like how you imply that anyone who believes this is an idiot. I'm guessing that you are a believer in evolution and that in your arrogance you think anyone who believes otherwise is a fool... right? Thanks for showing us who you really are.

What we're talking about here (and what you're ranting against) is ethics. People care about moral questions. People have valid concern for ethics because science is all about fact and there needs to be a balance. Science is not concerned with feelings or morals.

If you weren't so shortsighted you might see that ethics is what keeps you from being trampled under in the name of science. It's ethics and morality that are saving your life if you're damaged and it costs more to fix you than it would cost to steal your heart for the person in the next room. Who is "science" to determine who is to live and who is to die?

Agree or not, the idea that we build and kill human life in the name of science is a scary thing. What keeps it from being YOUR heart, liver, arm, lung that they harvest because it's good for science? As a society we can't be so callous about "life" in general without it coming back to bite us.


RE: Great news
By thebrown13 on 6/14/2007 9:10:11 AM , Rating: 3
"You're obviously very tolerant and reasonable... and a troll. After all, all religious people are "fruitcakes"... right?"

Uhh, yeah?


RE: Great news
By DocDraken on 6/14/2007 10:20:32 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
all religious people are "fruitcakes"... right?


No, just the ones that try to apply their religious notions to politics and science instead of keeping it to themselves. I don't care what people believe as long as they don't impose their ideas on others and try to restrict rational thought.

quote:
Like it or not the U.S. is the largest superpower on earth (right now) and it got it's start from a lot of people, especially including the religious.


Well actually the founding fathers specifically wanted to separate religion from politics.

quote:
You've got no backup to prove that religion and science are mutually exclusive.


I didn't say that it was. People have a remarkable ability to be irrational and rational at the same time. It's hard to throw off notions that's been brainwashed into you from childhood.

quote:
I like how you imply that anyone who believes this is an idiot.


If you believe that the earth is 10,000 years old and evolution doesn't exist in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, then yes you are either an idiot or delusional. Of course a lot are just ignorant because they've never been exposed to real knowledge about evolution or geology, just religious propaganda.

quote:
I'm guessing that you are a believer in evolution


It's not a belief, seing as evolution is not a religion, but scientific fact, in spite of what the creationists are trying to claim. Whenever you show a creationist another piece of evidence for evolution they just say something like "well that's just because god made it appear like that".

quote:
What we're talking about here (and what you're ranting against) is ethics.


No, religion and ethics are not the same. I know that the religious have the rediculous idea that religion somehow has a patent on morals.

quote:
People have valid concern for ethics because science is all about fact and there needs to be a balance.


We're talking about a specific issue here. Stem cell research. Not whether ethics are important or not, which they of course they are. But we shouldn't let religious notions interfere with ethics. We should try to look at things rationally. We have a lump of cells that we can either choose to use for research into cures for widespread diseases or we can just throw it out.

quote:
It's ethics and morality that are saving your life if you're damaged and it costs more to fix you than it would cost to steal your heart for the person in the next room.


Heh, interesting that the most secular country in the world probably also has the most ethical health system. Everybody here get's health care if they need it and on equal terms. Doesn't matter if you're a bum on the street or a millionaire. You get the same treatment when you come to the ER here. I wonder where that fits with your ideas of religion and morals?

quote:
Agree or not, the idea that we build and kill human life in the name of science is a scary thing.


You actually think an embryo is a human being?? It's not even a friggin fetus!

Man, if I had known you were one of those fundamentalists I wouldn't have bothered to reply in the first place.

quote:
What keeps it from being YOUR heart, liver, arm, lung that they harvest because it's good for science?


I sincerely hope my organs can be put to good use and maybe save a life when I don't need them anymore.


RE: Great news
By RaisedinUS on 6/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: Great news
By RaisedinUS on 6/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: Great news
By Ringold on 6/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: Great news
By brandonmichael on 6/14/2007 3:45:20 PM , Rating: 3
We dont live in 1787 anymore... The founding fathers would have written a different document if they had todays country to deal with.
You need to put away your Ayn Rand for alittle while... She's turned you sour.


RE: Great news
By RaisedinUS on 6/14/07, Rating: -1