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U.S. Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker   (Source: Defense Department)
U.S. Department of Defense announces AFIRM with goal of using stem cell research to treat injured soldiers

Stem cell research is one of the most promising medical treatment modalities to be discovered and utilized in modern medicine. The problem for many when it comes to research isn’t the goals of using the stem cells to cure disease, but the fact that the best stem cells come from discarded human embryos.

The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced the newly established Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) headed by the U.S. Army with participation form public universities and private institutions.  AFIRM has an operating budget for its first five years of $250 million with $80 million of the funding coming directly from the DoD. The remaining program funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as local public and private funding.

The goal of AFIRM is to harness stem cell research and technology to find new ways to use the patient’s cellular structure to reconstruct skin, muscles and tendons as well as replacing and regrowing extremities like ears, noses and fingers.

The U.S. Army surgeon general Lt. General Eric B. Schoomaker said at a news conference, “The cells that we’re talking about actually exist in our bodies today. We, even as adults, possess in our bodies small quantities of cells which have the potential, under the right kind of stimulation, to become any one of a number of different kinds of cells.”

Schoomaker points out that the human body routinely regenerates liver and bone marrow cells. Dr. Anthony Atala director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine stated at the news conference, “All the parts of your body, tissues and organs, have a natural repository of cells that are ready to replicate when an injury occurs.”

Atala goes on to say that technicians can select cells from human donors and using a series of scientific processes can then use the cells to regrow new tissue. Atala continued, “Then, you can plant [the regenerated tissue] back into the same patient, thus avoiding rejection.”

Techniques being developed by AFIRM will be used to regrow tissue to make new muscles and tendons and for the repair or replacement of extremities like fingers, noses and ears.

Stem cell research is showing promise for treating many other previously incurable diseases. In February 2008 researchers used stem cells to treat diabetes in mice.

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Awesome
By FITCamaro on 4/22/2008 1:28:46 PM , Rating: 5
Anything we can do to help treat our injured soldiers should be done. Personally I have no problem utilizing stem cells for research. As far using them from discarded human embryos, if they can grow embryos to harvest the cells from in a way that it wouldn't have become a sentient human being, go for it.




RE: Awesome
By geddarkstorm on 4/22/2008 1:33:24 PM , Rating: 5
Except embryonic will always be far inferior to actual stem cells from your body, despite what this article claims in the first paragraph. That's a no brainer. Any foreign cells with foreign proteins can be recognized by the immune system as such leading to rejection, or worst, lupus disorder. Moreover, aberrant genetics from a source not the same as you can cause its own problems. The body is a very finely tuned machine chemically.

What they want to do here, is the smart and best way to do it. It's also an extension of research that's been going on for awhile, such as http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article55... . The general rule of thumb is that if mice can do it, so can humans. There are many other animals in nature also with incredible regenerative properties, and in humans it's mostly dormant. Note, that what they are talking about in the article is different than turning human adult cells back into pluripotent stem cells, which is another avenue that's similarly powerful, though not as optimal as just using your already, aways present adult stem cells.


RE: Awesome
By FITCamaro on 4/22/2008 1:40:09 PM , Rating: 2
I wasn't advocating one over the other. Just addressing my opinion of that particular issue.


RE: Awesome
By geddarkstorm on 4/22/2008 1:43:47 PM , Rating: 2
I'm just pointing out that there's no reason to ever use discarded embryos when we have better techniques that also avoid the pitfalls medically and ethically that embryonic stem cells have.


RE: Awesome
By NINaudio on 4/22/2008 2:33:49 PM , Rating: 5
Am I the only person who finds it odd that there is so much debate over using stem cells from embryos that are discarded ? It's ok to trash the embryos, but not ok to put parts of them to good use?

I know that some are of the opinion that adult stem cells are better in terms of rejection, but imagine how much we could learn from doing tests and experiments with all our resources. Even if that use is just research on how to make stem cells into the cells we want, it could later be used on adult stem cells. Wouldn't this be more useful than just discarding them?


RE: Awesome
By omnicronx on 4/22/2008 2:59:14 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
It's ok to trash the embryos, but not ok to put parts of them to good use?
Common misconception, where do you think Macdonalds 'Grade A' meat comes from?


RE: Awesome
By junkdubious on 4/23/2008 12:13:00 PM , Rating: 2
McSoylent Green?


RE: Awesome
By geddarkstorm on 4/22/08, Rating: -1
RE: Awesome
By omnicronx on 4/22/2008 3:43:51 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Who says it's right to discard them and trash them in the first place?
I am sure it is your right to pick whether or not you get to throw your cord into the trash. But... do you have a right to say what is done with that garbage?

As far as I am aware, if you throw something out, and leave it in your garbage can on the street, the police(along with anyone else) can legally go through it.

I know stem cells are a totally different situation, as they are probably thrown out in biohazard bags and never left in a public area, but it still illustrates that once you throw something out, it is no longer your property.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say the US government probably has strict rules on how such garbage is dealt with, just so issues like the one i described does not happen.


RE: Awesome
By geddarkstorm on 4/22/2008 4:40:43 PM , Rating: 2
The problem isn't just about throwing away dead embryos from say abortions. It's that if you are going to use embryonic stem cells you have to grow up more. You have to establish cell lines, passage, and maintain them. Over that course, a researcher could create enough to make tens of embryos (and thus tens of humans) before the telomeres degrade and the cells die of basically old age.

So, while we are throwing around words like "trash" and "discard", in reality no one is reaching into a biohazard bag and pulling out embryos to use, that'd be impossible due to contamination and obvious cell death. And even one embryo is not enough cells by any means for any serious research. That is why it's an ethical issue.


RE: Awesome
By hlper on 4/22/2008 6:13:09 PM , Rating: 2
Right, but there are liquid nitrogen freezers all over the country, in clinics that specialize in in vitro fertilization, full of all the extra embryo's they create (many times what is often wanted by the families). So, supply is not the issue.

Also, your post is mostly correct, but I wanted to say that a researcher cannot make even two embryos from one. Once the original is disrupted they just become a dish of dividing, and yes aging, stem cells.


RE: Awesome
By geddarkstorm on 4/23/2008 1:15:18 PM , Rating: 2
no, a researcher could easily make an embryo from any embryonic stem cell provided we had the nutrients and container correct for growth. Where do twins come from? A single cell breaks off from the zygote and grows into a new one, sometimes it's more than one cell.

But humans are deuterostomes with indeterminent development. That means, until gastrulation and the signal for cell differentiation is given, any pluripotent stem cell can become a full human being.

So, cells have to be harvested before this stage too, if you note. But why even have to debate about all this when there's no need? We can do much better with our normal stem cells, why throw science into a moral dilemma?


RE: Awesome
By SoCalBoomer on 4/22/2008 7:21:32 PM , Rating: 2
Totally different type of trash. This would be classified as bio-hazard (nearly all hospital trash would be classified as this - except obviously office paper trash and whatnot. . .) and has to be dealt with differently than any "normal" trash would be - you can't go through it, it's not public, etc.


RE: Awesome
By geddarkstorm on 4/22/2008 4:55:38 PM , Rating: 3
Ok, based on people's comments, I realize we need to do a basic biology lesson here to bring levels of understanding to par.

Where do embryonic stem cells come from? They come from early stage zygotes while the cells are still in pluripotent form, and before any organogenesis or morphological development ever begins: they are still in the ball stage of development. There are NO "thrown in the trash" embryos here.

Those cells in that stage are harvested and chemically treated to keep them in that stage. They then have to be grown many times over to give a researcher enough cells to work with. Each one of those cells could develop into a full blown human.

By the end of the day, those cells of course die, are used in experiments, and then they are trashed. In all reality, looking from a strict biological definition and sense, they are embryos. Cell lines only last so long before they age and die, unless they are a cancer line that has become immortal; so more early embryos have to be harvested from new genetically distinct individuals.

Now, being in science I have to be neutral on the issue from that standpoint, and I cannot tell anyone what is right or wrong, just what is happening from the biological standpoint. Is it right to grow up tons of these cells, use them and kill them, and start it all over again? That's for the public to decide.

HOWEVER. We can totally nix the issue and not even go there by using adult stem cells which cannot develop into a full human being no different than yourself--even the transformed ones (I don't think, though maybe it is possible). Since there is nothing in embryonic stem cells that you can't do in adult stem cells (there is an adult stem cell of every type of cell in your body, including neurons). So why use embryonic stem cells when they give us nothing new, only present medical problems we can avoid, and mire science in ethical debates that slow it down instead of getting us results? That's the question I posit.


RE: Awesome
By LordanSS on 4/22/2008 7:10:27 PM , Rating: 2
The stem cells you mentioned, coming from zygotes, are the only totipotent (not pluripotent) stem cells available to us at this time.

These totipotent cells are the ones who actually have the ability to be transformed into cells of any tissue type. Our body contains some very small quantities of cells, in certain tissues, known as somatic stem cells that have the ability to diferentiate into specialized cell types found on that tissue. An example of this are the somatic stem cells found in the skeletal muscle, liver and bone marrow, and are the ones mentioned in the article.

Any somatic stem cell has gone through several stages of diferentiation already, and has had many parts of it's gene structure activated/deactivated in the process. Through correct stimuli (chemical, etc), it is possible to revert part of the diferentiation, but there is a limit to how much you can go back, and that limit isn't that big. Many genes cannot be unlocked anymore, and that limits the cell's efficiency in differentiating and working as another cell type.

And then, we come back to the embrio stem cells argument... We are not going to grow substantia nigra neurons to help grandpa's parkinson's disease out of his liver stem cells. But the same way we could possibly find him a heart or kidney donor if he so needed, we could find an embryo or stem cell line compatible enough that would be usable on the regeneration of the tissue. Obviously, we do not possess the knowledge to do this exact procedure yet, and grandpa would most certainly be subject to rejection-prevention drugs as any kidney-transplanted patient would, but that is one possibility for the future, and why there is such a push for embrionary stem cell research.

Obviously there are moral concerns on many aspects of this type of research... and while the US government, and it's population, may not be willing to invest in them, there are other countries in the world, subject to different cultures and points of view on the subject, that are making progresses in this field already. Instead of finding treatment for your diabetes in a clinic in your city, you may need to ask Dr. Chen in China to fix you up. ;)


RE: Awesome
By sld on 4/23/2008 7:19:10 AM , Rating: 2
It will be better and easier to identify pluripotent stem cells in their respective specialisations and take it from there than to try coax totipotent stem cells into highly differentiated cell lines.


RE: Awesome
By LordanSS on 4/23/2008 9:01:12 AM , Rating: 2
In many cases, I'd have to agree that this would be a valid approach. There are advantages on using ones' own cells (if available) in regards to rejection and other immune-response issues.

There are many cases tho that such procedures would not be applicable. A diabetic individual, even if we could manage to extract enough somatic stem cells to actually regenerate and repair his pancreas function, will still be highly keen to diabetes once more due to his own genetic baggage. Also, you have to consider cell age: the older the cell, the more problems you are bound to face, and the chances of other health issues arising are also increased. If you "grow a pancreas" out of a 50-year old man's somatic stem cells, you get a 50 year old pancreas, whereas you'd get a "brand new" one from an embryo stem cell line.

Not saying that studies with somatic stem cells shouldn't be made, far from that. It is a very promising field, with advantages over embrionary stem cells (no rejection risk, etc). But we should not neglect the great importance that embryonic stem cell research has, since it has the potential to cover issues somatic stem cells simply can't.


RE: Awesome