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Private hospitals. Now part of the 'nanny state'.

Boston Children's Hospital may be "private" by your definition, but it's an entirely tax-exempt organization that receives millions of dollars in Federal funding every year. It's more like a public/private partnership.

So, yea, part of the 'nanny state'.

• Phi Schiller, SVP Marketing, Apple
• Ron Johnson, SVP Retail, Apple
• John Connolly, Technology Director, Chicago Public Schools
• John Halamka, MD, Beth Israel
• Marc Benioff, Chairman & CEO, Salesforce.com
• Howard Shane, PhD, Children's Hospital
• Shannon Des Roches Rosa

I thought stem cells were all the rage for that..is this a completely different approach?

Yes. Stem cells form new specialized cells like neurons; this approach on the other hand involves stimulating existing nerve cells to row more axons which are the electrical connections between nerve cells.

Also - if we can stimulate the growth of nerve cells to help people, can the same therapy be used for nefarious stuff? (i.e., what happens if you grow too much nerves?)

Tuberous sclerosis complex is a disease caused by the growth of too many axons and can manifest in the form of autism and it is also associated with the formation of what are called tubers which are benign tumors in the brain.

Because you equate abortion with murder. I'm sorry, but I don't. When a fetus is viable, it's a person. Before that, it's a parasite. I don't care that it's going to be a human eventually. More importantly, I may find abortion a deplorable act, a disgusting act, and something I personally would only consider in the most extreme cases (Anencephaly, for example), but that doesn't mean that I believe I know better than all people for all situations. People will take extreme measures in extreme situations, and they need access to safe healthcare. That includes all reasonable procedures.

But that's not the real point here, is it?

The real point is that the media (I don't know of any person that) freaks out about bird flu, a disease that has killed exactly 248 people in the last 11 years, while Malaria has been busy doing its thing, killing around a million people every year while we've been keeping records. And there have been deaths attributed to malaria recorded as far back as 50,000 years.

Frankly, I personally applaud Bill Gates for both of these acts--but especially trying to bring attention to Malaria. This is a disease that gets neither the attention nor the respect it deserves, and it's absolutely because of the reason he says... it only happens to poor people.

one huge causality network ... you'll need to have a cascade of genes to get a particular outcome

And if you, on top, follow the idea that physical conditions (starting at the molecular level, INGBER) are a major determinant of gene expression you might eventually come to your own conclusions regarding the value of simply linking 'the genome' to conditions of ill health.

CC.

And if you say tenesgrity, or porosity again ...

tensegrity

tensegrity

CC.

Great. Perhaps you might be interested in these views as well (also diverging from tradition).

CC.

Clearly yes. In fact the same lab is also working with hearts , kidneys, and bladder cells and there are many other research groups studying tissue engineering with various tissues, for example this group at Mass. General. A key word here is tissue-- typically they are using a fairly homogenous population of cells and putting it on a matrix in the right shape. Limbs are coming, but they need to have skin, muscle, nerves and bone all made and assembled properly, which is very complex compared to just growing, say, some skin.