Slashdot Mirror
Human Blood Cells Grown
exceed writes: "MSNBC has an interesting article on researchers that have developed the first human blood cells by growing embryonic stem cells in a culture containing mouse tissue which encouraged development of blood cells. The result, they report, was cell colonies that 'appear identical to those produced from human bone marrow cells.' Similar work has been done like this with mice, but this is the first time human blood cells have been developed from embryonic stem cells."
This is the sort of thing political pressure is going to push this straight through the FDA, FTC, etc. and it's NOT going to be a merry occasion when we find out just why the researchers involved were so particular about their word usage.
Very good work by the scientists, but this by no means mean that there is going to be help tomorrow for people with bonemarrow cancer or other problems where bloodcells are of use. The scientists face years of work before they can have a method available that would allow large scale manufacturing of bloodcells of any possible type. And that is if they are allowed to continue their work that is.
That flip-side of the coin is of course if this is just research that will lead on to something darker, more sinister. Personally I would much prefer if cloning of full beings, human or not, was prevented until it can be proven that the human race is capable of coping with all aspects of the philosophy and mindset around cloning. Unfortunately I can see this already being ruined by corporate greed and to be used as a tool by the rich to get richer and to "keep the masses at bay"...
Cynic - who, me?
Swedish, but resident in the UK since 1996.
If they can have a major production of blood, the big bloodsortage in most countries could be solved AND the risk of getting AIDS by getting a transfusion will disappear.
42 + 1 = 42
I don't think the human race has proven to be capable of coping with all aspects of the philosophy and mindset around, say, agriculture. Or living around other people. Or any number of things we've had around for our whole history as a species.
You think we're going to do a full ethical analysis on *cloning* before getting into it? It is to laugh!
Further, the oocyte is, for the most part, transcriptionally inactive. Many genes that function during embryogenesis are expressed maternally; the mRNA is expressed and stored but not translated during oogenesis until the gene products are needed later. To use a computer analogy, these maternal-effect genes are loaded into memory when the oocyte was still not yet an oocyte, and cached for later use after fertilization. A stem cell would lack such "cached" genes.
This is not to say it couldn't be done, but a developing organism is much more than just dividing stem cells.
NO CARRIER