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Unlimited Blood Supply From Stem Cells

Posted by timothy on from the vampirism-could-be-treatable dept.

Dave writes: "The ABC has a story on some interesting stem cell research going on at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Seems that during their research, they were able to create red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets that were indistinguishable from the real thing."

2 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cool but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Aside from the moral issues associated with embryonic stem cells, there are more types of problems to be solved than there are existing stem cell lines to work with.

    I won't get into the moral issues of it, but the last phrase made no sense.

    You're probably forgetting that embryonic stem cell lines are just that: *lines*. This means, given an initial culture and the right conditions, they'll grow (theoretically) forever. Also, given how they grow (binary fission), they grow exponentially.

    So if you start with one cell and the right conditions, in 30 days you can get (assuming a doubling time of 24 hours) over a billion cells.

    So when you hear Scientists complain about there not being enough stem cells, they're talking about quality, not quantity.

  2. Re:excellent news by Ann+O'Nymous-Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Oh really? Isn't it just amazing, all the fully qualified and currently practicing cellular biologists and other advanced medical researchers that post quickie one-liners as ACs? You wouldn't happen to have such a thing as actual _evidence_ for that particular little assertion, would you?

    I won't hold my breath waiting for it.