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Scientists Claim Organs Grown From Stem Cells
Llywelyn writes: "It appears that some scientists in the United States are claiming that they have been able to grow functional organs (kidneys) from cloned cow embryotic stem cells. They have not yet released details on how exactly they did this, nor have they yet provided evidence for their claims, but admit to being only in the `proof of concept' phase in research. I guess we'll see down the road if this is legit or the increasingly common `Science by Press Release.'"
To that manner of thinking, wouldn't "fake steak" be more like veal in its consistency and texture?
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Wouldn't be the end of the entire vegetarian scene. To some people meat tastes bad in the same way some people don't like vegetables. There will always be some desirable health benefits to vegetarianism. Lab-grown meat may also introduce new health issues.
However, your idea of grown meat may have major benefit to people that already eat meat. Prices would likely drop since better cuts would be just as easy to produce and more common ones. Also the health of meat could probably improve (no more artificial hormones).
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
My take on this "science by press release" is that they are doing it for political reasons. Stem cell research is controversial, and they want to campaign in favor of it by showing the public that it can have huge benefits. Imagine if everyone that had kidney trouble was able to get a transplant! Now doesn't that make you want to support stem cell research?
British kidney experts are sceptical about the possibility that ACT has re-created the kidney in its entirety. ... It is possible that the company had made a simpler structure that could still produce urine, he said.
Even a incomplete organ would be better than nothing if it results in better treatment than dialysis every few days.
although this announcement seems a bit early on the research curve for me right now. I suppose an organ like a kidney would be slightly easier than a section of intestine, or something like that.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
OK, let's design us a machine that can turn cheap renewable resouces (e.g. grass) into a tasty haunch fattening nutrient stream!
First you'd want to grind the grass. Let's grow us some SimTeeth. Real cows seem to do that pretty well, so we'll just grow us up a cow head. Then we'll grow a SimThroat to take it to the multiple SimStomachs (hey, cows do that real well, let's grow some cow parts again and fill them full of cow bacteria rather than using expensive chemicals), add a SimCardiovascularSystem to carry nutrients and oxygen around, and a SimBowel to excrete the waste. Let's add some SimLegs so that it can feed and exercise itself, and a simple SimBrain to provide the electrical impulses for that. Hey, wouldn't it be neat if instead of manufacturing and repairing these, they had some sort of built in capability? Let's grow up some SimReproduction and SimImmune systems.
Then it's just 2,000 hours of surgery to put it altogther and bingo, we've built us a SimCow! It's great because while it cost us a billion bucks, it looks, acts and tastes just like the real thing, while being completely cruelty free!
<sarcasm> aside, if you can come up with a cheaper, more efficient way of turning grass into SimHaunch than a real cow, let's hear it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Isn't it gonna just be bad for the veal market at first? You're gonna have to "age on the hoof" this manufactured meat, as well.
I don't see how one will actually be able to create T-Bone steaks (y'd have to grow the bone to match slightly), but I can imagine yards of filet mignon coming out of a machine, too.
Surimi for meat lovers.
This might be bad for the big ranchers as well if ConAgra, ADM, Tyson/IBP gets it working. Can you imagine the bailouts for them from the US Govment? Not only do they get incredible land subsidies (that IS what their federal grazing "permits" really are) already. Will they get more handouts from the govment to "preserve the unique way of life of a Rancher"?
Will the stink of a "meat factory" be better than the stink from a slaughterhouse or finishing lot?
And what will happen to the animal byproducts industry, too? Instead of slaughterhouse byproducts for things like "hydrolized animal protein", "keratin", "collagen", etc., will we just grow them in industrial-sized organ vats?
When will we see bioengineered cow mammary gland systems? Will dairy farms go away, or will some of the smaller ones stay around as "boutique" dairies, for the experience, much like the various Amish communities?
Of course, this could mean a new market for making the various slurries to feed these new processes...
Its about goddam time, My sone , who is now 5 had a liver transplant at 9 months old. He had a disease called billiary atresia. There is no singular known cause, and no treatment except liver transplant, which does resolve the problem, as it is confined to the liver.
.....THERE IS NO MONEY IN IT FOR THE DRUG COMPAINES !, THE SAME WENT FOR ALTERNATIVE TX OPTIONS. This is horeshit.
We HAD a Living related donor TX for genetic matching reasons amongst others, my wife was actually genetically closer, so they whacked the left latteral lobe from her.
He has suffered NO rejection to date (98% of ALL liver TX have rejection to some degree in the first 14 days) he didnt even have that. NOW Liver rejection is much different from kidney or heart rejection, hyper-acute rejection (all of a sudden really bad) rarley happens then only early post TX. Livers can be in rejection for months and the patient not even know. Damage will be done if it isnt caught, but Liver regection is nearly ALWAYS controllable from and anti rejection standpoint.
NOW, wehn he was diagnosed I asked WHY in gods name wasnt there a cure, the answer very simple, from the then Head of UNOS (all organs are allocated from here) and the #2 ranked transplan surgeon in the world
The DRUGS to sustain liver TX arent cheap, kidneys and hearts are multitudes worse and the only ones worth a crap are pateneted. old crap like cyclosporin is fine if every 3 years you want to have your gums cut back (it makes em grow) and dont mind having ONE HUGE eyebrow(no shit) The pharm companies arent going to like this at all, I can see them lobbying hard against this forno other reason to save their profit centers.
Things happen , my sons chances and survival rate is exellent this far out from TX with no roblems (liver related) but if there is ever an injury he is much more succepible to liver necrosis, because he was given a liver half from a living person they could only take 1/2 the blood vessels, if he EVER has to be Re-TX I hope he could have his own genes in it and rejection would be a non issuse
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Once upon a time, there were two cavemen... let's call them Oog and Ogg. (their real names have been changed to protect their identities... any resemblance to Oog the Open Source Caveman is purely coincidental)
Oog and Ogg both liked to eat meat... and more than anything else in the whole wide world, they liked burned meat, because they lived in an ice age, and there's nothing like some good old Burned Meat(tm) to take the edge off those cold, prehistoric nights.
Unfortunately, neither Oog nor Ogg was able to eat burned meat very often, because after a hard day of hunting down dinosaurs to eat (yes yes, if Hanna Barbera can do it, so can I, dammit) they were too pooped to go gather firewood, spend six billion hours trying to get a fire started, and inventing seasonings... so mostly they ate their dinosaur steaks raw. (audience: awww....)
Then one day, Oog had a brilliant idea... Ogg could go hunt for food, while Oog tended the fire to make sure it didn't go out! And lo and behold, Oog and Ogg invented an economy, in which Ogg would go and obtain meat, which became a rudimentary form of currency, which Ogg used to exchange for Oog's fire, which was a service. Thus, both Oog and Ogg were both able to eat their burned meat, and lived happily ever after, or at least until Oog died from an infected toenail, because they didn't have antibiotics back then.
The moral of the story is, I don't kill my own meat because I have better things to do with my time, just like I don't go harvest my own corn if I want a bowl of freakin' frosted flakes for breakfast, or refine my own sugar if I want some in my coffee. Imagine that!
Last thing I heard from developmental biology/biochemistry, they hadn't yet euclidated all of the sub-steps involving thousands of hormones/enzymes/genetic control mechanisms required to turn a tissue into an organ. Sure, we can take some stem cells, hit them with some chemicals and have them start to make kidney cells or neurons or endothelial cells. Convincing these kidney cells to form an organ, however, is a HUGE leap which requires stem cells becoming vascular tissue ( +3 types of cells) and protective sheathing ( +2 types of cells) and accessory nervous/vacular connections ( +2 types of cells). Has anyone made these types of cells? Not that I know about.
Good news is - this type of human-controlled development is possible in C. elegans, a worm. We have sequenced it's entire genome http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/C_elegans/ and more importantly, we know where every single cell in the adult originated from - starting with a 4-cell zygote. PubMed Abstract Link
Maybe in 20 or more years we will have this knowledge for some "higher" animal - Maybe even a vertebrate! Then we can start to understand human organ development.
"One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
I'm wondering if such a technique could also be used in meat-production?
If it becomes cheaper, perhaps this could be used to grow the ultimate steak in some sort of meat factory without the need of suffering of real animals. Imagine: even some vegetarians would have an excuse to eat meat again (some really like to eat some meat sometimes).
I have a fairly interesting insight into this.
You are correct, from the standpoint of financials you are somewhat correct.
What you do not realize is pharm. companies are not trying to find cures for hadly anthing, intentionally, other than to release long term treatments based on those findings. My uncle , whom I spent summers with from the time I was 7-17, was/is a major player in drug delivery systems, he holds over 200 patents. He INVENTED, and DEVELOPED the transdermal delivery system you see in "patches" while at Ciba Geigy, first known as transderm nitro, then the motion patch transderm scopolomine. Long and short he retired, that lasted all of about 5 minutes, before he was hired by a company out west , where he wintered in his retirment. He now does nothing but push drugs and systems through FDA approval, funny he wont take anything but asprin , he knows , and is partly responsible for pushing this crap through.
Pharm. companies would MUCH rather have a LONG term treatment regimin than a cure, they do actually specifically gear their programs to thoses ends. There are exceptions, but fewer and fewer. Cancer treatments have advance little in the last 20 years, the techiniques yes, the actual treatments no. There is as reason , chemo is EXPENSIVE, a drug company would much rather string you along 2 years even if you die in the end , than cure you with one fell swoop. More and more research monies are going into private efforts to goals on intentionally prolonging these ends.
My son also had cancer, neuroblastoma, I am aware all to closley with these problems.
I have a genetic blood disorder, it requires being bled monthly. The FDA last year APPROVED donor blood of my type for blood recipient use, it is not harmfull in the least and actually carries almost double the hemoglobin. NOW that said the Red Cross STILL requires, and has no intention of CHARGING for "theraputic" blood draws. Why , it is a profit center , lets see, 50k-100k people in the US with my problem currently seeking treatment. 1 x a month 12 month in a year 30 bucks a crack,thats 18 to 36 million a year. Now there is a wayy around it find a doctor that will lie and say you have surgery upcoming and need to self donate. This is dumb as hell and a pain.
What I see as the problem isnt a misdirection of resources to a rare disease. That I can understand and accept. THE PROBLEM IS GREED , AT THE COST OF THE QUALITY OF HUMAN LIVES FOR PROFIT. Intentionally witholding of research and findings that IS happening, because, there is more money in treatment. The pharm companies are PAYING LOBBYISTS to STOP certain genetic research, under many different arenas cloning, stem cell research etc. Many of these companies financials are open to an extent. Really funny thing is I almost , took a job at a company that they lobby through. That wasnt why I didnt take the job, funnily enough the GOP and MS actually use their services too to set up , wanna know what their business is......this is a doosey and legal too. They set up fake "grass-roots" lobbying efforts and PAY high buck lobbyists to work setting up unsuspecting citizens to become and Autonomous grass roots campaign, the "Leaders" of these campaigns are even unaware where the money came , and what the actual purpose of it is. (YOU WOULD BE FUCKING AMAZED at what they have pulled off)
Greed, Greed, Greed, capitalism has become synonymous with it , horsehit, greed stands on its own. Companies can make a profit and a nice one without greed, the problems have become companies wield more power in this country that individuals. and as such get away with shit , that if tried by any one single person, would be thrown in jail and wiped over the front page of the local rag so fast it would make your head spin.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
No more than Agent Orange is going to break into your house and paint your children purple. But, in the same way that agent orange had effects that were unexpected at the time, so may GE have effects that are currently unknown. Maybe the guy who has the GE kidney is fine. Maybe, the engineering process also causes the cell to spew out some hormone that a) generates mutant children b) causes psychotic hallucinations or c) shuts down his heart. Who knows? That's the point.