Posted by
michael
on from the if-only-it-were-that-easy dept.
roman_mir writes "Wired reports that a 16 year old teenager had a hole in his heart (a nail gun accident,) which was repaired by injecting stem cells directly into his heart. What is interesting is that the stem cells were taken from the boy's own blood."
Own Stem Cells
by
LordLucless
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This is really not interesting at all - nobody ever considered using other peoples stem cells to heal people - it'd be just the same as trying to transplant an organ, they'd get rejected.
The reason scientists want to use embryonic stem cells is that they are easier to study, not to use. There is no ethical/moral consideration about using stem cells - it's using embryonic stem cells that everyone kicks up a fuss about - and they are being used for study, they are not practical to be used for actual treatment.
-- Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Not a substitute for embryonic stem cells
by
upper
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The success of this procedure says very little about the need for embryonic stem cells, because the stem cells used in this experiment were fundamentally different from embryonic stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells -- the ones from embryos a few days old, also called pluripotent stem cells -- can develop into any kind of cell in the body. The ones used in this experiment must have been multipotent stem cells, because the other kinds disappear long before birth. Multipotent stem cells come in may variations, some more specialized than others. Each kind can turn into a limited number of tissue types. See this for more info.
BTW, the embryos from which embryonic stem cells are taken were not aborted. They couldn't be -- to get pluripotent stem cells, you need embryos only a few days old. The source of those is fertility clinics, which created them as part of in vitro fertilization. For various reasons, fertility clinics sometimes have leftovers. It's quite a stretch to associate them with abortion in any way, and I fail a consistent line of reasoning that could allow these leftover embryos to be destroyed but discourage using them in medicine or science.
Slashdot Mirror
This is really not interesting at all - nobody ever considered using other peoples stem cells to heal people - it'd be just the same as trying to transplant an organ, they'd get rejected.
The reason scientists want to use embryonic stem cells is that they are easier to study, not to use. There is no ethical/moral consideration about using stem cells - it's using embryonic stem cells that everyone kicks up a fuss about - and they are being used for study, they are not practical to be used for actual treatment.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Embryonic stem cells -- the ones from embryos a few days old, also called pluripotent stem cells -- can develop into any kind of cell in the body. The ones used in this experiment must have been multipotent stem cells, because the other kinds disappear long before birth. Multipotent stem cells come in may variations, some more specialized than others. Each kind can turn into a limited number of tissue types. See this for more info.
BTW, the embryos from which embryonic stem cells are taken were not aborted. They couldn't be -- to get pluripotent stem cells, you need embryos only a few days old. The source of those is fertility clinics, which created them as part of in vitro fertilization. For various reasons, fertility clinics sometimes have leftovers. It's quite a stretch to associate them with abortion in any way, and I fail a consistent line of reasoning that could allow these leftover embryos to be destroyed but discourage using them in medicine or science.