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Stem Cell "Master Gene" Found
nexex writes "From the Washington Post, 'Scientists yesterday said they have discovered a long-sought "master gene" in embryonic stem cells that is largely responsible for giving those cells their unique regenerative and therapeutic potential.' The report summarizes an article in the newest issue of the scientific journal, Cell."
Since they've now apparently isolated this gene, isn't it kind of like having "root" access to stem cells? Hopefully this kills off any remaining debate over cloning/killing babies and paves the way for real, theraputic research.
You are not the customer.
If they have found the controller for the unlimited reproduction abilities of these cells, then we may be well on the way to curing many of these harmful diseases... True cures for Alzheimers and Parkinsons???
... [because] it's wrong".
maybe even eliminate costly transplants...
Who knows, we could even save Michael J Fox's career... =)
Hopefully the people in charge realise that this is more than an attempt "to transcend embryo research
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
> Something you have to wonder is if they are going to patent this
> information
Thats the nice thing about being a University, they dont need to patent, they just publish.
Why pay for a patent if its suppost to be open? When you publish, you can always prove prior art to any future patents a jerk would try to make to steal the technology. And thats all that needs to be protected if it is to be open and public knowledge.
I just hope having it open instead of using it to make huge profits is exactly what they have on their minds.
I would hope that since this is being done at a
University that won't happen.
So would I, but bitter experience has proved that this expectation is unreasonable. A number of the existing stem cell lines that have been annointed as available to federally-funded researchers are in fact patented by the University of Wisconsin, if memory serves. However, perhaps the fact that this latest discovery was made in Scotland and Japan will change things.
It's even worse that most of this research is funded by our tax dollars, then we have to turn right back around and pay a high per item cost to help defray research costs.
I hear this a lot on Slashdot, but it misses half of the point. The problem is with patents on basic research, which do not represent a marketable product. A gene patent is commercially useless without extensive further research, e.g. traditional drug development. In contrast, many patents held by academic groups are for inventions that have immediate commercial potential. For instance, the automatic DNA sequencer was invented at Caltech, presumably with federal grant money, then patented. It was immediately commercialized, enabling a high-quality product to get to market quickly. (It was also truly revolutionary at the time.) Gene patents, on the other hand, are usually just used to stifle further research by competitors who might actually be capable of realizing its medical and economic potential.
(This is distinct from junk patents that hardly meet any of the other standards such as novelty and non-obviousness. I've also seen a fair number of those applied for by academic groups. I think this reflects the sad fact that competition has become so much more intense that scientific ethics have increasingly disappeared - this is not limited to patents. Since I'd prefer to keep my job, I can't go into as much details as I'd like.)
Sorry, even a libertarian (as opposed to anarchist) society will have to deal with the question of who or what is a rights bearing being. Artificial intelligences, embryos, the retarded, catatonic, and other border conditions have to be addressed in any society that's as advanced as we are.
Religion does not necesarily equal morality. I'd rather not have Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson have a say in what happens to MY genes.
cat * >> sig
Patenting existing genes is unconstitutional in any event. As is clearly stated, both patents and copyrights exist to allow *inventors* and *artists* to profit from their work for a brief period of time, before that work must be released into the public domain.
Discovered natural events, like genes, are not 'invented'. There is no constitutional basis for issuing a patent for a discovery of this nature. You could patent the *invention* used to isolate and manipulate the gene, but patenting the gene itself is bogus, a ridiculous extension of the process that goes well beyond constitutional protections.
Unless, of course, the people involved in trying to patent the gene suffer from the delusion that they are god.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
You mean religous fanatics like Louis Pasteur, yes?
Can you give give me one single solid example of a time when religious restraint on scientific research has done more good than harm? (I assure you, history is full of examples of the reverse.) A single one? Apparently when religion and morality are invoked, we're all supposed to stroke our chins and nod wisely and say, "Hmmm, well, of course, science requires religious morality to control its excesses." It's bullshit. If I have to choose between superstition and ignorance and morality-by-authority on the one hand, and a longer, happier, healthier life for myself and the people I love on the other, I know which one to pick.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Naziism, formally called national socialism, was very much not christian which any serious examination of their belief system would bear out. It's an anti-christian libel to view Nazi denial of jewish humanity as different only in degree with christian fury over the christ-killer libel. Christians were angry with jews over what their ancesters did, Nazis believed that inherently the jews were subhuman. And christians, unlike nazis, have doctrines of love and forgiveness that tended to ameliorate anger.
It was the denial of humanity that allowed all those medical experiments to be done as if jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and the other inmates of the death camps were just animals that could be used as means to nazi ends.
As for religious restraint doing more good than harm, how do you determine the good and harm of an experiment that was not run? Medical ethics boards don't tend to trumpet to the public the immoral ideas their staff come up with that they shoot down. As an alternative, I'd look at the history of immoral scientific experiments that could have used a bit more moral supervision. I'd suggest a little more restraint on the part of they doctors who refrained from treating those black syphilis patients with more than a placebo just so they could record 'what would happen' would have been a good thing.
Dodging the godwin's law sidetrack...
Science is not merely the realm for scientists to ask questions, they're merely the ones determined, talented, or able enough to put action to them. Everyone else in a society is also allowed to ask questions that the scientists can try to answer and that they must answer to. That society includes the "religious/moral types".
It might have been prudent to cite one or two examples "of the reverse", when you asked for one of religious restraint in action for good. Nevertheless, I have none for either side. Rather, I say that I've found that history and especially the idle historian better remember the fantastically bad events than the quietly good ones. I myself am also an idle historian.
And morality... do you scoff at all moral guidence in science or merely that from religion? Especially if it is the former, I hope you are neither a doctor mucking about with my insides nor a scientist mucking about with the Universe. Moral guidence, whether direct by personal belief, or indirect by considering the questions they raise, is what keeps us from destroying ourselves personally, publically, and scientifically.
*honken quip about karma going up or down*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things