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Stem Cells Treat Spinal Injuries and Brain Tumors
Neil Halelamien writes "At the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting this past weekend, some very exciting results (from experiments on rats and mice) were discussed regarding the potential for human embryonic stem cells to treat injured spinal cords, brain tumors, and Parkinson's. Besides the possible health benefits, this adds fuel to the discussions leading up to the US election and the US's current attempts to have the UN ban therapeutic cloning worldwide."
Most of one of the articles focused on the USA's attempt to make human cloning illegal world-wide, regardless of it's purpose. Now why can't Bush and his chronies simply focus on America? Stop bullying around the rest of the world and fix your own problems and legislate your own people.
Scientists these days are just determined to take us there. Remember, after Hubris comes Nemesis.
Ok here it is. I hope this can influence some voters in the coming election. The debate over human stem cell usage is not a debate over stem cells, it is a debate over where the stem cells are derived from. This is the debate. Here is what is being argued. President bush says that adult derived stem cells can be used in place of embryonic stem cells. Senator Kerry says that this is not the case and embryonic stem cells have greater potential. Here is a bit of research i have done from reading papers found on medline. Noone to date has shown that adult derived stem cells are capable of producing neurons in an injured spinal cord. It has been shown that embroyonic derived stem cells can however. This is the problem. I have very much oversimplfied this as I am not sure that most of you want to read the details, but the fact is that if you listen to President Bush, you might think that adult cells can be used to cure spinal injury. There is no current evidence for this. There is evidence that embryonic cells can be used to do it. President Bush is not telling the public the whole truth. I do not know the ins and outs of war and I do not want to pretend to be an expert on the subject of war so I do not know how much he is lying to us or not, but I do know that he has not told us the truth on this subject (I am currently doing some of these studies in rats) and I find myself having quite a bit of distrust for anything he says becasue of it and the way he presents himself. Please, if you are American and want to further advance science, do not let him get re-elected. He is hindering the advance of a field and many people may benefit from the research if it can be conducted. Go and vote!!!
They have no right to hold this tech back, if they want to ban it in their own borders fine. But they can keep their religious fundimental thinking in their own damn Country!
Links here:
Olfactory Bulb Stem Cells And Lou Gehrig's Disease
Jefferson Scientists Find New Way To Convert Adult Human Stem Cells To Dopamine Neurons
These are studies published in the last two weeks that successfully demonstrate that adult stem cells can be used for treatment of diseases such as Lou Gehrig's and Parkinsons. What is significant is that they are non-destructive techniques that do not require the destruction of the host provider... AND they will not be rejected by the person being treated or require the extensive anti-rejection treatments that using foreign stem cells to treat an individual would require.
In fact the study using mice can be directly compared to a similar study using embryonic stem cells:
Human Spinal Cord Cells Help Rats With Lou Gehrig's Disease
The embryonic stem cell study only allowed the mice to survive an additional 11 days... while the adult stem cell study allowed the mice to live an additional two months! In mouse years that is a huge difference... 11 days or 60 days? which treatment was more successful?
The real point is that valid and successful research is being carried out that does not require the destruction of embryos... this is not to say that there isn't something to be learned from embryonic stem cell research, there is BUT and this is a big BUT... IT SIMPLY ISN'T THE ONLY VALID RESEARCH OPTION AVAILABLE.
That point made, you can no longer claim that stopping federal funding for embryonic stem cell research is giving up on treatment or cures for said degenerative diseases.. in fact IMHO without the ban some of these approaches may not have been considered due to the perceived superiority of using embryonic stem cells.
'nuff said.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
These techniques have already been used to try to treat SCI. There has been limited success. However, the fact remains that it is unknown if adult derived proginetor cells can produce functional recovery in an adult chronic SCI patient. I am talking spinal cord injury here, not brain disorders. There are major differences between the brain and the spinal cord that are mostly not understood at the current state. On another note, there are certain drugs that are thought to have the ability to drive hippocampal derived cells into becoming cells that express neuronal markers when grafted into the injured adult spinal cord, but it is TOTALLY unknown if these cells are functional or if they are even truely neurons. Olfactory Ensheathing Cells (OECs) are used in a number of cell replacment therapies, but I know of no published reports that shows that they can differentiate into neurons in the chronic injured ADULT spinal cord.
Sorry i didn't realize this comment wat directed at your personal crusade... SCI, which honestly looks like a wonderful cause.
I was simply attempting to inform people that Adult Stem Cell research is making significant progress and in many ways far surpassing embryonic research....
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
"...if all the reviewers think the same"
Yes, this is one weakness in the peer review process... when you come with a discovery or method that goes in the face of most of what is believed you will face some HUGE inertia, and your work might never get public in this sort of review.
Which forces you to be precise, concise, bring proofs and a methodology that can be reproduced by someone else...
Otherwise, you get Microsoft'like reviews saying "We are the Best, don't even look at alternatives", ie I say whatever the marketing dept thinks will sell the best.
ALL review systems have flaws. But systems WITHOUT review possibly have them all.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Well I'm not a biologist but it strikes me as not terribly surprising given that the former study involved transplanting human stem cells into the mice whereas the latter involved the presumably more compatible transplantation of murine cells.
"That point made, you can no longer claim that stopping federal funding for embryonic stem cell research is giving up on treatment or cures for said degenerative diseases.."
If your point had been that comprehensive research had already been done into both approaches and proved that embryonic stem cell research is a dead end and that completely satisfactory cures using adult stem cells have been demonstrated and are about to appear on the market, then your conclusion would seem reasonable.
no problem. my work actually focuses on the adult derived variety. I do want to find that the adult cells are capable of the same things as the embryonic. However, unless the studies are done on the embryonic cells as a control its hard to tell.
Well, if adult stem cells can cure blindness and retard Parkinson's Disease, why don't we give them a couple more years first before rushing to promote the trade in baby flesh?
This is exactly what will happen when people in poorer countries realise that they can sell a newborn or unborn baby (whom they don't or hardly know, or in some cases don't care about anyway) for more than several year's wages.
And the answer to "why don't we push funds towards adult stem cells which are known to be productive?" is very simple: because some people don't want to. They want a reason, a justification, to excuse the murder of any of those little inconveniences which from time to time pop up.
And really, what's the difference between you and a baby? How about ten minutes before the baby's born? Ten days? Ten weeks? A local hospital is able to save and raise babies more than 20 weeks premature who grow up to be normal adults. The answer is clearly "there is no practical difference". Yet some people are hell-bent on creating one.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The argument is futile, because of a false assumption.
Moral values can be used to make Laws,
But Laws CAN NOT be used to create moral values.
(see the proibition, current 'drug war', etc...)
The only thing stupid governments can do is ban research for their own people.
Science moves - from the USA to Europe, from Europe to Asia, from Asia to South America.
Anyone willing to spend serious money in a country, and help make that country rich - will always find a willing partner. Money talks - BS (Bushs' Stupidity) walks.
Do you really want the BioTech revolution of the 21st century to be BANNED in the USA - and all the inventions, discoveries, treatments, patents, and IP to be owned by some foriegn power.
In the past, people like this were called TRAITORS, because they were attempting to undermine the power of the USA and harm US citizens.
It would be a sad day if someone like Michael J. Fox needs to fly to some remote country just to get medical treatment, because such 'offensive' treatment was BANNED in the USA.
These Pius right-winged nut-jobs need to visit a hospital and see the pain and suffering They cause, by holding back medical science!
What's next on their list?
The earth is flat,
The sun revolves around the earth,
Book burning,
and George W. Bush wins the Nobel Peace Prize!
I would love stem cell research!
Just as long as I am not/was not the fetus, or mass of cells whatever you destroy to extract them.
I came pretty close to being that fetus/clump of cells, as my mom was 40 when she had me and she almost decided she just couldn't handle a kid at 40 years old.
Now I am a clump of cells that went to college, and employ people with family supporting jobs.
My other problem with this has to do with the ever so slippery slope of eugenics, and human experimentation, and why we are doing it. (i.e. CASH)
It reminds me of a favorite Bablyon 5 episode. A brilliant scientist discovers a way to allow humans to live forever, from the extract of the brain fluids in another human being. The procedure kills the person, but it allows immortality.
This scientist was an outcast because she would not accept ANY limits to where or how her research would proceed. In the end, when she was caught and judged to be executed for her crimes. She proclaimed: "My ultimate triumph will be after I die. You will all kill each other to live forever and that will be my revenge."
After verifying the results of her experiments, the government authority sent a ship to pick up the research. Unfortunately, the Vorlons sent a ship to destroy the vessel before the research could be sent back to earth.
When asked why the Vorlon said: "Humanity is not ready for immortality..."
As it is, we cannot agree if the fetus is a clump of cells or something more...
It USE to be that everyone argued is was just a clump of cells. After all it was very tiny, and we couldn't do much about it.
But now, now as we advance, this definition, if there is one keeps changing. As we advance our perception of what it means to be ultimately human continues to get smaller, and smaller.
We are now fast approaching an understanding of genetics and biology that is leading us to conclude that DNA sequences are actually what define us to be human.
Even now, we can take steps before the fetus or clump of cells is born, to do corrective surgery, or genetic therapy.
Yet, it still can be aborted on demand.
Now, if a life is worth saving at this stage to be considered a human being which we can perform huma medical techniques on, is that what the definition of a human being is at the moment?
I am all for advancement of medical research, but we need to seriously think about what it means to be a human being.
I don't know what it means to be stuck in a chair, or paralyzed. But, I am not willing to trade my humanity for government approved breeding programs in factories for spare parts taken from human or not human potential that will never be, or whatever we decide at the moment to rationalize or justify what we do.
How far are we willing to go to correct our own personal hells?
I think what I am getting at is who is going to ultimately play God when this research allows us to grow hearts, organs...etc? Who gets a new heart and who doesn't?
If you have a great answer to this, I would like to here at what point does a clump of cells become a human being with rights.
The other problem I have with this is, health care in general.
I use to work in a Biotech company. If you would here some of the pretty frank discussions in private, leather covered board rooms about drugs and research directives, I think many here would be shocked and awed.
Some of the directives I have heard around a pretty popular drug was, "We do not want or are interested in a cure for heart disease, it would kill our market. We need a ball and chain a person needs to take on a daily basis or else they die to correct disease. Lets keep focused people."
We now have lipitor as a direct result of this sort of research directive.
I hope everyone here doesn't think this (CURES for diseases or ailments vs TREATMENTS) will be widely applied to anybody but the very rich and powerful.
Medical
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
This brings the question of 'why were they using human stem cells' to study mice? Who's bright idea was it to say, "Hey, lets harvest some controversial human embryonic stem cells and use them in a study involving mice!"
Hmmm I'm thinking maybe they just wanted to say => "Look at us, look at us, we're just in time for some conference with research that shows human embryonic stem cells can be use to some effect (well not much really, but some..) in treating mice which have been grown to include an extreme version of a similar disease to human Parkinson's..."
No, the point wasn't that research using embryonic stem cells is a dead end... it's that it's not the only way to achieve the goal.
The Nazis did a lot of very interesting research in biomedical applications using human trials (nice way of saying it)... does that mean we are okay with that method? I'd say we are not okay with it and that we have achieved the same level of understanding using entirely different methods that did not require the death and suffering of people.
Yes, I'm comparing embryonic stem cell research with Nazi vivisection and live trial research...
you may not see them as the same but the fact remains that there are alternative methods available in science for achieving end results with the same quality level... without sacrificing our ethics, morals and dare I say humanity.
It's a tradeoff basically... convenience of using embryo's vs. ethics of using adult sources.
You may get initial results more quickly with embryo's but was it really worth the sacrifice when you could have the same results with adult stem cells while only putting a little more effort and time into it?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Thank goodness for stem cells.