Slashdot Mirror
Stem Cells Cultivated Free of Animal Contaminants
qewl writes "In a follow-up to this story, researchers at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology have created a new method of growing human embryonic stem cells that has overcome the major obstacle of animal contaminants to their use for human treatments. As President George W Bush has restricted federal funding of this research to limited cell lines existing since 2001, scientists have strived to find ways to keep the lines pure. Irina Klimanskaya and colleagues at ACT grew the stem cells from the beginning on a cell and serum-free mixture called an extracellular matrix. "The importance of this work, of course, is that by eliminating contact with animal and human cells, you minimize the risk of contamination with pathogens that could be transmitted to patients and the population at large," Dr. Lanza at ATC said."
My friend who works with me at the chip fab clean room has been working in his spare time on such a process. This next generation hybrid wetware has no problem utilizing the extracellular matrices for eukaryotic cell adhesion and migration, but problems have been encountered regarding proliferation and differentiation. Once his research is complete I'm going to wire it on and jack into the net.
Incorrect. Stem cell research has been going on for years in the U.S. and other countries. Bush is just the first president that has said anything about it because stem cell research became politicized round about when he was running for office.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Here goes the karma sacrifice.
The Russians, who are quite clever, have figured out how to use non-embryonic stem cells to cure spinal cord injuries.
Article
Six spinal patients of one of Russian private clinics agreed to participate in a special experiment, which was based on the above-mentioned method. Patients' own stem cells were injected in the place of spinal cord rupture. A positive result was registered with five of the volunteers: they could feel their legs, even move them a little, pelvic organs retrieved their functions too.
You know that it's interesting that this guy has treated people with stem cells and cured spinal illnesses with the patient's own stem cells! Meanwhile people are talking about embryonic stem cells which haven't yet cured anybody yet. I'm not a doctor but won't these embryonic cells be rejected because they've got different DNA then the person being treated?
I don't really care either way on the abortion issue but this whole thing makes me think that the side effect of successful embryonic stem cell research will be to reward people montetarily for having abortions or at least make people feel good about aborting.
Helpless and dependant on the mother it may still be, but why is it any less alive than a child in its final trimester?
Further, many premature babies require assistance in staying alive after birth. If they aren't alive yet anyways (by your definition it wouldn't be), then what good are they doing wasting this effort? They aren't even "keeping it alive" because it isn't alive yet in the first place (according to your definition).
Dependancy on outside systems cannot be used as a basis for measuring whether or not something is alive.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's a continuum, passing unbroken from mother to baby and so on through generations.
How about 'from parents to offspring', mothers can't do it alone and neither can fathers.
The question of when life begins isn't one for science. It's one for our values.
That's the wrong question. We shouldn't be asking "When does life begin?", we should be asking "When can a life be protected under the law?". That question can be answered.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I did this two years ago as an undergraduate research project. Growing stem cells on an artificial ECM (extra-cellular matrix) is what everyone does. In fact, researchers use ECM to try to control what the cells will eventually differentiate into (ie. neuron or smc). This is what tissue engineering is all about and has been done this way for many years. NOT NOVEL. There are thousands of more interesting stories to post than this. Lets try to get something that has been discovered at least this century if we're gonna call it new.
Stem cells are commonly harvested from fertilized embryos, long before they enter the fetal stage. The whole point and promise of stem cells are that their DNA has not differentiated any of its expression/repression of genes. We all know that your DNA is the same throughout your body, but what makes a difference is what genes are expressed in each cell. That is what leads to cell differentiation in the body and the main reason why stem cells are so powerful. These plain, all encompassing cells can be grown in certain controlled conditions in order to obtain whatever kind of cells your body needs, theoretically. The problem with using an old stem cell line is that with each separation, the DNA mutates a litle bit. A couple of base pairs are cut off of each end of the DNA strands with each cell division. This loss of base pairs from the end of each strand of DNA during the replication of DNA are what eventually lead to the aging of cells.
About the rejection of cells by the body, your body decides whether or not a cell is "natural" from the genes that are expressed by the cells as well as different proteins that come out from the surface of cells. At no point does a macrophage enter a cell and check every little bit of DNA to see if it "matches" or not. Why would they be able to do organ transplants if that were the case? With a larger number of stem cell lines to choose from, there may be a greater chance for cells to be similar to each other.
Keep in mind that there are many places to harvest stem cells, from many stages of human life. There are the embryonic stem cells, fetal stem cells, placental stem cells, childhood stem cells and adult stem cells to choose from. However, as the body ages, a smaller percent of cells in the body are actually stem cells. Now, say you harvest the stem cells of an adult seeking treatment for a medical condition and send them to a lab to grow. Do you have any idea of how much difficulty there would be in setting this up on a large enough scale to treat diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's? Do you know how long it would take to grow enough stem cells to be a viable treatment for a patient? Now, if you could establish cell lines with the thousands of frozen embryos are there frozen at fertility clinics around the world with no hope of ever becoming a child, you could create enough cell lines to be able to treat anyone. THAT is the power of the embryonic stem cell.
Why does it always HAVE to fall back to the Imperial Federal Government to fund everything with MY money?
Let it be done by private organizations, who are faster, more efficient, and FAR more effective.
It's more like, Bush plows into a schoolbus full of kids, desperate to escape the ensuing flames, he starts throwing bodies onto the blaze. The next days headliens read; "Heroic Bush puts out fire, saves bus driver."
You think a few timid questions about the economy is the press being hard on the President? When you don't here about negotiations with Canada, Germany and Chile to stop war crimes suites so our President, Cheney or Rumsfeld can visit, you have a press that is asleep or complicit.
I really don't have the stomach to talk about Neil Bush's $15 Billion windfall from the savings and loan debacle of the 1980's. The $25 million to Bush's oil company from the Bin Laden family--or how they traded oil with Saddam even during the embargo, his new drivers license after 72 arrests, the abortion he gave his socialite girlfriend, the banking his family did with Buchenwald or the protecting of Nazi bank accounts 10 years after WWII. The incredible profits all members of his family have made on weapons sales or the connection all his cronies have with the Carlysle Group.
Has he even been to any veteran funerals yet? Has he pushed one policy that didn't rob returning vets or old folks?
Why didn't he order jets to shoot down planes for 2+1/2 hours during 9/11 -- oh I'm sorry, move on.
Why did Bush only pick up votes where electronic voting machines were installed (OK, generalization, but statistically, it was shown it was the only factor that could account for his "win").
I could go for days covering crap that you never heard of and sound like a tin foil hat wearer. Unfortuneatly, I'll have to wait for that stupid look on Republican faces when the Northwest is a desert and we have snow at the Equator and we have attrocities we can't ignore, and people scraping by in another great depression, and they stand their, rubbing their eyes like waking from a deep sleep saying; "I didn't know". It is inevitable. Some will of course be waiting for the rapture that never comes, they'll be saying; "OK, we hastened the end of the world--now what?" Oh no, abusing the planet and your fellow man does not get you a free ride to heaven, no matter how much you pray.
OK. Flame over. Just pisses me off when people whine about Bush never getting a break no matter how great he is. When has he ever done anything right? I mean, besides the total screwups like "No child left behind" that are whitewashed and the books cooked. We might here of a few freedom uprisings in the Middle East--but that was inevitable because there is plenty of resentment against tyrannical rule in the Middle East. They are just taking advantage of our threatening presance. If Russia had invated Iraq, they would be doing the same thing. They can fix elections as well as we can.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
How would the government be able to tell that a stem cell line began after 2001?