Stem Cells Derived from Human Clones

catbutt writes "Wired News reports that South Korean scientists have made a dramatic breakthrough by deriving stem cells from cloned embryos of patients with spinal cord injuries. It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out." From the article: "Researchers must test the cells in animals before they can try the therapy in humans. But embryonic stem-cell researchers were shocked and delighted by the advance, which many had referred to as a distant possibility until they saw this study by Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues at Seoul National University, which appears in the May 20 issue of Science."

Comments

Well it's starting to become reality

[3.5 stripes]

I remember the huge debates of the stem cell issues, how Bush was saying the existing stem cell lines would be enough.

Obviously, as it was pointed out multiple times, that just wasn't true. Of course, as was predicted, the places that do allow that sort of research will move in leaps and bounds ahead of the US in these fields.

Didn't think it would be quite that quick though..

Re:Well it's starting to become reality

[jdavidb]

neoconservatives

Neoconservative refers primarily to somebody's position on foreign policy.

Perhaps you meant, simply, "conservatives"? Or "social conservatives," as that viewpoint opposes destruction of embryoes? Or "fiscal conservatives," as that viewpoint opposes government funding of research?

Overuse of "neoconservative" has just about drained the meaning of this alleged insult.

Re:Well it's starting to become reality

[stienman]

So you are saying that I shouldn't get to choose where my taxes go regarding morally ambiguous activities?

The federal funds that go into scientific research are always moderated by various groups that push and pull based on morals they feel are important, as well as those who push based on monetary objectives. Eventually, no doubt, stem cell research will be given more federal money.

Further, limited or restricted use federal funds does not mean lack of funds, nor does it make this research illegal. It does restrict it somewhat since the way most research institutions are set up they can't seperate their different monetary uses enough such that if any one of them are doing stem cell research outside of the federal funding it puts other research there at jepardy for more federal funding.

It is worthwhile to note that many, if not most, new areas of research do not get any federal funding until they've been proven using other funding or in other institutions/countries. The Gov't is very conservative at the beginning of new technologies, especially those which have such heavy ethical complications.

The fact that the government is only providing very limited funding is very much in line with what they've done in the past, and I hope what they do in the future. I suspect too much money, for instance, was sunk into fusion at the beginning - everyone wanted to 'win' that race.

Exactly. This could have been us...but now we get to play catch-up.

It's often cheaper (and more rewarding the long run) to wait and play catch up. And believe me, if there is a real breakthrough you know that we'll catch up and likely surpass the leaders - and just as likely it won't be due to or held back by federal funds in any way.

-Adam

Re:So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, he can go fuck himself. My best friend will probably be dead within 20 years from acute diabetes. If this helps him get a new pancreas, I'm all for it.

Re:Life starts at conception

[Dr. Evil]

So what if a woman needs stem cells to repair her spine. She uses her own DNA and her own eggs to produce stem cells.

How can a woman "concieve" all alone?

If it is still life, then why can't gay women get married under the church?

If you read the article!

[spineboy]

You would know that the scientist uses UNFERTILIZED eggs and then removes the nucleus! The scientists then introduce the intended tissue type cell into the egg and shock it it, at which point the cells reproduce. This is akin to multiplying gut/skin/white cells in a cell culture laboratory - which NO religion/poltical groups have problems with.

Please read the article before comenting next time.

Re:So is S Korea now part of the Axis of Evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that simple.

If you have Organization A -- say, a university -- which does LOTS of things other than stem cell research. If they do that kind of research without using the cells that W approves, then they lose federal funding for the WHOLE UNIVERSITY. Not just the Stem Cell Dept.

So, yeah, it is a showstopper for many places.

But hey, I'm sure the US won't mind outsourcing it's health care to Asia in the future.

Re:Life starts at conception

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

WHY NOT dump embryo research and head towards alternatives?

Because it is a promising and helpful line of research. I mean if you want to stop other people from researching something, I think the onus is on you to provide a scientific and proven reason why they should do it. Otherwise it is just your unscientific opinion against theirs and there is no reason to give your opinion about what someone else is doing more weight than their own.

Re:Luckily our government protects us from this

[Anonymous Coward]

But don't ask people who are firmly opposed to such research to help pay for it.

Why not? People who are firmly opposed to the war in Iraq have to pay for it. Do you think we have the luxury of only using our tax money for things we personally approve? There's quite a long list throughout history that shows that people are usually taxed to support things they may or may not support.

Re:eggs, no prob.

[Rich0]

Interesting.

So what you are saying is that we can now breed 47 generations of people without having to actually go to the trouble of actually growing the people. Just reproduce the gametes and you can have sexual reproduction.

In theory you could do experiments on people that previously were only practical on rats/bacteria (which have shorter generation times).

How's that for an ethics nightmare?

Stop Spreaing Misinformation!

[MarkPNeyer]

I'm sick of hearing that the US has a 'ban' on stem cell research. There is no ban! The bill signed into law placed a limit on funding of stem cell research. Scientists are perfectly free to pursue research all they want, so long as they pay for it with non governmental money. Stop claming that the goverment has made it illegal to engage in stem cell research. It's just not the case.

Re:Stop Spreaing Misinformation!

[be-fan]

While this is strictly true, it's also a bit misleading to those (most people) who don't understand how science works in the modern world.

Science has become an exceedingly expensive business. Effectively, scientists are *not* free to research whatever they want, because they are limited by funding. Most endeavors in science have become so expensive that there are only two types of entities that can fund them: governments, and large private corporations. The latter are far too risk-averse to actually do anything *big*, so its pretty much left up to governments. By cutting off government funding for a particular avenue of research, you have effectively dictated that scientists in your country are not to persue that research.

Now, that is perfectly within the rights of governments, to decide how their research money should be spent. But there is always the niggling question of "the rest of the world". If our government is unwilling to fund crucial research for certain moralistic reasons, other governments unfettered by such restrictions will do so, and will make advancements.

Americans in general seem rather oblivious to the very real "race" between nations that exists. The high standard of living in the United States is directly related to its position as an economic and military superpower. The military preeminance can exis only as long as the economic one does, for defense too has become an exceedingly expensive business. The ramifications of China or Europe making a crucial breakthrough in medicine due to stem cells would be enormous. As long as we were locked out of that technology, we would be beholden to them for any of the benefits that it would provide. The result would be billions of dollars leaving the United States for China or Europe, to purchase these services unavailable in the US. If the US bans such purchases, a black market will form, one that will be very expensive and time-consuming to combat. Either way, we risk our position as an economic superpower, and once we lose that position, we can say goodbye to the style of life to which we have become accustomed.

Re:traffic of organs

[ScentCone]

so what's the difference between getting some kid's organs and killing an embryo to harvest them?

Do you mean the organs of a child who has died in an accident? Nothing wrong there - you'd expect most parents to be proud that their kid's brief life might at least have continued to flourish in some indirect way.

Or do you mean, killing kids to get their organs? I'll be looking forward to your pointing that one out in the news when the time comes.

But killing an embryo? OK, so you've got a handful of cells dividing, at least for a little while, anyway, in a petri dish. No mom, no pregnancy, and no way they would ever amount to anything - let alone a person - without continual intervention from science, which is still beyond us anyway. So, that group of cells, completely unviable as they sit there, and without any means by which to be differentiated from a similarly complex group of paramecium (which is to say, there is no there there yet, no framework on which to hang the concept of person-hood - merely the eventual potential, which could also be said of the reproductive organs of a man and a women eyeing each other over a beer), what's wrong with using them to save lives? To shoot for getting the paralyzed to walk again? For that kid nearly does die in an accident to breath again off a respirator?

just to improve the quality of an old one - that possibly won't last much longer?

So, the son of a friend just had his spine severed in a road accident. He's done from the waist down, now. He's 22. Might as well write him off, huh? After all, he's so old, he's pretty much close to dead. Those dozen cells in the petri dish, though - set them next to his hospital bed, and they'll thrive! Why, they'll be a smiling, bubbly little baby in just a matter of months! No? No.

Whether you eat plants or meat or both, you kill billions of cells every day to improve the quality of your life. You eat them to survive, remember? There's as much of a human being in a dozen cells as there is in a stalk of asparagus. But if I could produce eggs (that would otherwise go to waste) that could be used to help restore my friend's son's mobility to him, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And, any dozen cells that divide along the way won't have it in them, under the circumstances (lacking, as they do, any sort of nervous system as a platform to have anything), to really weigh in on it. That's not an "all-new human life," it's a dozen cells. But a 22-year-old able to walk again: that would be an all-new human life. When we've made it that far, bio-tech-wise, and your child is lying there with a broken back, pretty much guaranteed never to have children as a result, would you begrudge her the same? Or, does God prefer a dozen unviable cells in a dish over paralyzed people or new mothers with degenerative neural diseases that will rob their children of a normal life? Getting that mom healthy is for her young children, though you're not set up to see that larger picture, it seems.

Re:Soylent Green is people

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Before you can answer that question, you have to answer a few more basic questions.

First: At what point does a jumble of cells become life?

At this point, the defiinition in the U.S. legal system is at 27 weeks. When all the major organs have formed, and life and growth are possible outside the womb.

Second: Does stopping a potential life mean the same thing as killing?

You have to watch that one, because contreceptives are suddenly a no-no. As is taking a vow of celebacy.

Third: How is growing a cloned fetus of yourself any different than growing a culture of any other cells?

If there was an easy answer, we would have found it.

Life != Personhood

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Sure life starts at conception. All the cells in a person's body are alive, including egg and sperm cells. That doesn't make the fertilized egg cell a person. Whether something can be labeled a 'person' or not has more to do with its mental abilities, if it has any. Whether they have, or have the capacity for, intelligence, self-awareness, and abstract thought.

We destroy 'life' all the time. Everything we eat was alive at one point, regardless of whether you are a vegitarian or not. The fact that something has DNA similar to ours does not make it 'sacred'.

To anticipate the obvious troll response, someone who is asleep or in a coma, might not be self-aware, but they have the capacity for it. And no, Terri Schiavo was not in a coma. Huge peices of her brain had been liquified. She no longer had the capacity for self-awareness.

Yes, by the way. If we ever create a computer that has these qualities, then I would consider it a person.

Re:pet peeve

[killjoe]

"I oppose destruction of embryoes"

Do you realize that embroyoes are destroyed during fertility treatments? When a couple is trying to conceive they fertilize many eggs and destroy all but one.

What you probably meant was that you are against destroying embroyes for scientific research purposes, you are most likely perfecty OK with destroying them as long as somebody is trying to have a baby.

Re:The end of religion?

[JonKatzIsAnIdiot]

You're assuming that:

• all people with religious beliefs are opposed to stem cell research
• all people who oppose stem cell research hold religious beliefs

I suggest you open your eyes and look around. Getting your perspective on religion from Slashdot is like asking the KKK for information on blacks.

Re:pet peeve

[jdavidb]

Do you see any difference between somebody intentionally destroying an embryo and an event in nature resulting in that destruction?

Do you see any difference between me shooting a person and between a person dying in a hurricane?

I guess you'd say I'm "against hurricanes," but it'd be senseless to pass a law against them. In the same way your question doesn't prove anything to me. We pass laws against people killing people, and accept that we can't save every life.

I believe that an embryo is a human being and I accept all conclusions that follow from that fact.

And I do not believe that we can legislate that an embryo is not a human being simply because some people disagree than we can legislate that a black person is not a human being simply because some people believed so in the 1800's.

Re:traffic of organs

[Dirtside]

Or, does God prefer a dozen unviable cells in a dish over paralyzed people or new mothers with degenerative neural diseases that will rob their children of a normal life?

The best part is, the same people (namely, fundamentalist Christians) who claim that God is unknowable and all-powerful then go on to say that they know exactly which of these things God would prefer.

Here's a little lesson for you guys:

1. You claim God is all-powerful. Then he doesn't need your help, does he?

2. You claim God is unknowable. If you then claim that you know what God would want, or that something is God's will, you are a fucking moron.

Re:traffic of organs

[ScentCone]

The scientist, in his act of forming the embryo with no intention of fostering its development has taken responsibility for the viability of the life. His very action is the killing of the embryo.

No, the scientist is creating a small group of cells, using material from the person that he intends to help, and with no intention or expectation that those small cells will or could form a viable embryo. You can call it an embryo if you want, but it only has life in the sense that any small group of cells has life. There is no nervous system, there is no means by which those cells can respirate, and certainly no means by which they can be invested with any of the qualities we assign to a more fully formed organism (let alone a person). The scientist isn't suddenly confronted with a "life", he's just looking at the cells he put together specifically to accomplish the theraputic task that is his goal. You make it sound like he's looking at a fetus, which, of course, we're not talking about. When he uses those cells to theraputic effect in his patient, he is, of course, sending some of them off to live and reproduce as part of the therapy. Those that he doesn't need aren't preserved any more than you preserve all of the cells that make up your arm when you scratch an itch (the act of which "kills" hundreds or thousands of your cells).

Okay so life as you understand it is defined by the number of cells that make up any being.

You won't be any more credible or pursuasive by putting words in someone else's mouth. I didn't say that, and you know it. This issue is about whether or not a dozen or two cells provide an adequate source of stem cells. One thing we don't have to worry about is whether or not those same dozen or two cells are a person, because they simply are not. If all goes well in a scenario supportive of gestation, those cells can wind up, millions of divisions later, being the start of a fetus. Until then, you've got undifferentiated cells (which is why they have so much theraputic promise) and no structure that could conceivably be referred to as a fetus, let alone a "baby" or "unborn person."

So according to your logic gorrilas are more alive than humans are

No, that's according to your twisted rhetorical version of what I'm saying. Just because it would serve your point of view to somehow "catch" me saying that, I didn't say that, nor can you infer that (with any intellectual honesty) from what I said. Gorilla embryos, at the dozen-or-two-cells level, are virtually indistinguishable from ours. But in any way that matters, so are chickens and toads. The meaningful differences between us and gorillas (which are slim indeed, as an expressed percentage of their DNA) don't really manifest themselves until farther along in development. That species evolved along a different path, and found (until pretty recently) a succesful niche that didn't require quite the IQ or communications skills that man did. They stayed in the jungle, while we spread out into the steppes and savannah, where better upright mobility and keener group predation made for better survival. Either way, both the gorilla and the human are fantastically complex by the time gestation is complete - but then, so is a mouse, just not as much so, on the neurological front.

Your understanding of the ethical implications of embryonic research is hinged on number of cells and viability. So according to your theory, my friend who was born very prematurely was technically not alive while being cared for in an incubator.

Again, you're pretending, because you think it helps your case, that I've said something that I did not. Because you find it important to see a "person" in a dozen cells, you can't imagine (even if it's shown to you, which surely it has been, if you've managed to get through junior high school) any middle ground between the first few divisions of the cells of an embryo, and the extremely complex structures of a several month old fetus. It's not like the