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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."
From TFA:
This is certainly good news, but human eggs are still needed, and from what I understand, harvesting them is still time-consuming, painful, and risky.
From Aurora Health Care:
Ouch.
A truly significant advance would be to use these stem cells to grow a human ovary in the lab, and harvest eggs from that. Such an advance would dramaatically decrease the need for additional female donors.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out.
Customer: I'd like a replacement arm, hand and penis, please.
Service Tech: Ah, you must be from Slashdot!
Trolling is a art,
S Korea has been added to the watch list of terrorist states....
I for one can't wait to get my OWN third arm and second head. Now that i know they won't be rejected by my immune system.
hmm... other possibilites are coming to mind... wonder how many happy girlfriends there will be once people start getting second.... nevermind.
Stupid people hurt my head.
I think there are many possible medical benefits (and misuses) to stem cell theraphy, but somebody is going to be upset.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I mean, c'mon. Woo Suk Wang? Who would admit to that being their name voluntarily?!?
.sig: Now legally binding!
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..
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Sure, it'd be nice (in theory) to be able to clone a nice new kidney for someone whose kidneys were failing. But would the time necessary to carry out this process--from cloning the embryo to harvesting stem cells to growing the organ--negate the benefit for many people? For a kidney, a person can go on dialysis (not a piece of cake, but better than dying I suppose!), and we do have artificial hearts that can help some heart disease, but I'm sure there would be other cases where the patient might die before his or her "new organ" was ready. Is there a way to speed the process, I wonder, as well as make it more "efficient"?
UK scientists say embryo cloned
Friday 20 May 2005, 15:37 Makka Time, 12:37 GMT
Murdoch (L) and Stojkovic began licensed research in 2004
Related:
Human embryo cloning gets clearance
US cloning ban collapses
UK nod to human cloning for research
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Scientists who were awarded Britain's first licence for human cloning say they have succeeded in creating the country's first cloned embryo.
The Newcastle University scientists said on Thursday that they had produced an early stage embryo cloned from a human cell using nuclear transfer.
Britain, which four years ago became the world's first country to license cloning to create stem cells, is aiming to join South Korea on the leading edge of the research, which many scientists think might lead to new treatments for a range of diseases.
A team of South Korean scientists, who last year were the first to clone a human embryo, announced they had dramatically sped up the creation of human embryonic stem cells, growing 11 new batches that for the first time were a genetic match for injured or sick patients.
Stem cell cures
The Newcastle researchers were granted a licence in August by Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. They hope eventually to create insulin-producing cells that could be transplanted into diabetics.
Two of the team, Alison Murdoch and Dr Miodrag Stojkovic, said they were delighted by the Koreans' progress.
"They have shown conclusively that these techniques can be successful in humans," they said. "The promise of new treatments based on stem cell technology is moving nearer to becoming a realistic possibility."
The researchers are not using cloning to make babies.
Instead, scientists create test-tube embryos to supply stem cells, the building blocks which give rise to every tissue in the body and which are a genetic match for a particular patient, preventing rejection by the immune system.
If scientists could harness the regenerative power of those stem cells, they might be able to repair damage from spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's and other
diseases.
Professor Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues also successfully cloned human embryos last year.
There was coverage of this on NPR this morning as well.
It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork.
That reminds me of something that I saw in a preview before Star Wars. What was it? Oh, now I remember!
Life starts at conception. Why do we have to kill a human life (a cloned embryo is still a life) to get body parts?
How is this a break-thru?
I'm surprised S. Korea did this - I thought SK actually had quite a few Christians in it. It's a shame to see them doing Satan's work. Is science really worth an eternity in hell, people?
Think about it. WWJD?
-Jim
Woo Suk Hwang
Hey, I thought April fools day was last month...
This is pretty amazing, but a lot of testing still has to be done on animals, and there are still a lot of questions to be asked with regards to this. With animal cloning, the animals did not live as long and had noted medical problems. I wonder if this type of cloning would be subject to similar issues, including autoimmune disorders and/or deterioration of the spinal cord.
Plus let's not forget the religious ramifications of such a discovery. You can bet there will be a lot of pushback on this.
Scientists clone human stem cells from patients
... regardless of sex or age," Hwang told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Fri May 20, 2005 2:54 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korean scientists who cloned the first human embryo to use for research said on Thursday they have used the same technology to create batches of embryonic stem cells from nine patients.
Their study fulfills one of the basic promises of using cloning technology in stem cell research -- that a piece of skin could be taken from a patient and used to grow the stem cells.
Researchers believe the cells could one day be trained to provide tailored tissue and organ transplants to cure juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease and even to repair severed spinal cords. Unlike so-called adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells have the potential from the beginning to form any cell or tissue in the body.
Woo Suk Hwang and colleagues at Seoul National University report their process is much more efficient than they hoped, and yielded 11 stem cell batches, called lines, from six adults and three children with spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and a rare immune disorder.
"This study shows that embryonic stem cells can be derived using nuclear transfer from patients with illness
"I am amazed at how much they have accomplished in just a year and the amount, the quality and the rigorousness of their evidence," Dr. Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, a stem cell expert who reviewed the study, said in a telephone interview.
While the patients whose cells were copied do not stand at this time to benefit, the researchers hope to study the cells to understand their conditions better.
They also say their method may be less controversial than other work with embryonic stem cells because, by their definition, a human embryo was never actually created.
The report, published in the journal Science, is certain to add to the growing U.S. political controversy over the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Opponents say all such work is unethical and should be banned because human life begins at conception and should not be destroyed.
NO HUMAN EMBRYO
Hwang said his method differs from that first used to derive human embryonic stem cells in 1998 and he proposes using a new term for the cloned embryos -- a "nuclear transfer construct."
"I think this construct is not an embryo," he said. "There is no fertilization in our process. We use nuclear transfer technology. I can say this result is not an embryo but a nuclear transfer construct." The sheep Dolly, the first adult mammal cloned, was made using nuclear transfer, in which the nucleus is removed from an egg cell, replaced with the nucleus of the animal or person to be cloned, and then fused. The egg begins dividing as if it had been fertilized and sometimes becomes an embryo.
Cattle, pigs, sheep, cats and other animals have been cloned using this method.
Schatten said when scientists first got stem cells from human embryos in 1998, they broke open the little days-old ball of cells called a blastocyst.
In the current study, he said, they simply laid down the blastocyst in a lab dish filled with human "feeder cells."
David Magnus and Mildred Cho of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics in California agreed.
"There is no reason ever to believe one of these things could ever become a human being," said Magnus, who with Cho wrote a commentary on the work.
"Even for people that believe that potentiality is the key to personhood, these things, whatever they are, they are not people. Somatic cell nuclear transfer is an ethically better way of producing stem cells than using excess IVF (in vitro fertilization or test-tube baby) embryos."
Schatten said the method could also eventually do away with the need for some animal experiments, which some people also find objectionable and which others say is not always a good way to predict human medical treatments.
Opponents of stem cell research had not had an opportunity to review the paper and could not immediately comment.
Hey, guess what.
Between you and Bush, you're the only one overreacting on this issue.
Someone has already patented the process of growing a clone from birth, and when needed call upon this "clone" for body parts when needed. The body would grow with you, just in case you have a freak Slashdot accident.
-What else is new?
Sorry that was my other head.
$sig$
(My subject is sarcastcic.)
This is a good example of how really vital research is happening in other parts of the world, and we're off on the sidelines. Our kids will be able to explain how evolution is wrong, and creatiomism explains everything. Their kids will be able to cure spinal cord injuries.
From what I understand, this is really huge because stem cells from other people tend to be rejected by the immune system.
So the bush administration compromise that allowed researchers to work with existing stem cell lines isn't really good enough. They can get stem cells, but they can't get the right stem cells that they'd need for a patient, which won't be rejected.
For that you need cloning.
Not full blown human being cloning, but the very beginings of life in a petri dish cloning. I think that the cut off date is something like 4 days after the clone is created.
I heard some scientists on a panel show talking about this a few months ago. Everyone thought it was what was necessary, but no one thought it would happen any time soon.
Our scientists have been fighting with ways to turn off the immune system response in patients when they get someone else's stem cells. Scientists in other parts of the world don't have to struggle with that problem.
Why would those parts wear out all at ... oh .
You obviously suffer from poor technique.
sigs, as if you care.
"The shroud of the Dark Side has fallen. Begun, the Clone Wars has"
--- -a- "I'd love to change the world, but it'd be easier if the universe exposed its API."
And I want something purely technical but readable by the layman. Also, I'm looking for something with as little discussion of "ethics" as possible. I'm coming from a POV that would allow abortions until the fifty-seventh trimetster, so the ethics side of it bores me.
begun they have.
Sorry, I'm just in this Star Wars mood right now and SCNR.
> It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out."
Isn't this the same thing that we heard about Gene Therapy in the 1990s?
I want to see Actual results such as re-growing damaged spinal cords, re-growing damaged heart tissue, etc.
Baby Jesus was reported to be crying today, according to the RNC.
I don't have the link handy, but I did just read about viable eggs being coaxed from ovary stem cells. I don't recall the exact details, but I do recall being very excited, because, as you mentioned, it's a hassle to collect all those eggs. And with a plentiful supply of human eggs, the possibilties are huge.
So, this egg research specifically suggested that it was a technique expected to reduce the need for eggs from donors.
I don't have the link, but it could be at betterhumans. I'll go take a look.
Anyway, I just want to chime in on this story as a major armchair biotechnician and say that cloning is where all REAL stem cell therapy must start. This allows you to overcome so many obstacles it's not even funny. If the US doesn't allow this kind of therapy all I can say is, all the better for Korea.
cells in animals before they can try the therapy in humans.
I know it is a personal pet peeve of mine but it just makes my skin crawl when people separate humans and animals. Humans ARE animals!
On a slightly more ontopic note: This is the breaking point for future scientific study specifically biomedic/stemcell research in the United States. There are two bills in the house about to be voted on - The Cord Blood Stem Cell Act 2005 HR 596 and Stem Cell Research Act 2005 HR 810 in the house, which surprisingly has *bipartisan support* which even more surprisingly is more than likely to pass and most surprisingly (well...not so much for some of us) is very likely to be vetoed (first time ever for GWB) by the President. Unbelievable.
Posted on Fri, May. 20, 2005
Stem-cell breakthrough reported
Wire Reports
WASHINGTON - South Korean scientists have dramatically sped up the creation of human embryonic stem cells, growing 11 new batches that for the first time were a genetic match for injured or sick patients.
It is a major advancement in the quest to grow patients' own replacement tissue to treat diseases.
Last year, the same scientists were the first to clone a human embryo. Now they have improved, by more than 10 times, their efficiency at selecting these master cells, thus making the pursuit of therapeutic cloning more practical.
This research is not cloning to make babies. Instead, scientists create test-tube embryos to supply stem cells -- the basic cells that give rise to every tissue in the body -- that are a genetic match for a particular patient and thus won't be rejected by the immune system.
If scientists could harness the regenerative power of those stem cells, they might be able to repair damage from injuries and diseases.
News of the advancement raised concerns among critics, who said it was a step down the slippery slope leading to cloned babies.
INTERNATIONAL | 9A
Please send peacekeeping troops to the United States of America to prevent further U.S. militarization by the world's most dangerous and inarticulate "leader".
Patriotically as always,,
Kilgore Trout, CEO
Amid all the jokes about Zaphod's extra arm and elysian scifi about replacement organs, there are some ethical issues to consider. Is it right to create a clone for the sole purpose of killing it to harvest organs? Or doing the same thing, only much earlier, to harvest the stem cells from the cloned blastocyst?
>It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out.
Right about the time we have too-cheap-to-meter fusion power.
I keep thinking there's a Jengo Fett joke lurking in this subject, somewhere.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Good to see the US leading the charge in stem cell research.....err... nevermind.
New stem cell lines created by cloning
South Korean feat is sure to heat up debate on the issue
Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer
Friday, May 20, 2005
* Printable Version
* Email This Article
Creation of the first "patient-specific" stem cell lines, announced Thursday by South Korean scientists, involved the use of refined cloning techniques that add a new twist to an already dizzying debate.
Congress is considering legislation designed to relax the Bush administration's restrictions on federal grants for human embryonic stem cell research, and the matter may end up being decided by a White House veto.
Until now, stem cell colonies have been produced almost entirely from leftover embryos donated for research by people undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. The latest report dramatically changes the landscape, showing how cloning embryos could produce custom stem cell lines, with DNA matching that of patients with chronic disease and injury, or, just as easily, from normal volunteers.
It moves stem cell biology one step closer to yielding actual treatments -- or, in the minds of opponents, to scenarios of cloned embryos made solely to be destroyed.
"The arguments on both sides are going to grow in intensity," said Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center, an independent research group financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts at Johns Hopkins University.
Hudson is co-author of a new policy analysis on cloning that seeks to clear up some of the growing confusion surrounding the new field known as regenerative medicine.
Even the terminology can be tricky.
The classic definition of "embryo" refers to the nascent living organism created as a result of fertilization of an egg by a sperm. Sperm and egg each contribute half of the embryo's full complement of DNA. If the embryo implants in the womb and continues to grow, it becomes a fetus and eventually a baby.
The South Korean scientists insist that their cloning experiments have nothing to do with that. They used a cloning technique known as "somatic cell nuclear transfer" that avoids the need for fertilization. The entity that results from such a process is typically referred to as a "pre-implantation human embryo," but the scientists called it simply a "nuclear transfer construct" -- with no potential to develop into a baby.
Here's how the experiment was carried out: Female volunteers donated eggs obtained the same way IVF clinics collect eggs, which involves hormones that stimulate the ovaries, so that 10 or more eggs can be gathered in one ovulation cycle.
Other volunteers -- patients with spinal cord injuries, diabetes and an immune disorder -- were recruited to donate DNA, obtained from skin scrapings. This DNA was then inserted into the hollowed-out nuclei of the donated eggs.
An electrical stimulus was applied to coax the eggs to begin dividing in a laboratory dish. After about five days, the embryo reaches the "blastocyst" stage, when a dark clump of stem cells can be seen. The South Korean team used new microsurgical techniques to gently remove the stem cells and spread them out on special layers of human "feeder cells" to nourish the stem cells and keep them in their primitive state.
The debate focuses in large part on the morality of creating an embryo solely to harvest its stem cells.
"Government has no business forcing taxpayers to become complicit in the direct destruction of human life at any stage," wrote Cardinal William H. Keeler in a letter to Congress this week.
Cloning is nearly universally opposed when the purpose is to create an infant -- "reproductive cloning," as it's known -- because the procedure would risk the health of any human clone that might be produced.
Many scientists say the technical problems of creating a human clone may never be solved, despite science-fiction scenarios to the contrary.
The Pew report is available at www.dnapolicy.org/genetics/ cloning.jhtml.
Page A - 4
And the related science paper from last year.
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.
..........FULL STOP.
Let's just hope this Suck Wang guy has better practices than Dr Toby Russel...
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
What would the porn films call it? Double-single penetration?
...and so began the birth of Frankenstein.
Only a Slashdotter would dream of using this technology to further masturbation instead of a way to have real sex.
so what's the difference between getting some kid's organs and killing an embryo to harvest them? Also, doesn't it sound a little ackward to dispose an all-new human life just to improve the quality of an old one - that possibly won't last much longer?
Really, it reminds me of the old tales of witches - eating children to remain young.
it's almost lunch time
Sperm and egg cells are alive and can be kept viable indefinately. They are also half-human.
Kill one of each and you've committed murder. Allow one of each to die and it's manslaughter.
And if you sincerely believe that, and you've ever allowed your eggs or sperm to die instead of having them frozen, please turn yourself into to the nearest police station to face charges.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Part of some geneticist's plan (plan-plan-plan)
Born to be a carbon copy man (man-man-man)
"The Chinese," bellowed a drunken Australian, "Chinese bloody invented nerve-splicing. Give me the mainland for a nerve job any day. Fix you right, mate..."
"Now that," Case said to his glass, all his bitterness suddenly rising in him like bile, "that is so much bullshit."
The Japanese had already forgotten more neurosurgery than the Chinese had ever known. The black clinics of Chiba were the cutting edge, whole bodies of technique supplanted monthly, and still they couldn't repair the damage he'd suffered in that Memphis hotel.
--
make install -not war
...Dick Cheney and other senior White House officials with serious medical conditions were noted to have chartered Air Force One to S. Korea yesterday. Mr. Cheney, with a suitcase full of bills and his 'senate gold' health care plan, said that he was taking the trip to S. Korea to investigate the ethics of stem cell research...
If natural selection really works(and I think it does) then people with moral misgivings about this technology will refuse to accept medical help from stem cells and will have a higher mortality rate than godless heathens. Maybe they'll interpret their decline as the arrival armageddon. It could also mean a true separation of church and state.
Of course this all assumes that people will actually refuse treatment because of their religious/moral beliefs which I highly doubt, even diehard churchgoers don't believe that the sun revolves around the earth anymore.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
When they get quickclones perfected and the Neural transfer software debugged, then I'll be interested.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
We need this research to be done, and the high cost and long period of turn before returns will be seen make it more unlikely to happen in the private sector.
Also I believe this type of research should be done openly and for the benifit of mankind. I'm sure if a pharmaceutical giant funds it then it'd be pretty well encumbered by patents.
The only part of parent that disturbs me is "if you can afford it" bit.
...just think what the USA could accomplish with the proper funding to promote this type of work...too bad W takes his medical and scientific advice from the religious right neoconservative lunacy fringe...
Google cached version
Here's the BBC with their coverage of the same story.
when can I get me a shiney new pecker!
-John Wayne Bobbit
Wake me up when they can grow a replacement body and implant my last brain snapshot.
Maybe some day we'll be able to grow new limbs in the lab to replace those blown off while serving in one of W's foreign crusades against evil...
So, I can go down to Chiba city and buy a new liver? Shillin' these 3 meg ram sticks is rough business. Know a guy named Armitage?
meh
The only restriction is that taxpayer funds cannot be used to support it.
Just wanted to add the clarification that it's not even all taxes, just federal - California is suppotring research via state taxes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't belive this kind of research would be legal at all, because it involves cloning a human embryo.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm still waiting for the science behind cloning to be completed so that I can have my clone come to the office and earn money for me while I stay at home and play CoD:UO all day.
How is it that such an ordinarily enlightened group of people that gather here, can become JUST LIKE the fundamentalists they hate when presented with a hot-button issue.
Why can't we evaluate the moral and ethical implications of this? Why is anyone who attempts to do so instantly labeled a "luddite" or someone who tries to fight progress. Surely we are not so quickly reduced to ad-hominem attacks. Surely there are reasoned explanations?
In short, what is wrong with looking before we leap? I think we all agree that a lot of disturbing science fiction revolves around scientists who should have stepped back and wondered: "Should I really be doing this?"
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.
My blog
If you put it that way, you make it seem that government funding is crucial to success. This is also Simply Wrong.
Unless of course you'd like to argue that all companies from Pfizer to Microsoft rose to their prominence on the coat-tails of federal grants.
Federal funding is a great thing to have, especially when you're NOT in the business environment, and DO NOT have to deliver results with immediate profit potential.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Since they can do so much good to mankind, why not just create 'farms' to harvest stem cells as we need them.
There are plenty of undesireables we can use to populate the 'farm'.
Just think of all the wonderful things we can do to help the people in need.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Just for the record, I think you should gloss over NIH, NIMH, and NSF, to see how much scientific research is funded by the gov't.
Research universities are funded by the gov't. Labs are built with government money. Supplies are shipped courtesy of Uncle Sam.
"Private Funding" is BS in academia.
On that note, "there was no federal funding before Bush chose to allow this limited funding" is also crap. The issue became large during his term in office; it's an issue of research and medicine, it should have nothing to do with the President's Approval. Pointing to the fact that it happened during his term in office is a bogus coincidence. It would be like saying President Lincoln was a homophobe because he never addressed issues of Gay Marriage, or that Washington was totally insensitive to AIDS issues. Bush gave meager funding to something that should be totally outside of his authority.
We have panels of scientists that can decide whether or not to approve Grants for medicinal and scientific research, we don't need totally unscientific neoconservatives doing it for us, thank you very much.
That might explain the difference in tone between the two pieces. The Betterhumans article sounds very promsing while the Beeb's is very toned down and doubtful.
But before you go and say, well duh maybe a website called Betterhumans is obviously going to put a positive spin on things, here's two more links on the Tennessee research that sound similarly enthusiastic.
One from Wired
And one from Medical News Today
monsters devouring their own offspring for the fountain of youth.
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.
Technoli
Frankenstein's monster.
That it is NOT an "all-new" human life.
They've taken an egg. Trillions go out with the trash or down the drain every day.
They've replaced the eggs DNA with a bit from a human who needs some parts. Is it an "all-new" life, or just a bit of tissue belonging to that human yet not attached to him/her/it at the moment?
Let that egg divide until you've a batch of material that has yet to differentiate into distinct organs. Is it an "all-new" human or is it a collection of cells belonging to the human from which they originated?
Even for those who follow a religion that dictates, "life begins at conception", there should be no argument that it is life, at this stage, because there has been no conception.
Where to draw the line. An egg can be made to divide and grow without the introduction of any foreign DNA. Is there a problem with not applying technology to every egg that comes along? They are no less 'potential' humans than the egg that has had some foreign DNA introduced.
So, does life begin at conception? Does it begin with the first division? The 64.000th division?
As for extending life. Lifespan is programmed into the DNA. The parts should expire about the same time as undamaged individual equipment. So, even if the thing were nurtured ot the point of becoming self aware, which seems to be a pretty agreeable moral line in the OEM DNA was programmed for.
Answer me this, if you know. When does "life" begin?
How is it that such an ordinarily enlightened group of people that gather here, can become JUST LIKE the fundamentalists they hate when presented with a hot-button issue.
Why can't we evaluate the moral and ethical implications of this? Why is anyone who attempts to do so instantly labeled a "luddite" or someone who tries to fight progress. Surely we are not so quickly reduced to ad-hominem attacks. Surely there are reasoned explanations?
In short, what is wrong with looking before we leap? I think we all agree that a lot of disturbing science fiction revolves around scientists who should have stepped back and wondered: "Should I really be doing this?"
I thought you said 'derived from human groans..'
People who have the $$$$ will get stem cells created for them and kept on the shelf in labs. After all, that's what's great about stem cells - they'll reproduce indefinitely, until you put them in an environment where they get the right cues to specialize.
If stem cells turn out to be the universal replacement part bank, their creation and maintenance will probably start out as an expensive boutique service, mushroom into big business, and end up as a government-subsidised service in developed countries. Imagine egg donation being promoted as a public service, like blood donation is today.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
There was some news recently about some reseach that managed to grow oocytes (eggcells) from a small section of ovarian tissue. Because you can increase the hormone concentrations much higher in vitro (no egg donor suffering from a total hormonal imbalance and risking breast cancer) they were able to grow hundreds of oocytes from it. While the tissue still needs to be cut from a donor, in theory this could be combined with this research to generate even easier stem cells.
here is a link to the article
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Yeah someday I will learn never to pres submit without a preview...
anyways here is the link:
Oogenesis in cultures derived from adult human ovaries
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
This study shows that embryonic stem cells can be derived using nuclear transfer from patients with illness
Now the nuclear boogeyman is involved.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
...you just couldn't pay taxes on it.
We could also get rid of home loans - not illegal for poor and middle class to own homes, just not possible either.
The FCC released quite a few low power radio station licences a while back for small town broadcasting (like 3-5 mile range) but never provided a way to get one.
no money = no progress.
Maybe this should be retitled how the rich became immortal.
hmmm...
1 trimester = (9 months / 3) = 3 months
so 57 trimesters = 57 * 3 months = 171 months = 14.25 years...
that's a long time to leave your bun in the oven.
Seriously - you want to investigate some scary stuff, do some googling on "Dominionists", as well as Dominionism. For extra "giggles", throw in names of prominent government officials (don't worry about the party affiliation - I would be more surprised if there weren't any liberals pushing for a theocracy than I would be if there were!) as search terms, and see what you see. Certainly, most of your hits will likely come from republican affiliates, but be vigilant and look for others.
The more I see of this, the more I wonder where we are going as a country. This is scary shit - it is the Dominionist agenda to use the voting apathy of average American citizen against them and place in power theocratic elements throughout our governmental organizations (local, state and federal), with the express purpose to undermine our government and the Constitution with the outcome of setting up a theocratic state in its place.
I am sorry, but this smacks of treason, against the our country and our citizens. Unfortunately, most don't know, many wouldn't care if they knew, and those that would care may be too few in number to do anything about it at this late date in our history. These people have been working at this for (ultimately) close to 100 years, but only recently, within the last 15 or so years, have they made a steady and progressive push to put this in place quickly and decisively.
If they are successful, and liberals and moderates among us do nothing, I see the future for the world a very bleak place. America will likely become a starving hell-hole, if we are lucky. If we are unlucky, we will likely get World War III, and the Dominionist's version of Armagedden - there will likely be no coming back from that...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
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for the sole purpose of replacing decrepit human functionality. A machine which the human integrates fully into his consciousness and for his reality becomes an part of his self? What if this machine were designed to supplement a portion of the human brain? What about the case where ever more of the human brain is replaced until only the machine is left. This machine, had it been assembled all at once and given all the other components of a human as functionally equivilent machine parts may well incorporate these parts and form it's own consciousness. Is it wrong to keep these parts errrr apart? Is it wrong to assemble them? Is the assemblage a human?
Don't laugh. It's a fact that the brain incorporates machines into it's concept of self when they are attached to humans. It's not much of a stretch to suggest that the same thing would happen when those machines are designed to perform brain, rather than say penis function.
Let's say this machine were biological rather than electromechanical in nature? Forget the brain part though. We've altered the DNA ever so slightly and this biological machine will never develop a brain. Recent argument from religious dogmatists did not dispute the idea of putting down a brain dead woman, only that her brain may not have been dead based on their uneducated interpretation of outward appearances.
This reminds me of, "Dolphins don't want to hurt you, they've always got a smile".
because I read:
by Woo Suk Hwang
As "by Who Suk Hwang".
In other news...
. stem.cells/
President Bush on Friday threatened to veto a bill expanding public funding for embryonic stem cell research that could make it to his desk by early next week
http://money.cnn.com/cnn/2005/POLITICS/05/20/bush
...Presidential candidate Jeffrey Knight (Peter Graves).
(CLONUS)
As usual, fact follows fiction.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
well, not really.
for spinal cord injury (brown-sequard syndrome (hemisection) or whatsoever), I don't think embryonic stem cells are going to do any good in this field unless we have a very careful computer controlled 'neuron repair' or 'neuron association' process which automagically associate neurons with what they should associate.
Right, neurons do have their plasticity in brain and even if connection goes wrong it can still work. But then do anybody here know what regenerates fastest when stem cells are put into spinal cord hemisections? C-fibres! those unmyelinated fibres which confers PAIN and temperature sense in the spinothalamic tract.
depends on how you think human experiements has been done in china but most of the result is basically they get something back, like 3 moving muscle in arm (that's not a hell lot, come on) and they also get some really painful life and become dependent on analgesics. Depends on how you think they may or may not be a good thing.
ketamine-bp
I for one don't welcome Baron Karza as my new armor-wearing overlord. Commander Rann? Captain Universe? Bug? are you out there?
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/st ory/0,9865,1486811,00.html
And an artificial womb. It's only a matter of time before all that will be required is a sample of genetic material, skin scraping etc.
Deleted
anything from the clone wars? stop or we will have an evil sith lord rule us.
Bush's response
0 .html
Bush Blasts Human Clone Research
Associated Press
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,67586,0
08:40 AM May. 20, 2005 PT
The White House on Friday condemned research in South Korea for producing human embryros through cloning and said President Bush would veto any legislation that loosens federal restrictions in the United States on embryonic stem cell research.
White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."
Separately, he said the president would veto legislation to permit spending government money for stem cell research that would destroy human embryos. A measure by Reps. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) and Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) would lift Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines.
Bush, in his fifth year in office, has not yet exercised his first veto. The White House also promised a veto this week of a highway bill if it exceeded the administration's spending limits.
Bush began the day at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he was cheered for urging people to "pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life."
The remark was a public reaffirmation of his position on sensitive issues such as abortion and stem cell research.
Bush recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II and said, "The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak."
Bush won 52 percent of the Roman Catholic vote in last year's election and got the support of 56 percent of white Catholics, defeating the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party since John F. Kennedy. In 2000, Bush narrowly lost the Catholic vote.
End of story
i understand that the stem cell research is very controversear issue but i can't understand why the other country has to follow what Bush sas!
The South Korea is not the U.S. and also, the California spons the stem cell research.
It's nonsence to determine the evil axis only because the Korean scientist discovered the increadible bio technology
Wouldn't that be until the kid is like 14 years old?
You needn't worry. There's always Canada for
cowards like you.
http://stemcells.nih.gov/index.asp It has a very good executive summary on stem cells and some good references. A good introductory text book on developmental biology will also be helpful for understanding the basics. I don't know of one offhand since it's been a while but you should be able to google and find what introductory courses use these days.
Conservatives can go so far without hurting the Scientific innovations. Let all of us Americans go pray for a cure for Diabetes while the rest of the world does some serious research. Talkig of which there was a recent breakthrough here that you live longer if you pray.
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.
Yeah, that's why only the government funds drug research.
Oh, wait...
Nah. You don't think religious belief is fine, because as soon as someone espouses one, you and the rest of your DU psychopathic buddies start automatically parroting the "Dont cram that shit down my throat you fascist babyfucker neocon doodiehead" bullshit. Whether or not they've actually said anything about government at all.
You're at the forefront of a shockwave of terror and intimidation aimed at the religious, and the Christian in particular. Blast them with hate and murderous insinuations until they reject the "foul" beliefs and forsake their God - that's what you do. You're no better than the Taliban.
I bet that if murder wasn't illegal, you'd kill anyone you knew or even suspected of being religious. Better have them dead than take a chance of them 'tainting' the real humans, right?
Are you suggesting that the government should never fund research if some segment of the population is opposed to it?
"Every sperm is sacred,
Every sperm is good,
And when a sperm is wasted,
Then God gets quite irate!"
http://augustwestproducts.i8.com
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I'm totally for the killing of embryos.
If killing embryos results in fewer of these human larvae growing up become more obese morally outraged hypocritical consumer mindless sheep, it can only be a good thing. Especially since the next generation will just go on to pop out more of these vile spawn and on and on until we start eating each other or something like a cage full of rats.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
now that's a name!
100% False. Go to church, pray with your family, live your life as you see fit, turn off the TV when you want, buy the type of CDs you like, visit the kind of neighbors you enjoy being around. Nobody objects to any of that.
"You're at the forefront of a shockwave of terror and intimidation aimed at the religious, and the Christian in particular. Blast them with hate and murderous insinuations until they reject the "foul" beliefs and forsake their God - that's what you do. You're no better than the Taliban."
100% False. I just want to be left alone, but the Christian Right keeps wanting to dictate my life. They are the Taliban, not those of us who want to be left alone.
"I bet that if murder wasn't illegal, you'd kill anyone you knew or even suspected of being religious. Better have them dead than take a chance of them 'tainting' the real humans, right?"
100$ False. In fact, just the opposite. I don't believe in violence, unlike Christianity which is bloody from one ond of its history to another. They are the ones who want their God to kill the rest of humanity. I just want to be left alone, as I would leave them alone.
So given the current administration's view on embryonic stem cell research what are the chances that the US will remain a powerful force in this arena? Also thanks can be given the current administration for the future demise of US based research and the outsourcing of research by for profit companies. Buck up kids... might want to consider a career in corporate backstabbing leadership or even politics as those are going to be the only types of employment that will lead to riches.
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
--Chinese Proverb
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
those silly, stupid American conservatives.
Those IDIOTS said that if you federally funded stem cell research using new human-derived cell lines, it would just be a slippery slope from that to the point where people would be created just to be exploited, like creating clones so that we could disassemble them for their useful parts.
What craziness was that, huh? I guess we've shown them!
I mean, everyone knows that clones aren't REALLY humans, and aren't entitled to life, liberty, those sorts of things.
-Styopa
Why does the "right" label anyone who disagrees with poorly planned wars as "cowards"??? Put on your thinking cap, goober, and give free thought a chance...
maybe I'm just being silly, but I'm imaging mass produced "universal soldiers", growing adult humans and using them for spare parts harvesting, clones for slave labor, rich corporate leaders cloning themselves,.....all that crap sci-fi horror movie stuff. No, our governments are way too advanced and good and moral for that to ever happen....
(CNN) -- President Bush on Friday threatened to veto a bill expanding public funding for embryonic stem cell research that could make it to his desk by early next week.
"I made [it] very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life, I'm against that," Bush told reporters. "Therefore if the bill does that, I will veto it."
It would mark the first veto of Bush's presidency.
If he thinks these 1-cell embryos are people, then I would like to see him attend a funeral for a 1st trimester miscarriage.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If you were right the USSR would have beaten us in the arms race. The USSR took your position that the research should be done by the government. They didn't beat us because our private companies (like lockheed) outperformed their lame attempts at development and production. The only reason they managed to produce anything at all is because they turned millions of people in their country into slaves who stopped producing wheat and starved death producing weapons.
Government money does fund guns and planes, but thats hardly "fundamental research". The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers -- no one is better at that than the market.
And for every government funded research success that you mention, billions of dollars were wasted supporting untold numbers of spectacularly failed projects. See NASA and the nationalized space industry. Woopee, we got velcro. Thats worth the trillions of dollars we have spent on gold toilet seats and taking dogs into space. Thats a great investment. Markets would not have wasted that volume of money.
i think you misunderstood the parent. its not that you would get to pay less taxes. its that you could choose where to put your tax money.
there will be a tragedy of the commons regardless because taxes fund a public good.
It creeps me out to think that so many people are behind that guy. Honestly, it gives me the chills.
I "pray" for a day when ignorance is no longer bliss.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
This is certainly good news, but human eggs are still needed, and from what I understand, harvesting them is still time-consuming, painful, and risky.
Damn! I'd be willing to donate sperm. That isn't painful, time consuming, or risky!
A community-oriented lyrics site
No freaking lie ... Where did the Jesus Christ come from then?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Next time you label something as troll, please notice that i'm just stating my point of view. Where does human life begin? Many people believe it's at the moment of conception, so I don't understand how stating this point of view could be labelled as "troll".
Unless of course, I'm stating a point of view that goes against the majority. In that case you're fully welcome to mod me as troll.
Hmph.
Then please go to the link below to fax your opinion to your representatives at no charge.
. asp
http://www.camradvocacy.org/fastaction/takeaction
Why don't you just legalise murder regardless of age? Last I checked, discrimination based on age is illegal, so you need to legalise it for all ages or none.
God have mercy on your soul...
Luke-Jr
Humans have souls. Animals do not.
Animals are purely physical, just as angels are purely spiritual. Humans are "amphibians" and both physical and spiritual.
Luke-Jr
and this is exactly why "fertility treatments" are wrong.
Luke-Jr
I don't see him saying otherwise, either.
Perhaps he really does have proper morals and *does* oppose such treatments.
Why not? She certainly made an attempt to get pregnant (sexually uniting with (hopefully) her husband). Testing for success is available over-the-counter, too.
Can any doctor *ever* be completely sure of such a death? Miracles happen every day (conception is one of them)-- the answer is no, nobody can ever be sure. Thus, killing the one child would still be wrong.
Better to support honourable research such as this suggestion than to support research which involves murdering innocent humans.
And that's the sad state society is in today.
Luke-Jr
God is good. He grants us free will to make decisions between good options and evil options. After all, a good decision is meaningless if you don't have the free will to choose otherwise.
At one time, all humans understood what was right and wrong, as God was their source for such knowledge. When Adam and Eve ate the apple, it did exactly what Satan told them it would do-- it allowed them to judge "right" and "wrong" for themselves, thus throwing all of us into these problems.
God is unknowable by our own will, yes, but that does not mean that He cannot reveal truths to us. God has given us Natural Law, His prophets, and Himself on the cross so that we may learn what is truly good and evil.
Luke-Jr
Until you end up with prostate cancer.
Doing anything solely for pleasure is wrong.
Luke-Jr
In the end, science will never conflict with the true religion (I'll leave it up to the reader to guess what it is; a hint: if organisation is good, wouldn't God's Church be organised?)
What can be done with the stem cells from murdered children that cannot also be done using the cells from unfertilised eggs (as in the article) or from adult stem cells? I don't think you'll find anything...
Luke-Jr
Sperm and egg are only two parts of a human, just as male and female are only two parts of a marriage.
Male supplies the sperm.
Female supplies the egg.
God supplies the soul.
Luke-Jr
First: Life begins when the sperm unites with the egg and God supplies the soul.
Second: It does not, but... *attempting* to create a life (sexually uniting with a spouse) while *actively* trying to prevent it is wrong-- contraceptives *are* a no-no.
Luke-Jr
Wow... talk about bad moderators... This is a troll *how*? I was merely pointing out the difference.
Luke-Jr
If we knew that with absolute certainty, we could have a better moral standing to draw the limit for abortions. Unfortunately that's not possible.
For all we know God knows in advance which egg cells will result in full-term babies, and puts the soul in them before the mother is even born, leaving the remaining eggs without souls. Or maybe it's the eggs that will eventually be fertilized. Or maybe you get your soul at birth or some fixed time prior to birth. Or maybe you get them at 12:01 AM local time on the 20th day after conception. We don't and can't know, any such hypothesis is untestable.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
... needs to be taken with a grain of salt large enough to choke a whale.
Within the last year, there was a press conference in South Korea involving a 37 year old woman who walked again after being paralyzed from the waist down since the age of 16. They claimed that they had implanted umbilical cord stem cells in her spine 3 weeks earlier.
Go ask any physical therapist whether it's possible to support your own weight after 3 weeks of PT after 21 years of atrophy. They'll laugh you out of the building.
Doing this requires preserving every zygote, on the off chance that God ensouls either eggs or sperm before conception.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Humans are humans because they have "souls" or some moral equivalent.
A pure clone has no sperm, so if souls are in the sperm then God better have a backup plan.
My hunch is that a soul, or its moral equivalent, becomes part of a person sometime during pregnancy. I've got no clue in what part - conception, the instant before birth, or some other part, only that it's some part. I am open to the possibility that it happens before or possibly even after, but that's not where I'm placing my bets.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.