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Scientists Create New Human Embryonic Stem Cell
Homework Help writes "U.S. scientists were successful in creating a new human embryonic stem cell. From source, "U.S. researchers said on Monday they have created a new human embryonic stem cell by fusing an embryonic stem cell to an ordinary skin cell.
They hope their method could someday provide a way to create tailor-made medical treatments without having to start from scratch using cloning technology.
That would mean generating the valuable cells without using a human egg, and without creating a human embryo, which some people, including President George W. Bush, find objectionable.
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I just read an article about this, don't know how close it is to this one, but it was stated that the converted stem cells retain the DNA of the doner. The significance of this is that any organ or body part derived from that stem cell could be safely transplanted into that person without fear of rejection. Nifty.
What if embryos are about to be destroyed? Can the cells be harvested from those?
Please do not resort to the slippery-slope argument for these questions. Thank you.
Science, like life, will always find a way :)
Btw with regards to the first post, I believe that the line defining a person varies according to ethical belief, and argument 99.9% of the time in matters involving such belief tend to be pointless. I could make an argument saying that masturbation is mass murder and at the other end, that a child does not qualify as a sentient being. I personally believe neither, but I'd just like to point the futility in arguing such points unless either side is willing to keep an open mind.
However, to ignore any ethical debate on such issues is just as ignorant as some would paint the opposition.
I understand that most of the embryo's are leftover from fertility treatments and would otherwise be discarded. What moral qualms could be had for experimenting on something that would otherwise go in the trash?
Why aren't the religious zealots freaking out about the "unborn" being unceremoniously dumped into a biohazard waste bin at the fertility clinic the same way they freak out if they experiment on it, possibly saving lives in the process?
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
The problem with stem cells is that conditions must be met for those cells to become differentiated cells.
Take a skin-type stem cell. It will have to have some kind of trigger to tell it to turn into a skin cell and not say..a nerve cell that attaches to the skin, or an oil-producing-cell, etc. These triggers are tiny, have to be given at the right time, and probably won't be easy to produce.
Its like having a batch of nano-goop that will eat the resources available and turn itself into an object, but you have to find out how to tell it that, by hand.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
That would mean generating the valuable cells without using a human egg, and without creating a human embryo, which some people, including President George W. Bush, find objectionable. = FLAMEBAIT
Even if it should say "destroying" instead of "creating" in that sentence, why is it flamebait?
Targeting stem cell research is merely a way of winning over voters who dislike what they perceive as the demystifying of "humanity" by science without alienating people who are in favor of fertility treatments.
At what point do you decern the difference between cells we can destroy and ones we can't? I mean, you wouldn't have any objection to me eating an apple. It is, by your, and many others definition, alive. What is I chopped off my own arm? Am I not allowed to destroy it? It certainly is "alive". More so than the embryos that people are "destroying".
Would it be murder if I drown a kid that was born with no brain?
Personally, I think the whole idea of "life" isn't what we should or DO care about. It should be conciousness. We should not destroy a concious being. It should be illegal to destroy conciousness... not the ambiguous "life" you speak of.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
This whole debate is simply railing about closing the barn door after the cows have come home. If all these people who find stem cells from aborted embryos so despicable really meant it, they'd be demanding an end to the use of reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization. I still wouldn't agree with them, but at least there would be some consistency in their platform.
It would be one thing if we were talking about actually producing an embryo whose only purpose was to produce stem cells. Yes, that would be a pretty thorny issue, but these embryos already exist and it seems to me that if they can be used to produce therapies with promise for everything from Alzheimers to spinal cord injuries, then it is cruelty in the extreme to withhold those embryos that are being aborted legally anyways.
Sure, down the road, we probably won't need embryos at all, and our understanding of developmental biology will allow us to do all these things and much much more, but for the moment, this research holds an enormous amount of promise, and is using what is already there.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So what is your stance on the destruction of unused embryos at fertility clinics? Why hasn't there been as vocal outcry from Christians regarding that as there has been for stem cells from embryos?
Unfortunately, a lot of this research gets picked up by the anti- side and used as evidence for the (false) view that scientists are just "lazy" or politically motivated, and there are lots of alternatives to embryonic stem cells just lying around if they were willing to use them. Unfortunately, most of these alternatives are not ready for prime time, and won't be for years, maybe decades-- if ever (in fact, you'll see many of them melt away, never to be heard from again once science proves them dangerous or unsatisfactory). Most scientists would like to see this research happening now, because even if it takes decades to result in a cure, a five year head start could mean useable treatments a few years earlier than if we wait. And in some cases, that could save thousands of lives.
You'll also notice that most of the embryonic stem cell research plans currently being proposed make use of excess embryos from IVF clinics, and only after effort has been expended to reduce over-production and boost embryo adoption (which currently is not very successful, but might take off with enough encouragement). Surprisingly few mainstream politicians and scientists are strongly advocating therapeutic cloning, although that technology has even more promise.
If you find it morally or ethically objectionable to destroy human embryos then you'd better get down to your local fertility clinic and start protesting. They routinely fertilize 50-70 eggs for implantation and when one (or four or eight) finally takes, the remaining dozens are destined either for stem cell research or the incinerator.
At least in research they're giving their 'lives' to the possible benefit of may sick individuals. Otherwise, in the vocabulary of the Anti-Choicers, they're just abortions by the crate load.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Jesus loves you, I think you suck
So it is somewhat analagous to eating chicken eggs? I never understood why vegetarians won't eat eggs. (I understand why Vegans don't) Eggs we eat are the unfertalized ones, so they won't ever become chicks. Even if we don't eat them. (Not to be totally vile, but the same way that the egg that ebds up on a maxi pad each month will never become a human)
They actually check the chicken eggs before shipping them off to be eaten....
On the converse- get caught destroying a bald eagle or a piping plover egg, and see how the government feels about the "not yet born."
I am going to be honest- I have trouble formenting an opinion on stem cells, because each time I lean one way, something pulls me back in the other direction. My question, if stem cells lead to a cure for cancer, will those who opposed the stem cell research boycott the treatment, and die?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
I can't believe I'm actually replying to an AC, but here goes.
I can only speak for the US, and this only applies to research that is not Black or Grey (secret or top secret status). But any publicly funded research requires the results to be public. If the research is privately funded then the results of the research is property of the private company that funded it. Private companies do not make it policy to share research. This means that _only_ publicly funded research is available for others to follow without having to pay for a patent or trademark.
I guess my point here is that Human intellectual advancement is hampered by private research. only because the results of that research are not always made public unless the private entity sees a way of turning a buck off of it.
This is good. But I'm not clear on what is the benefit when you are starting with a stem cell and ending with a stem cell. How is the new cell different.
Also, I think the fundamental issue about stem cells and anti-abortion in general is that both sides are not talking about the same thing.
Pro-Life looks at human life as precious. Without looking at what life is being lived.
Pro-Choice is looking at when human consciousness and a valuable like begin AND end. Often, they are proponents of the "Right to Die". Brain dead is looked at as not a useful life, nor is extreme pain looked at as something people should endure.
The difference between a human cluster of embryonic cells and those of a monkey or a rat are only in the genes that eventually will be expressed. Personally, I don't see the difference morally between Embryonic stem cells and somebody taking a bath. Both entail killing human cells that carry a human genetic code. The idea that we are killing human life by using the Embryonic Stem Cells will be stood on its ear as soon as we can make a human from a skin cell, or any number of cells not currently involved in reproduction. So is it that the gene is sacred? Or the fact that a cell is involved in reproduction? Is a person created from a skin cell going to be just as valid/human as a "natural born" person.
I think, when you look at life and humanity from a consciousness/value perspective --then it is a lot easier to deal with new advances in science and leads to rights and ethical treatment for new type of life we have not yet considered.
The ethics of "Right to Life" don't seem to be based on value of life at all, but in preserving either a sacred DNA or a sacred reproductive cell. Note, that there is no issue with non-reproductive cells, nor is their any issue with DNA. It seems, that because it is human DNA involved in reproduction it automatically becomes sacred. The ethical quagmire this will put us in will only get worse as science continues. There hasn't been enough discussion of what we actually value when we say the word "life".
I think the bigger issue comes when we can tinker with genes to "improve people". Many would say that increasing intelligence, or reducing disease would be OK. But it is much harder to really define what makes people smarter or more useful. And any improvement ends up becoming mixed with Social Engineering. But we cannot ignore that. We are going to Engineer Society just as much by ignoring differences as we are by creating them. If the wealthy can enhance (and they will--maybe overseas) then aren't you going to end up with a lower tier of humanity by NOT making it affordable/acceptable for the lower classes to enhance?
But then, what do we want to improve--and what are the results? Some may want to tweak people to become "more religious" or "less likely to prefer same sex" -- these are probably going to actually end up being the "easier" of things to change. This will probably be the hardest and most difficult ethical debate humanity has ever faced (until robots think, that is). I don't think present society is up to the debate, because we still don't seem to have caught on to really understanding WHY we hold certain beliefs. We also seem to have become addicted to self-righteousness on both sides that will hamper our ability to find common ground.
I personally think, a lot of this issue is clouded by positions people have taken and personal identity and positions are more polarized by political opportunism. Until that changes, I don't feel very hopeful.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
On a completely different look at in vitro fertilization and if we as a society should allow it is the fact that there are a lot of orphaned children that need families. By allowing in vitro fertilization we not only generate the ethical questions raised above, but also create an environment in which children that would have been adopted by otherwise children less couples are raised without proper parental love and care. I think we would be better off finding caring homes for these children, than just creating more children through artificial means.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
This is a line I see frequently from people who really should know better. As if nobody was having this debate anyway, as if it wouldn't happened without the President f*ing up research for years.
What's particularly aggravating about it is that iit basically means "sure maybe it was a bad call, but it's all good because we had this good debate". Or in other words: "yes, the position is probably wrong", but at least I made us kill a few years talking about it. I would almost rather people be firmly on the other side than to offer such a lame justification for bad decisionmaking.
Worse, instead of giving us something to debate, the President tried to have it both ways with a poorly thought-out "compromise" that looked good, but really wasn't-- and he then ignored the issue for years. So while most people were figuring out that the President had not actually offered a reasonable compromise at all, years of progress slid away. Meanwhile the public has discussed these issues ad nauseum (for years!) and come to a broad consensus in favor of research. Yet the President and many members of Congress have made it clear that there's still no room in their philosophy (or their constituents' checkbooks) for digression on this issue. So that's not much to smile about.
If any "side" of this argument has the right to be aggrieved, it's the pro-research folks, and the scientists who have had their work shut down for reasons inadequately explained, and inadequately justified. Not the people who can't even justify the decision on its merits, but hide behind the notion that scientists were just looking to chop up embryos without "debate".
I think the biggest issue here is exactly how people define life. Right now the focus seems to be around "if there's conception, there's life", though there's all sorts of issues that make things complicated. Stem cells from umbilical cords seem fine to most folks because it's something typically seen as tossed away. Extracting bulk stem cells from people's brains is probably a no-no, though stem cells from fat tissue is fine.
The bottom line is that there's no obvious definition over what constitutes a living person and what isn't. As someone with a master's degree in biology, I've decided there never is going to be one ("life" will be one of those words like "justice" or "freedom" that mean many things to many people).
What people will find, of course, is that there's a way to reprogram adult cells so that it looks and acts just like embryonic stem cells. Of course, that means that you could turn it into something that looks an awful like a human being. If any cell in your body has the potential for turning into a full-grown human, does that mean liposuction is murder? If I create a stem cell from scratch, can I grow them to term and sell them as non-human slaves?
I'm not necessarily advocating either side in the debate, only that it's one of those ethical decisions rather than something science dictates as fact. I suspect it'll be argued over for many decades to come.
Hey, as long as you're speaking for all Christians everywhere -- evidently including me and my extended family, despite none of us ever having signed over any plenipotentiary powers to you -- why don't you go ahead and just tell us what God thinks? You're already speaking for other human beings whose minds you plainly DO NOT KNOW; why not go for the Go(l)d?
See, there's a subtle distinction to be made, there -- or really a not so subtle one, yeah? -- about your own views versus those of all Christianity. It's a distinction that you've missed a handful of times in the course of your three sentence post.
Which makes me a little wary of handing over any sort of moral authority to you and your like-minded authoritarian wannabes when it comes to medical science. You dig?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
From what I hear, most conservatives base their opposition to embryonic stem cell research based on their belief that life begins at conception, producing a unique organism that God grants a unique soul.
I have several questions for all of you:
1) Conception takes place before implantation in the uterus. If you don't already know, many contraceptives work by blocking implantation. Since a conceived zygote is being blocked from developing further (and will die), is this murder?
2) At the stage the cells are taken from (blastocyst), a biologist could divide the inner cell mass (any one of which is used for embryonic SCR) and what would happen is that twins or triplets would develop. If you believe each child is given a unique soul at conception, does that soul also divide into two or three? Or does God give "last-minute" souls out?
My point, if it's not clear, is that embryonic stem cells are taken at a stage when it is not individually unique. A lot of people also seem to be happy with either in vitro fertilization or birtch control pills while opposing embryonic stem cell research.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
So the egg and sperm were dead before you tossed them in a test tube together?
The truth is, life is a continuous chain that extends back billions of years. This will be true regardless of what happens in a clinic.
While I agree with you on some parts, I think our overall positions are very different. I agree that the organism created by the combining of an egg and sperm starts at conception. I disagree on the point that it is a human life....
It is certainly a human cell. It has the full compliment of genes...but so does a skin cell. If you took a skin cell and put it in a petri dish would you call it a human life? Would you debate over it? Would some people kill over it? A single skin cell is fully capable of becoming a full grown human being through cloning. In fact there is only really a single step difference between growing up a skin cell and growing up a fertilized egg....
On top of that, the bible disagrees with your asertion that human life begins at conception. There are many different refferences to life begining with the first breath. Therefore human life only begins at birth... Plus the bible very clearly states that an unborn fetus is NOT the same as a child after birth. If you accidentally kill a child you could be stoned...if you accidentally caused a miscarriage you couldn't.
Stem-cell cures are probably two decades away, if proven viable.
No side of the stem-cell debate is AT all honest.
On the left...
The pro-embryonic research crew is 1, telling sick people that George Bush is killing them, when in fact they have a death sentence and stem cell research may cure FUTURE patents, but not likely the current ones.
This is more about politics than anything else. A prohibition on federal funds isn't a prohibition on research. Bush was the first President to approve ANY funding, and allowed it for pre-existing lines. That may not be enough lines for major research, but it should have given a start to doing some of the basic research to determine if this is viable. Unfortunately, people would rather play politics. I expect the pro-choice crowd to be EXTREMELY upset at this research, that manages to create research lines WITHOUT destroying life, as many of the vocal members aren't focused on the research, but a believe that every embryo destroyed someone secures their agenda.
On the right...
Federal funding is generally key to any EARLY stage research. Cutting off federal funds DOES slow down basic research.
This is a closet attempt to deal with their moral issues with IVF, not the activity, but the discarding of embryos.
If this discovery is confirmed then it means that Bush's compromise worked out wonderfully, whether you like him or not. He allowed the basic research to continue, and scientists found a solution.
Do you think that if every undergrad biology student could get a vial of embryos as part of a basic lab class (if you listen to the argument on the left that there is NO MORAL question), this research would have been heavily pushed or developed?
The pro-choice crowd was EXTREMELY excited about the ability to destroy more embryos as part of their "proof" that embryos aren't life. The pro-life crowd wanted to start developing embryonic rights. Somehow, Bush managed to placate the religiously motivated conservatives while allowing the research to go on, and low-and-behold, someone may have found a solution that solves the whole problem.
Alex
Because they don't want you to be cured.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I prefer brown eggs. I like getting them while they are still warm. People never believe me until they actually try them, but eggs that have been out from under the hen for just a few minutes before you cook them taste very different than what you get at the supermarket, or even free range eggs.
A lot of city folks will buy free range stuff that is 5 times as expensive than the regular stuff, yet not very different in either taste or the way the chickens live. I know city dwellers like to think that those of us who were raised on farms are idiots, but we do get a chuckle out of being able to sell an egg for $2 because the chicken was, um, "happy"....
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Ohhh the bible is just the cliff notes. That makes sense, God is all powerful, but yet can't express himself properly.
Please, that's BS
This new take that bible is not to be taken literally is an attempt to give meaning to a book that has largely lost it's meaning in the modern world. The bible was written by combining a bunch of second hand stories and by a bunch of people with nothing better to do then follow around a guy who said he was the son of God.
If your willing to admit that the is not the word of God then why obey it at all?
For all you know Moses was lieing when he said the commandments were written by God and he jotted them down himself. But you still believe that killing is against god don't you? Why do you pick and choose the parts of the bible that need 'interpreting' and the parts that are clear? I'll tell you why, because it's an attempt at justification of your beliefs. Your weak mindedness can't allow you accept that there might be no God, that some question might go unanswered, that you need God to give your life meaning. And so when forced to choose between what's right (example being women's rights, which the bible is also against) and your faith that says they shouldn't have any rights you try to have your cake and eat it to.
The hypocrisy of it all just piss me off to no end.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Really? Government-financed research is at least in the public domain, and any entrepreneur who can see an opportunity is welcome to take the results of that research & run as far & as fast as they can go.
By contrast, and especially with the current state of our "intellectual property" laws, anything developed by a private interest will be doled out at whatever rate will maximize profit - and any attempts at competition will be ruthlessly stamped out.
Do you really think leaving basic research up to private concerns yields the most benefit for society?
I violently disagree with the idea that all people should keep their damn noses out of all the affairs of other people.
Unless, of course, you claim that "a fetus is not a human being" and has the same rights as, say, a fly. But if you say that, then we can have a meaningful discourse about the nature of life, man, and society. But I don't think you want that.