Scientists Grow Blood Vessels Using Skin Cells

rubberbando writes "The new york times is running a story about how scientists have discovered a way to grow new blood vessels using skin cells. Since the blood vessels are grown using the patient's own skin cells, there isn't any chance for rejection. This looks to be quite a boon for people who have several damaged blood vessels from diseases such as diabetes. Perhaps one day they will be able to apply this technology/technique to creating other parts of the body and rid us of the whole stem cell controversy. Only time will tell."

Comments

No controversy? Hah!

[TwentyLeaguesUnderLa]

I doubt that it'll rid us of the controversy... because by the time that becomes possible, cloning or genetic modification of some other sort will also have also become possible, and that'll just pick up where the stem cell controversy left off, probably with many of the same arguments on both sides.

Get rid of the stem cell controversy?

[ScentCone]

We can't get rid of something that's projected onto the situation by people who are nervous/scared about what the bio-sciences say about their world view. The stem cell worriers aren't really worried about stem cells or their source, they're worried about how close we're getting to a comfortable understanding of cellular mechanics. That takes the mystery out of a lot things, and devalues mystical explanations (and those social institutions that rely upon them for clout).

Growing new body parts out of other body parts will still freak out a certain number of people, no matter what. If it's not the stem cell faux-controversy, it will be the "only rich people can afford this treatment, so it's evil" crowd or their various other counterparts.

Re:Get rid of the stem cell controversy?

[Grym]

The stem cell worriers aren't really worried about stem cells or their source, they're worried about how close we're getting to a comfortable understanding of cellular mechanics.

Oh please... The debate over Stem cells has nothing to do with scientific understanding of cellular mechanics. If that were the case, Watson and Crick would have been burned at the stake decades ago. No other research involving cellular mechanics has reached this level of public scrutiny. I've never heard anyone debate the ethics of cell-surface recognition proteins or origins of the mitochondria in cells. Let's be honest. The whole stem-cell debate is merely a veiled front for the larger fight over abortion. (I use the word fight because "debate" hardly fits.)

Here's how it happened:

1. The most interesting and scientifically-valuable stem cells are found in developing embryos.
2. Studying these cells requires the destruction of the embryo.
3. This raises the ugly question: if destroying an embryo for research is okay, what makes an abortion any different?
4. Fight ensues. Everybody all the sudden becomes an expert on cellular biology.

That takes the mystery out of a lot things, and devalues mystical explanations (and those social institutions that rely upon them for clout).

Bullshit. "Social instiutions that rely on mystical explanations"? Do you mean "religions"? Why don't you just say it? ...Religions... See how easy that was?

Regardless, science doesn't debunk the larger, more important claims of religion. It can't. Learning about cellular theory doesn't debunk the existence of God. Learning physics doesn't mean that God couldn't temporarily violate the laws of physics at a whim--you know, being omnipotent and all.

Religion and God are meta-physical concepts, while science is the study of the physical world. The two aren't mutually exclusive ideas. A scientist can just as easily believe in a religion as an atheist in science.

-Grym

Takes out the mystery?

[Nerdposeur]

The stem cell worriers aren't really worried about stem cells or their source, they're worried about how close we're getting to a comfortable understanding of cellular mechanics. That takes the mystery out of a lot things, and devalues mystical explanations (and those social institutions that rely upon them for clout).

I can't speak for everyone, but I have a problem with using fetuses for stem cell research, and none whatsoever with this. Medical science can do wonderful things for people (I look forward to when they sythesize blood and eliminate shortages); I just don't want other people to be trampled on in the process.

As for taking the mystery out of things, I think it's just the opposite. The more you understand the universe, the more wonderful it seems. I don't see how knowing the mechanics of cells creates an argument for atheism, as you seem to imply.

Re:Takes out the mystery?

[ScentCone]

I challenge you to give a definition of when something starts to be 'human' that isn't completely arbitrary

It can be very hard to look at a complex organism and say, "that's human, or is about to be," but it's not hard at all to say what is not. A collection of cells that has no functioning higher nervous system is not human. A collection of cells that has no interconnected, differentiated neural tissue at all is absolutely not human (yet). Zygotes, blastocysts, etc., while eventually capable of developing into an embryo and a fetus, are not humans, and have no platform upon which - at that point - to hang "human-ness."

I realize that's more a description of what is not yet human, rather than an answer to your "when is it human" question. I don't need to sweat pinning down that moment, because I know that a dozen dividing cells are way, way on the non-human side of that transition, regardless of when I would identify it in a given fetus.

Re:Takes out the mystery?

[Trigun]

This may seem cold and crass, but think of life as a table. When does the table become a table? When the last coat of lacquer goes on the wood? When the carpenter decides to cut a tree down to carve the table out of? When he actually cuts the tree down? Somewhere inbetween?

We collectively have decided that it's when it's flat enough to put stuff on and not have it fall off. But the artist, might say that it became a table with the inspiration, and the rest was inevitable process. The purchaser might say that it's not a table until it is set up in his dining room. The carpenter might say that it was always a table, and he just removed it from its protective coating.

I think that a table is a table when it has a flat top, and can fufill its designed function. But I respect the carpenter's idea that it was always a table, and the purchaser's idea that it's not really a table until it is actually functioning as a table. I don't really listen to the artist, they're all pseudo batshit-crazy, but I nod and smile so as to get out of there without having to hear how the light reflects of the natural grains of the oak or some shit like that.

Changing any one of the actors ideas of what a table is, is a monumental task, and may never be done.

Re:Stem cells don't come from babies

[Firethorn]

Hate to break it to you, but those people consider your blastocyst to be a living breathing baby. They like popping up pictures of 7-9 month term fetuses/babies on billboards.

Most of them don't mind harvesting 'stem cells' from any source that still results in a born baby (umbilical cords, for example).

Me, I don't care that much, but I can understand their views a bit better than most.