Human Based Stem Cell Culture Medium Developed

ubersonic writes "A new culture medium for growing human stem cells -- that contains no animal products -- is offering researchers a cleaner and therefore safer environment for performing the cutting-edge technology. The discovery means that stem cells developed for therapeutic use can be transferred directly to human subjects. By using this medium all of the concerns about contaminating proteins in existing stem cell lines can essentially be removed."

Comments

Interesting Discovery

[IntelliAdmin]

This is a very interesting discovery. Could this totally remove the argument about stem cell research? Since it sounds like they are able to produce Stem Cells without using other human tissue to do it.

Re:Interesting Discovery

[Tallweirdo]

This doesn't change anything wrt the debate about if it's right - which is primarily over the fact that the most useful stem cells still come from aborted fetuses, which nearly all anti-abortion advocates think is immoral.

It is my understanding that research stem cells do not come from aborted fetuses but instead from fetuses or fertilised eggs created for IVF (In-Vitro Fertilisation) but not implanted. This is an important distinction as surplus IVF fetuses are eventually destroyed (incinerated as biological waste) after the mother successfully gives birth.

Stem cell research is performed using fetuses that would have been destroyed anyway. Can anybody argue that using them for research is morally any worse than simply destroying them?

Re:Interesting Discovery

[asliarun]

One question: Do the scientists have a moral obligation to get the parents' approval before they commence their experiments? Agreed, the extra fetuses or eggs would have been incinerated anyway. Nonetheless, a parent might still feel icky if they learnt that their fetuses are being used for experiments. In any case, the parents are paying the clinic to help them get a baby, NOT to aid stem cell research.

Disclaimer: I'm definitely not one of those anti stem-cell fanatics. That should not preclude us from raising moral or ethical issues about how these experiements are conducted, however. In any case, most doctors/researchers have such an inflated ego or god complex that they would not even think twice before trampling an individual's basic human values.

[rant] To digress wildly, why are doctors the only breed that give you an appointment after a week and *then* make you wait for 2 hours in the waiting room. Would you take the same shit if it was your carpenter or lawyer? Someone should sue their egotistical asses, i tell you.[/rant]

Re:Interesting Discovery

[RodgerDodger]

Re: Rant. Because a good doctor actually takes time to sit down with their patients and diagnose the issue. If a particular appointment takes an hour instead of the 15 minutes scheduled, then it takes an hour. Doctors schedule their days around average appointment durations, but this invariably means that there will be overruns that will cause delays. These delays get absorbed by the appointments that run short, or by the various buffer periods that doctors schedule in.

On those (rare!) occasions when the buffer period isn't used in catchup, the doctors fit in other work.

Running late is actually a sign of a good doctor - if there's never a delay, the doctors are working to the clock, not the patient.

Happy?

Re:Interesting Discovery

[hunterx11]

There are always hardliners, but as time passes they become less and less relevant. There are still plenty of people against IVF, but it's pretty accepted. There's almost no one against organ transplantation. And you'd be seriously hard-pressed to find someone against using analgesic drugs during birth for moral reasons. Stem cell research will almost certainly become uncontroversial during the lifetimes of young people today, or at least much sooner than human cloning.

Re:Interesting Discovery

[TubeSteak]

And you'd be seriously hard-pressed to find someone against using analgesic drugs during birth for moral reasons.

Not to seem like I'm making fun of your point, but Scientologists seem to have some moral objection to painkillers during birth.

I don't think stem cell research will become uncontroversial, but I do agree that the people who're objecting will eventually become marginalized in the debate.

Stem cell research will progress whether they like it or not, both domestically (in some cases, without federal funds) and overseas, where they have very few restrictions.

Contamination

[nativequeue]

It has been shown that an animal based culture medium will contaminate the stem cell line.
Might this still happen in the long run, just contaminated with human molecules, as they mix with the growth medium?

Re:Orthogonal issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the psychological impact of having an abortion. I doubt there are very women that look upon abortions all that trivially, despite what religious fundamentalists want to believe.

Stem Cell Research and Ethics

[peterfa]

I appear to be alone in my opinion.

While I find it great that technology can find cures and whatnot, I find stem-cell research rather unethical. Stem-cell research is using the bodies of wouldbe humans. Now I say wouldbe but in reality these are full human beings. They are hardly developed however, but they have all the components to grow into babies, so they are completely human. Stem-cell research would be taking a body of another human being, and changing it's growth pattern to become part of someone else.

I know that this could allow people to walk, but I think that other methods must be found in instead of Stem-cell treatments.

This is essentially playing God in the worst sense. While many of us might not believe in God, certain, this violates the sanctity of life. Would you want to be used as a treatment into someones body, instead of growing into a human?

I know that many of these come from fertility treatment, and would be disposed of anyways. If this were to happen to you, do you find it would be ethical to turn you into a treatment rather then to returned into non-existance? Your state as a Stem-cell treatment would be nothing more than a few cells in somebodies back. This is a horrible existance. It would be better simply to not exist, because either way, you wouldn't be conscious, just in the latter you would be worse off.

In the least, Stem-cell research is pretty creepy if you ask me.

Re:Stem Cell Research and Ethics

[Firethorn]

Given the success of cloning, it could be argued that any cell culture could be reformed into a complete animal. We can't do that quite yet with humans, but we're pretty close.

Would you want to be used as a treatment into someones body, instead of growing into a human?

Wouldn't be me. Obviously you're a member of the soul on fertilization camp. Which would you rather be? Part of a cell culture that's saved the life of another human, allowed somebody to see, to walk, etc or to be incinerated with half a dozen others as 'medical waste' because you didn't happen to be the one implanted?

Besides, for actual treatment they're more likely to use cloned or artificial stem cells to prevent rejection by the immune system.

Somebody should probably mod this guy up. I don't agree with him, but he's a perfect example of the anti-stemcell viewpoint.

Re:Stem Cell Research and Ethics

[giorgiofr]

I disagree with almost everything you said but I won't flame you because you are being polite in your exposition. That said, I think there is a big flaw in your reasoning that I want to comment on.

Would you want to be used as a treatment into someones body, instead of growing into a human? [...] Do you find it would be ethical to turn you into a treatment rather then to returned into non-existance? [...] Your state as a Stem-cell treatment would be nothing more than a few cells in somebodies back. This is a horrible existance.

I am sorry but there is nothing "besides" or "outside" life/living. You're implying the existance of some sort of sentient being who would suffer under certain conditions and would like a different treatment: but such sentient being, by your very definitions of the circumstances (not being born at all), cannot exist. You're kinda condraticting yourself. So, to answer: *I* wouldn't find it funny to be turned into a treatment; but it's the real, living, *I* that speaks here. I wouldn't have any problem being turned into a treatment if I didn't exist yet, because there would be no *I* to speak of.
So unless you give evidence that somewhere some soul is crying, right now, because it doesn't want its body-to-be to be turned into a treatment, I will disagree with your opinions.
Besides, I think your opinions, my opinions, and everybody else's opinions have *no* relevance at all and that every scientist should do whatever he likes to do. Cloning babies and engineering planet-destroying death stars... whatever. Then again, I also think they should not be subsidized at all, no matter what they're resarching. This would make all these discussions quite useless.

Re:who wrote this article?!

[m50d]

The cells can be contaminated with animal proteins. If that happens it makes the tissues unsuitable for implanting into humans (because of rejection).