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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."
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?
The measures taken by Pres. Bush only placate some of the critics.
There will always be a group of hardliners who think any stem cell research is bad, in the same way that some people think any abortions are bad, irrelevant of the circumstances.
For some people, the issue is about where the stem cells came from, for others, the issue is about what can be done with the stem cells.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Should we really be trusting a story from RedHerring.com?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"We describe the derivation of two new human embryonic stem cell lines in... culture that includes protein components solely derived from recombinant sources or purified from human material," reads the paper.
Stem-cell green is people!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Chinese scientists have made amazing advances in enabling multiple births, for those Chinese people who want to have twins. Iranian scientists have also genetically modified a pig so that it will reproduce and grow at 5 times the normal rate. Iran's hunger problems will surely end soon.
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American scientists expect further research to lead to breakthroughs in Large and Super-Sized stem cell cultures in the near future.
No, they're able to produce Stem Cells without using animal proteins, which means that they don't have to remove the contaminating proteins after it's cultured. 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.
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No, the argument that it "encourages" abortion is not strong at all, it's completely non-existent.
Does anyone out there really think that young women are sitting around thinking "Hey, if I get pregnant, I can go through annoying hormonal shifts, then have a painful and mildly risky invasive procedure, then they can use my aborted fetus to do medical resarch! Hooray!"?
People can reasonably have ethical objections to the concept of aborting a fetus for any reason, but it takes a special kind of brain damage to think stem cell research *encourages* women to have abortions.
Especially since one of the most commonly suggested sources of stem cells are excess fertilized eggs from fertility treatments that are going to be destroyed anyway.
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?
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.
English is easier said than done.
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.
I don't read AC A human right
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.
Global warming is a cube.