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First Embryonic Stem Cell Clinical Trial Imminent
An anonymous reader writes "California-based Geron has announced that the first embryonic stem cell trial may be in the not-so-distant future. Tom Okarma, Geron's CEO, recently announced that the company will be seeking permission from the FDA to begin clinical trials. From the article: 'Geron's plan is to treat people that have acute spinal injuries with oligodendrocyte progenitor cells grown from human ESCs. Oligodendrocyte cells support neurons in the brain and spine by sheathing them in myelin, a fat that helps neurons to transmit signals.'"
...there's nothing to sheathe here.
(I'm sorry.)
"I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
I believe this was the result of propostion 71 that was passed in California last year. It allocated $3 billion over a period of ten years to fund stem cell research! Way to go California :)
http://religiousfreaks.com/ http://psychicfreaks.com/In Soviet Russia that would be Doctor playing gods.
You can't handle the truth.
I don't really see that as a benefit. If I'm only drinking beer for the flavour, then I'm just as happy with non-alcoholic beer. If I'm drinking beer for the alcohol, then stem-cell enhanced alcohol resistance is not my friend; the ability to repair liver damage however....
Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
Personally, I think we should just cut to the chase and start growing humans specifically to harvest the organs. Why not? As long as they don't achieve consciousness, what's the harm?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
For example, will this lead to a cure for MS?
With the babyboomers being the first generation (in history) to be at the threshold where science and technology is unlocking the secrets of how cells work and with the increased competition, it is no longer simply okay to accept that when you reach your early 40's that you can be let go because there are younger workers able to do your job (simply because you suffer fron the what is now "natural" aging process)
t ransfer pills and much like todays generation (with ipods, pc's,internet etc.) not be able to imagine a time when this technology did not exist.
With these new upcoming technologies (stem cells, bio/nanotech) we will be able to, in the next couple of dacades, to slow and reverse the aging process so that in this competitive world enviroment, you won't be tossed out on the junk heap when you reach 40.
The only way this is going to happen is for people to push science and technological research forward and demand that this be done (instead of, say invading other countries).
Remeber, in the future, when we can reprogram cells and easily as we write programs today, people growing up will be taking their nano-reguvination/enhaced intelegence/memory/internet-connect-mind-thought-
Then you should take the time to understand exactly what it is that this company is doing.
They are cloning embryonic progenitor stem cells, and while you might at first glance think they are killing babies or mothers to obtain those initial cells, they might not be. I'd be exceedingly surprised if they were, because there are laws against that sort of thing.
How about if they obtained the initial cells from umbilical cord blood? I don't believe that there is any way to turn unbilical cord blood into a human being, and it is material that might otherwise be discarded -- and usually is.
How about if they were using discarded unfertilized eggs to process and obtain a souce of cloneable material?
How about if they took stem cells from bone marrow and used those as the basis to produce cloneable embryonic progenitor cells?
Because IANAMB (I Am Not A Molecular Biologist), some of the possibilities I have suggested above are either not possible or not practical. But I suspect that more than one of those approaches is.
I do doubt very much that they are taking fertilized eggs from a viable womb to clone their embryonic progenitor cells.
I wonder, do you also oppose organ donors? It seems to me that is exactly what you are describing. An organ donor is life that has been created and destroyed, and then the useful parts reclaimed to allow someone else to continue to live. Granted, they were (probably) not killed in order to harvest the organs (unless you believe that living corpses like Terry Schiavo were "killed" when their life support hardware was turned off), but it seems to me that people in your line of belief oppose more the harvesting than the killing, as they are content to allow fertilized egges to be destroyed by natural means rather than harvested to save the lives of others.
Please research exactly what it is that this company is doing before you leap forward to oppose it.
Ethanol does have an effect on transmission (specifically it reduces excitability and increases the effectiveness of GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter), but those are effects on action potential generation. Myelination from oligodendrocytes just increases the ability of an already generated action potential to reach the end of the axon and cause synaptic activity. So the oligodendrocytes' effect is sort of like plugging holes in a leaking pipe, whereas the effect of alcohol is more like decreasing the chance that water will actually enter the pipe in the first place. Which is to say: alcohol's work is already done before the myelination comes into play, so increasing the latter won't much affect the former. (IAA neuroscientist, but admitedly this isn't my area of expertise so I may be slightly wrong).
But what I'm really afraid of is that, despite whatever scientific significance such a trial could have, the religious right will immediately jump on this and squelch it without giving it any sort of chance. At least, hopefully, we can get the scientific advances later from countries that are more willing to do the research.
What frightens me is that even with proven advances in adult stem cells, some people squelch it for research that has inherent problems with the body rejecting the cells. These people claim that anti-science religious groups are attacking them. Huh?
Sure that's a third eye on your elbow, but it's a feature, for free too.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Is the girl ugly?
I hope there is some catalyst that causes a much larger wave of biological research. I want to see "Smart Pills", "Strong Pills" and "Anti-Aging Pills" all with little or no side-effects in my lifetime, I feel like we could have these things if we weren't so concerned with curing the symptoms of diseases as we currently are. I know that our pharmacological community is more concerned with making a buck and keeping us sick then actually curing diseases. I hope that soon enough something is done to halt the concentration on frivilous medical research. Whether it be heavy subsidies to pharmaceutical companies, or offering up huge cash incentives to finding a cure, I just would like to see us move into a future where some of the basic human ailments have been conquered. We as humans have managed to conquer (or destroy as you may have it) our environment to the point of being able to genetically engineer our own food, so it seems ridiculous that we can't have a better understanding of our own body.
Meet new people, and kill them.
Hopefully the programmers are better than the current OS programmers. I know I wouldn't let Linux or Windows control me.
My fellow republicans, it is time we got out our pitchforks and torches. The mad scientists are going too far, and frankly, I think we all know we're overdue for some lynchings. God didn't put us on this earth to suck cells out of unborn babies to heal the sick, but he gave us fire for good reason, and it is time we used some of it!
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
An interesting example is as follows:" A fluorescence-activated cell sorter. A cell passing through the laser beam is monitored for fluorescence. Droplets containing single cells are given a negative or positive charge, depending on whether the cell is fluorescent or not. The droplets are then deflected by an electric field into collection tubes according to their charge. Note that the cell concentration must be adjusted so that most droplets contain no cells and flow to a waste container together with any cell clumps."
The empirical scientists that correctly implement such challenging procedures are rarely mentioned.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Then how do you explain that a considerable number of pregnancies end in "spontaneous abortions"? A great deal of perfectly viable embryos just don't survive.
l
here: http://www.physorg.com/news67783446.html
or, a site you trust: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060508.htm
According to the second site there, only 10-15% of preganncies "spontanteous abort", "Ninety percent of all such abortions are due to rejection of a maldeveloped embryo or fetus".
That means 1%-2% of healthy babies are naturally aborted for no reason.
If God considered every embryo that important, and I'm assuming you think this to be more or less under his control, he would make sure that the viable embryoes lived.
I don't believe in God, but I respect people that do. The problem I have with this situation is that people like you are attempting to stop my friends and family members from getting the treatment that could be possible.
Spoken from the lofty heights of genetic perfection, I trust
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
A friend of mine is trying IVF with donor eggs, and got five embryos this cycle. Four of them will be destroyed. Is she participating in mass murder?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I would think freedom gives life, rather than takes it away.
Nope. Freedom does not give life but it makes life worth living. We'd probably live much longer if we took away our freedoms of deciding what to eat (replacing it with a health plan that has been tested thoroughly to guarantee maximum health) or to drive cars individually (enforcing use of public transportation instead, which of course would be more developed in such a scenario). Giving up guns would reduce the number of gun-related deaths, banning all unhealthy substances (including alcohol and tobacco) would increase health, surveillance everywhere would greatly reduce crime.
How much happiness and joy has abortion really brought to anyone?
If the mother wants to get rid of the child she'll get rid of the child. I'd rather have a surgeon do that with the appropriate tools before the "child" is alive than the mother doing that with a tyre iron when the child is crying too much. Even if the mother does not kill the child she can (willingly or unwillingly) cause severe psychological damage to an unwanted child.
What does it say about us that we see unborn children as a potential medical resource instead of a precious humnan life?
Well, it's still better than the lion who kills other lion's babies in order to get laid.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The parent is quite correct; but to clarify for those who *aren't* neuroscientists (and clear up a potential misunderstanding from TFA):
Myelin is rather like the insulation on a normal household electric cable. It doesn't actually carry the current, but stops the currrent from grounding out before it gets to its destination. So, to translate (and my apologies to the parent for any loss in translation):
"Myelination from oligodendrocytes just increases the ability of an already generated action potential to reach the end of the axon and cause synaptic activity"
Translation: Myelin sheaths just insulate the nerve signal from the surrounding tissue.
"the effect of alcohol is more like decreasing the chance that water will actually enter the pipe in the first place"
Translation: The effect of alcohol is more like making a dodgy connection at the wall socket.
Disclaimer: IANA neuroscientist (But IAA biochemist).
A couple of years ago, I developed sciatica (which presented literally as a pain in the a**). Sciatica is an irritation of the sciatic nerve, which is about as fat as a finger and snakes from the spine through the hip to the leg. While some sciatica comes from collapsed discs, mine was a result of trying to train to quickly for a marathon and so damaging the myelin sheath. After surveying the available options (surgery, drugs, sleeping with a special pillow strapped between my knees) I decided to give lecithin a shot. It's an all-purpose bio-lube good for your heart, hair loss, etc. Also, it is cheap, natural, available over the counter, and non-toxic (your body burns off any excess as food). It worked for me. The science is out there (e.g., http://www.jcb.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/3/480) but don't expect to hear much about it because nobody is going to make money off lecithin. It comes from soy beans. A big bottle is just a couple bucks.
I am not "suggesting" I am saying that an underclass of society, "the unborn" are being abused.