Stem Cells Generated From Adult Cells

DrJay writes "Scientist report that introducing only four genes to adult cells is sufficient to convert them to something that looks and acts remarkably like an embryonic stem cell. Although some of the details need to be worked out, if this technique is generally applicable, it may allow the production of an essentially unlimited supply of stem cells. There is a subscription-only report, and Ars Technica's science journal describes the results in some detail for those without subscriptions."

Comments

Cells have rights too

[macadamia_harold]

What about the rights of the innocent human cells killed in this process? Have these scientists no moral fiber whatsoever?

Re:Cells have rights too

[Rik Sweeney]

What about the rights of the innocent human cells killed in this process? Have these scientists no moral fiber whatsoever?

Where as I don't agree with Animal or Embryo experimentation, I do accept that this kind of research is necessary to save the lives of countless others in the future. I do long for the day though that science has progressed far enough to make these kind of experiments unnecessary.

Re:Cells have rights too

[the_humeister]

That brings up an interesting dilemma. The only way that would happen is if we have the computational capability to simulate real-world environments down to molecular and atomic interactions. In such a case, how would an exact simulation of an embryo be any different than in the real-world? If such a hypothetical embryo simulation were to continue, it too could potentially develop into a simulated person.

Re:Cells have rights too

[neonprimetime]

I do long for the day though that science has progressed far enough to make these kind of experiments unnecessary.

Me too. Good thought.

Re:Cells have rights too

[buswolley]

Got to call the line somewhere... Besides.. we kill our cells all the time in daily activities. I think the idea is that embryonic stem cells are the embryo's, and not the parents..

In any case, this is great news. Adult stem cells do not get rejected by the body, unlike the other stem cells that come from a genetically different embryo.

If this technology pans out, then this would both alleviates moral questions, and make for better treatments in one punch.

Re:Cells have rights too

[MyLongNickName]

*blink*

You need to get out more.

Fantastic!

[Rik Sweeney]

I can finally grow myself a twin!

Oh wait, I already am one.

Quads it is then...

Re:Fantastic!

[krell]

"I can finally grow myself a twin!"

If it is the fifth (or later) season of the show, rest assured that this twin will be evil.

Re:Fantastic!

[object88]

Quads it is then...

AMD, is that you?

Something that turns you into an embryo

[krell]

Didn't "Star Trek" have an episode about a guy who had this condition?

Re:Something that turns you into an embryo

[Lord Ender]

On slashdot, you don't have to put quotes around the words "Star Trek." Really. We are familiar with the show.

Re:Something that turns you into an embryo

[IAmTheDave]

If Star Trek had had stem cells, they may have been able to give Jordi true-color vision. You know, on top of his X-Ray, heat, infared, and gamma-ray vision.

But, you know, ethics and Bible beaters all got in Jordi's way...

Re:Something that turns you into an embryo

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Don't you mean on "Slashdot" you don't have to put quotes around Star Track?

Re:Something that turns you into an embryo

[palindromic]

You know, I never did understand that.. 300 years into the future, warp drives, replication, matter-energy transport.. little beam things you can heal peoples wounds with perfectly, and they still couldn't figure out how to give a black man some eyes? Geordi went around looking like he was headed to a 90's gay club for what, seven seasons? And I like how when he finally was able to have eyes in Star Trek: Whatever he had red LED lights on his temples and whited out pupils. Way to go RACE-Trek

Re:Something that turns you into an embryo

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Star Track?

Re:Something that turns you into an embryo

[Anonymous Coward]

Geordi went around looking like he was headed to a 90's gay club for what, seven seasons?

I think Levar considered that a feature, not a bug.

Re:Something that turns you into an embryo

[JourneyExpertApe]

Didn't "Star Trek" have an episode about a guy who had this condition?

Didn't that exact post lead to a "+4, Funny" mod on at least a dozen other Slashdot posts?

now that we've solved that problem

[macadamia_harold]

Now, instead of killing embryos for research, all those fertility clinics storing embryos can keep them alive until they throw them out! Hooray!

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Bryansix]

Or they could be adopted.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[legoburner]

Please! You dont just 'throw them out', that is bad. You have to totally incinerate them. Good thing nobody is using them for science though thanks to the friendly Govt.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[smooth wombat]

How about someone adopt the thousands of kids who are already living and breathing before we go and create more kids.

How about instead of people going to China and Peru to adopt kids, they adopt the ones that are here in this country.

How many kids have you adopted? Until you've adopted at least one, you have no basis to tell women what they can and can't do with their own bodies or prevent them from destroying their own eggs.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Bryansix]

Slow down there. Did you read the link? I am not telling any woman what to do. The website promotes adoption of embryos as a way for infertile couples to still have a child that the woman gave birth to. I agree that there are babies that are already born that need adoption. This is not meant to take the place of that. This is for couples who only wish to have a baby if they can give birth to it themselves.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[smooth wombat]

Sorry, wasn't directed at you personally. Just a general remark when I hear the pro-life folks talk about adoption yet are unwilling to adopt any themselves.

I have a cousin who went to Peru with his wife to adopt a girl. While that's all fine and dandy, they could have taken the money they spent going down there and back, plus other related costs, and adopted a kid in this country.

I'm not one of those 'America first' folks. I just think it's ludicrous to go elsewhere to adopt when there are thousands here who need adoption. Is it harder here than elsewhere? From what I've heard, yes. But considering what you'll be undertaking, it's a necessary evil.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Bryansix]

That is not true at all. The government does not have a ban on embryonic stem cell research. It just has a ban on using federal funding for it. In fact California is already funding such research.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Irish_Samurai]

My wife and I have taken this one step further. We are looking into adopting an older child instead of an infant. The last thing I want to have happen is let some child grow up as a ward of the system. That is no way to grow up.

Hopefully I'll be more succesful in the future and we will be able to adopt more than older child.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

May I suggest adopting someone 17? Maybe 17 and 1/2? Maybe with a job?

Just kidding. But it does let you avoid much of the messy teen years.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[jimbolauski]

Well until you've been an aborted baby you have right to say what happens to a baby.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Amouth]

I know people that adopted ouf of country because they wanted a baby (nearly imposiable in the US) - it was alot cheaper - and they don't have to worrie about having the parents come back years later and try and take them away because the court system will let them.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[DavidTC]

Yeah, now we're using ground up people.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm...depending on the legal age of consent, and what she looks like, that could be an interesting option...

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Columcille]

If we are speaking about embryo's then we ARE speaking about kids that have already been created.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I read we are using ground up bits of your self! Which doesn't seem that disgusting at all.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to include an adverb in there, mister preachy?

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Anonymous Coward]

please mod as -10 "disturbing"

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[DavidTC]

That's not only cannibalism, that's incest!

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[Charlie the Hammer]

Good thing nobody is using them for science though thanks to the friendly Govt.

Hint: you don't know what you're talking about. At all. There's lots of ESC research going on in the United States.

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[lkeagle]

It takes a lot more than being an embryo to become a kid. About 9 months more and a womb, unless someone cares to correct me...

Re:now that we've solved that problem

[WilliamSChips]

Until you have seen babies with the horrible disorders that will cripple them for the rest of their lives and make their lives worse than if they were aborted you have no right to say what happens to a baby.

this ought to stop the fetal cell controversy

[wherrera]

Once we can take a patient's blood and make stem cells that are a perfect match for their tissue type, the whole fetal stem cell issue will be irrelevant. As it largely is already for those who look at where the field is REALLY moving.

Re:this ought to stop the fetal cell controversy

[Anonymous Coward]

The question now is; if you took one of these cells and implanted then into uterine wall of woman, would you get a baby nine months later? If so then this is a new, roundabout way, to do human cloning. People who have an ethical problem with embryonic stem-cells should still have a problem with this, providing they wish to remain consistent. After all, if it is functionally identical to an embryo it shouldn't matter that it's creation did not involve the fusion of a sperm and an egg cell.

It's different for cute babes though....

[pandrijeczko]

...because the same scientists want to take jeans off of them!

I'll get my coat.

Re:It's different for cute babes though....

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been funnier if you had spelled it "genes." Spelling it "jeans" is too much like explaining the joke. Good effort, though.

Of course this only works on mice so far

[the_humeister]

So if you're a mouse, we have so many cures for you. We even have cures for most cancers. Wake me up when scientists figure out how to do this with human cells.

Cool.

[daeg]

This will help kill some of the controversy if it actually works, but many in America still have an irrational fear of sciences that they do not, and can not, understand. People can understand that taking a pill makes you better even if they do not understand the "how" of the pill. They can understand that cutting into your leg to repair a bone with metal rods makes sense. Very few people, however, understand how stem cells may help medical science. Without helping them understand (politicians included), we still have a long way to go before the public openly accepts stem cell research and is comfortable in pumping large amounts of tax money into the research system.

Re:Cool.

[RyanFenton]

Exactly - there were never any scientists with a burning need to tear apart embryos just because they seemed like nice spare parts to use. Embryos have unique properties as far as the way their cells can morph into other cells that just don't occur in adult stem cells. If these same properties can be reproduced otherwise, then embryonic research isn't an issue - but until that happens, banning the study of embryos is an important obstacle to scientific progress.

The irony in all this is that if more embryos that were eventually destroyed without being studied, were instead studied, then these same properties that are important to medical research may have been discovered, allowing us to save more children from more horrible diseases.

To me, the bans that are in place are the equivalent to old laws banning the study of dead bodies, because doing so reduces the sanctity of life.

Ryan Fenton (I am not a lab scientist, just a computer guy who loves following science news)

Re:Cool.

[susano_otter]

but many in America still have an irrational fear of sciences that they do not, and can not, understand... Very few people... understand how stem cells may help medical science. Without helping them understand (politicians included), we still have a long way to go before the public openly accepts stem cell research and is comfortable in pumping large amounts of tax money into the research system.

Are you talking about the Americans in the Federal government who are quite happy to fund all kinds of stem cell research, except the one or two kinds that involve destroying human embryos?

Or are you talking about the Americans in California, who are quite happy to fund even embryonic stem cell research?

As it turns out, Americans are actually quite comfortable pumping large amounts of tax money into the (stem cell) research system. You really shouldn't believe all the media hype, or the partisan rhetoric.

I can't speak about "many" people like you, but it seems to me like you in particular have an irrational fear of Americans and their scientific attitudes.

Re:Cool.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Exactly - there were never any scientists with a burning need to tear apart embryos just because they seemed like nice spare parts to use.

Maybe not the scientists- but there were certainly those in the political fight with such dreams. Especially those who had lost body parts and functionality to accidents.

Re:Cool.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I understand how stem cells may help medical science in general. But I'm the type of American Bigot who fails to see how embryonic stem cells unrelated to the patient would help anybody at all. Add to that the fact that I've yet to see a single news story of embyronic stem cells curing any disease, but almost bimonthly now we have stories about adult patient donated stem cells curing that patient of something or another, I'd say the value of adult stem cells is well proven- and embryonic stem cell research appears to be an almost useless dead end.

Re:Cool.

[BillEGoat]

there were never any scientists with a burning need to tear apart embryos just because they seemed like nice spare parts to use

No one ever accused anyone of wanting to tear apart embryos, per se. Similarly, conservatives don't object to stem cell research, per se. This particular controversy centers around the value that the embryos represent. I value both the research's potential and the embryo, as you probably do as well. My relative values for the two probably differ from yours. I value the embryos more than the research's potential. But that is not to say I don't value medical research, and that I'm against the use of stem cells to do the research. And I certainly don't believe that scientists want to destroy embryos. If stem cell research can be performed without the destruction of embryos, and it does not lead to farming embryos, then I'm just as excited as anyone else.

The irony in all this is that if more embryos that were eventually destroyed without being studied, were instead studied...

This leads to a secondary concern - that this situation creates pressure if the "stock" runs low. I don't have numbers, but I don't think we have a very large supply of frozen human embryos on the path to destruction. Sure, there's a bunch, but if there's not enough to satisfy the research then there'll be pressure to create more. Additionally, there may be pressure to create modified embryos that exhibit qualities not normally part of human development (enhancement, suppression, etc). All of these are serious ethical issues that warrant caution. And these are not issues that science and research can resolve - these are moral value issues, and for that reason we can be sure to have a wide spectum of disagreement.

Re:Cool.

[BVis]

And I certainly don't believe that scientists want to destroy embryos. If stem cell research can be performed without the destruction of embryos, and it does not lead to farming embryos, then I'm just as excited as anyone else.

"Farming" embryos? Have you seen something that makes you think this is likely to happen? When a couple chooses to pursue in vitro fertilization, literally dozens of embryos are created. Not all of them are used in the process. The surplus embryos are either discarded or cryogenically stored. Believe me, there's no shortage of embryos to work with, even without "farming" them.

This leads to a secondary concern - that this situation creates pressure if the "stock" runs low. I don't have numbers, but I don't think we have a very large supply of frozen human embryos on the path to destruction. Sure, there's a bunch, but if there's not enough to satisfy the research then there'll be pressure to create more.

Even in the abscence of the gigantic shit storm that would ensue, should researchers attempt to create embryos purely for the purposes of research, do you really think that scientists are creating embryos soley for the purpose of stem cell research? And if so, (I could be way off base here) do you have a reference on that?

The reason I'm asking is that it's a controversial enough subject without adding the "Dr. Frankenstein" aspect of scientists deliberately creating (arguably) human beings for the sole purpose of "sacrificing them" for research. AFAIK this doesn't happen; the research is conducted on donated or discarded embryos.

Another question I have for the readers in general, not the parent: Which is better, for these embryos to go in the trash, or to be used in research that could help thousands of people? Either way, the embryos are destroyed.

Re:Cool.

[brianerst]

"Farming" embryos? Have you seen something that makes you think this is likely to happen? When a couple chooses to pursue in vitro fertilization, literally dozens of embryos are created. Not all of them are used in the process. The surplus embryos are either discarded or cryogenically stored. Believe me, there's no shortage of embryos to work with, even without "farming" them.

It depends on which part of the development lifecycle you're talking about. If you're only talking about the "research" phase, and even then only that part of the research that's primarily interested in how to coax embryonic stem cells to exhibit specific behaviours (such as differentiating into specific tissues and only those tissues, how to prevent stem cells from becoming cancerous, etc.), then, sure, spare IVF embryos would likely be enough to support that research.

However, there is a whole other side to the research that isn't amenable to just using spares - therapeutic cloning. There're plenty of good reasons to suspect that embryonic stem cells that come from a foreign donor will not create good therapies. Tissue rejection, cancerous growth and a lot of other factors make the use of such "foreign" cells problematic. Cloned stem cells, on the other hand, potentially have fewer problems in this area.

Until the latest research, the only way to make cloned cells was by creating (aka "farming") embryos by fusing nuclear DNA from the donor with an egg. See the Wikipedia article on Hwang Woo-Suk under "Laboratory Technique" to see how that process has been used in the past. While that was an extreme case, egg donation was a major problem, causing Hwang to coerce his female colleagues to be able to procure the necessary volume of eggs, and thus embryos, needed just for research.

If someone succeeds in making therapeutic cloning a success using a variant of the Dolly the Sheep method, you will need to be able to create millions of embryos on an industrial scale. Women will be pressured to donate eggs so that loved ones can be cured of terrible diseases, and millions of embryos would be created for the sole purpose of being disassembled for their therapeutic value.

Sounds a whole lot like "farming" to me. A technique that allows us to dedifferentiate adult cells back into a pluripotent or totipotent state would be much preferrable, so I'm very excited by the research in TFA.

Re:Cool.

[BVis]

I think you might be a little too quick (IMHO) to associate stem cell research with theraputic cloning. That, and I think you underestimate the average (American) woman's ability to guard her eggs. I have serious doubts that the "millions of embryos" scenario you paint would ever occur. I agree it's a frightening future and should be avoided, but I think we disagree on how likely it is.

However, we can agree that TFA describes a solution to all of our collective concerns.

Re:Cool.

[brianerst]

I agree that the "millions of embryos" scenario is unlikely, as I tend to believe that we will be able to dedifferentiate adult cells relatively soon. I would also doubt that in any event American women would feel the full effect of that "frightening future" - much more likely that millions of women in less-free societies would bear that burden. I would much rather pour a whole lot of research money into that and adult pluripotent research than ESCR - neither has nearly the kind of ethical issues and level of political heat that ESCR has.

I think, longterm, that ESCR is a dead end - the most that will come out of it is a whole lot of knowledge about how totipotent cells work and, probably, how to activate the proper genes or supply the right chemical signals to revert adult cells into them. Workable therapies will likely be only in the most experimental of stages when adult totipotent therapy starts coming online.

Regardless of how one feels about the ethics of ESCR, I think most people would rather use less controversial methods of obtaining stem cells if available. Again, TFA is the first step toward getting rid of the controversy and going forward on the needed therapy.

Re:Cool.

[daeg]

A bit late in replying, and you do bring up a few good points. However, we have been doing successful organ and tissue transplants for decades now. In fact, we are even transplanting heart valves from pigs and cows into humans and have been doing so since the early 80's (1981 I believe). Growing an organ or tissue from stem cells would allow much closer genetic and blood matches than current organ donors can do.

The thing is -- we won't really know what cures are possible, if any, from embryonic stem cells until we actually try them out and complete the research.

Re:Cool.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Other countries with different morals HAVE completed the research- and almost all have abandoned embryonic stem cell lines in favor of adult stem cells for almost every purpose except one- human cloning research, where the intent is to grow an entire new organism from a single cell. The latest- adult hair stem cells, of which you personally have BILLIONS, can be used to replace everything except brain tissue. And brain stem cells may be unique, but they're also incredibly prolific if given the right growth medium- early research using mice as a growth medium for human brain stem cells shows that a single brain stem cell from an adult can eventually grow to the mass of 50,000 human brains. There just isn't any need for the embryonic research anymore- the science ended up outstriping the politics on this one.

The sad thing is, it turns out even the most right-wing religious whackos were right- if Terri Schivao had been allowed to live another decade, we might have been able to grow her a whole new brain. She wouldn't have been the same PERSON- but she would have been alive.

Will this lead to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this lead to our eventual ability to grow brainless human meat in vats, the most ethical meat we can cook up?

Re:Will this lead to...

[Red Flayer]

Will this lead to our eventual ability to grow brainless human meat in vats, the most ethical meat we can cook up?

Who needs vats? That's what television is for -- to give us brainless human meat.

Re:Will this lead to...

[ElleyKitten]

Will this lead to our eventual ability to grow brainless human meat in vats, the most ethical meat we can cook up?

Uhh.. I'm sticking with my tofu...

Re:Will this lead to...

[Creedo]

Ahh, so you are onto Yawgmoth's plan, too?

Human being

[Tracer_Bullet82]

but.. but.. but.. that cell can turn into a living breathing human being.

Re:Human being

[GundamFan]

If that is true... then this is human cloning... and that is even more of a no no.

Re:Human being

[Anonymous Coward]

GOD: "How is Earth doing?"
JESUS: "The way things are going, in about 10 years they will have killed off all the scientists for trying to be you"
GOD: "How dare they try to be like me! I am their GCD!"
JESUS: "No, they are just doing genetic stuff"
GOD: "How does that make them like me?"
JESUS: "Not even i know what the christans are thinking"

Re:Human being

[masnare]

WTF? How is the parent comment not flamebait but this one is? Seriously, sometimes you guys don't make any sense in how you mod stuff.

Re:Human being

[GeffDE]

No it can't.

That stem cell is pluripotent. In the lingo, that means it can turn into any bodily tissue. That stem cell is NOT omnipotent. An omnipotent stem cell can turn into any bodily tissue as well as the placenta and umbilical cord. A fertilized egg is omnipotent. Only a fertilized egg is omnipotent. Only a fertilized egg can turn into a living, breathing human being.

The fact that the belief that embryonic stem cells (not embryos) can turn into humans persists even on slashdto just proves how sadly misinformed or simply uneducated the public (of the world) as a whole is. That is the biggest problem that science faces. People fear things they do not understand, especially when they have perversely imaginitive institutions like Hollywood to put a bunch of false ideas in their heads; until scientists can explain in terms simple enough for people to understand (and people take the time to try to understand), people will continue to rebel against it, and view it as evil and immoral.

Re:Human being

[jamesh]

I asked the question elsewhere that you appear to have answered here.

Do you think that this sort of research will lead us to be able to take a cell from an adult human and 'convert' it into a 'omnipotent' cell, and therefore be able to make a 'proper' clone (eg including the mitochondrial dna)?

Additionally, could you 'graft' one of these 'pluripotent' stem cells to the end of an existing umbilical cord (the cord would only be a cell or two at that point i guess)?

Just curious.

Re:Human being

[GeffDE]

No, is the answer to your question. Can we eventually make an omnipotent cell out of an adult cell? Possibly.

The difficulty is this: eggs are more than just their genes. Before an egg is fertilized, it is primed for becoming an embryo, especially in regards to the plan for the development of the embryo. Long story short, eggs are organized in such a way that acts as a blueprint for the development of the embryo and fetus. There is an interesting case about a species of some sort of shelled invertebrate that follow an interesting inheritence pattern. These invertebrates have spiral shells that can turn either left or right; when a right-turning male is mated with a left-turning female, all of the offspring turn left. But when a left-turning male is mated with a right-turning male, all of the offspring turn right! These organisms do not follow Mendelian inheritance patterns; rather, all of the children develop to follow the same phenotype (not genotype) of the mother. This is because the conditions that define the way the embryo develops already exist in the egg prior to fertilization, and it is these previously expressed proteins and mRNAs in a specific arrangement that give an egg the special ability of developing into a new organism.

I am sorry that that was a very hard paragraph to understand; I just condensed about a chapter of a biology textbook, and I hope that the message still comes across.

I seem to be lost...

[Anonymous Coward]

...can someone help me figure out what the US is going to do with stem cells. I know they wanted nothing to do with the unborn child thing the god fearin' politico's often go on about, but isn't a stem cell the beginning of life? doesn't that put not just how you get the stem cells, but even having a stem cell no matter where it comes from working on "god's" turf? From the vague ideas I'm hearing about stem cells is that they are the basis for growing the rest of the body, which to me I took as the don't mess with the unborn kids thing when it comes to US law. I pretty much assumed that the US was going to fall of the map of biological research after I first heard about banning stem cell research, but what do i know?
 
Obvisously I am quite lost on what the god-folk call life. But lately, I'm only getting more and more lost. Is there anything as silly as a defined list of what they are calling life now? This is harder to keep with up than political correctness.

Christian agenda needs more compelling slogan

[PunXX0r]

Life begins at ovum, illegalize menstruation!!!

Gattaca

[LilGuy]

See you can't even READ about it unless you've got money... so it starts...

Re:Gattaca

[LoveGoblin]

Easy there, big chucker. Pretty standard practice for these academic journals, isn't it? That you have to subscribe to read the articles? Printing journals doesn't pay for itself, you know. Take a trip to a university library - they'll have a subscription. Hell, they'll probably even let you read a copy. ;)

Re:Gattaca

[Monkey-Man2000]

On top of that the Cell Press journals have one of the more open policies of commercial high-profile journals where they open up free access to journal articles for everyone a year after they're published. Compare that to Nature or Science. . .

The US never banned stem cell research.

[chopper749]

Where did you get that info? The government just isn't providing any funding.

Storage issue

[Itninja]

But won't the bodies start to stack up fast? I mean, there are only so many hobos that one can kill for their stem cells. They could fit like 1000 embreyos in one Tupperware bowl. Now they will have to have an entire U-Haul truck rented to store all the hobo corpses.

Re:Storage issue

[SatanicPuppy]

Meh. Life is only sacred until it's born, remember? After it's born you can harvest all the stem cells you want!

Re:Storage issue

[Red Flayer]

Now they will have to have an entire U-Haul truck rented to store all the hobo corpses.

Storage? Who said anything about storage? Leftovers get sent to the food pantry -- we need to make sure the specimens for our next harvest are well-fed.

(Apologies to Jonathan Swift, or his descendents)

Re:Storage issue

[RsG]

(Apologies to Jonathan Swift, or his descendents)

Shouldn't that read "dinner" rather than "decendants"? :-)

Lack of funding = a BAN !!!!

[krell]

"Where did you get that info? The government just isn't providing any funding."

It's just another version of the argument "The government not bothering to fund it = the government banning it". The argument has been used for years to portray the reduction in the funding of "official government art" as a draconian effort to censor things.

Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[Parallax Blue]

The main problem with stem cell research (in the US, mostly) is the moral dimension. This method removes that, and may allow stem cell research to move ahead in the US, although it may be too late. Other countries are less concerned with the moral implications of embryonic stem cells (I believe The Economist had an article about stem cell research in Singapore recently) and are ahead of the US as a result. Can the US catch up fast enough using this method?

There is also the possibility that any stem cell research will be very limited in the US for some time to come, regardless of the method. This is due to the current administration's attitude towards stem cell research, although the attitude may shift with a new administration in '08.

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[SatanicPuppy]

There are tons of ethical issues surrounding stem cells. Where we get them is just the first step.

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[ceoyoyo]

Like? What are the issues with taking some of my cells and turning them into pseudo-stem cells to treat me?

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[fotbr]

Research in the US can happen. Federally funded research might take a change in administration.

Not all research has to be federally funded.

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[SatanicPuppy]

Cloning! Even if you're just building something silly like a bladder, that's a whole host of issues. And what happens when we start using them to treat brain damage?

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[Parallax Blue]

True, but federal funding is usually extremely important to any major scientific research project. As long as the federal government withholds that funding, stem cell research in the US will be limited at best.

The problem lies in the fact that it has become a political issue, and private investment is scared away as a result. There may be individuals that have enough money, but there's too much risk involved.

-Parallax

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[SatanicPuppy]

Also, I saw this one the other day, after the whole "we can take stem cells from embryo's without hurting the embryo" announcement...Some fundie immediately spouted up with the logic that that solitary stem cell could also grow into a person, therefore to use it was still to kill an embryo.

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[Parallax Blue]

Correct, but at the present time, the moral implications of using embryonic stem cells is the most controversial issue. I believe President Bush used his first-ever veto for exactly that reason (although not 100% sure on that.)

My original point, if I may try to clarify it, is that this new method removes one of the, if not THE major moral problem with stem cells and stem cell research, clearing the way for new advances in this field. As you have pointed out, there will likely be new issues related to stem cell research that will surface in the future.

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[ceoyoyo]

Cloning? Cloning is making a fully functional person. I honestly don't see why anyone really cares, because it's an awfully expensive way of making a person.

Making a bladder? Please. Don't use it if you want (there are people who refuse blood transfusions too) but get out of the way of the rest of us who want to be able pee properly during our retirement.

I think people who argue against taking adult cells and growing people new bladders, legs, hearts, are going to find themselves soundly laughed at.

Re:Removes the moral problem with stem cells

[ceoyoyo]

Interesting. Someone may correct me, but I doubt one of these stem cells could grow into a person. Also, you're not killing it. No cell is dying. They're all living! Moreover, they started out as part of me, now they're living as part of me!

There was a tenuous claim to moral legitimacy with embryonic stem cells via a slippery slope argument (if we get dependent on embryonic stem cells there's always going to be pressure to harvest embryos). Opposition to using an adult's own cells to treat them loses even that.

Dunno about this...

[Chaffar]

All I know is that this is gonna be used by the religious fr^H^H supporters to say "Aha ! We told you that killing embryos was wrong ! All we needed to do is to give this problem a little bit more thought ... Countless embryos have now been saved from your murderous hands !" Well if the news turns out to be true, then they'd be right :(...

Re:Dunno about this...

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

No, they kill plenty of breathing people every day, and they still don't care. The only difference is they feel better about it in the morning.

Re:Dunno about this...

[ChristTrekker]

Why the frownie? Do you enjoy the destruction of embryos so much that the thought of stopping it pains you? Or is it the thought of a religious person being right (and yourself, wrong) that pains you? Good grief, man, stop being so closed-minded.

Re:Dunno about this...

[TheMeuge]

Maybe it's because every other week there is an article like that in the popular press, but 3 months later it turns out that not only were these cells not nearly totipotent (able to differentiate into ANY cell), but they're not nearly as good as cord blood. The scientists don't gather at their meetings to decide how many embryos they're going to destroy just for the heck of it, when there are other ways of doing it. The fact is that till now I have not seen ANY convincing evidence that truly totipotent cells can come from anywhere but the embryo, and I think I am pretty qualified to make that judgement.

But you know, even if we did gather somewhere to concoct grand plans to destroy embryos to fulfill their evil agenda, frankly if I were you, I'd be far more worried about the prospects of what happens if we will just suddenly stop all research that the fundies don't approve of.

Re:Dunno about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't that they were right. The problem is that they weren't right, but they still got what they wanted. It's like having a kid whine cry and yell at the top of his lungs in the supermarket, then watching the parent give in instead of smacking the shit out of them (even if mom was originally planning to get him what he bitched about at *some* point). The other problem is that while every other country was plunging ahead with applications of this science with government support, we were being backwards conservative religious twats about it. This is an issue we would have tried to solve sooner or later (can't be guaranteed to always have a fetus around with your genetic material for *treatment*, but it's fine for research) but the set backs suffered were stupid and unnecessary. Make no mistake: situations like this will put us behind other civilized nations that don't let their fate and decisions be decided by a 2000-3000 year old book.

What makes me sad is that out the other side of this whole issue is probably another set of "You're playing God!" arguments. Unfortunately my only retort is "Of course we have to when he doesn't actually exist". That's a whole 'nother can of worms though.

Re:Dunno about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe God is giving mankind this new method as a result of our conviction of the sacredness of human life.

Re:Dunno about this...

[Frangible]

... except any good quality study you can easily find on Google has shown that "religious fr^H^H supporters" have by a very large majority supported federal funding of embryonic stem cell research for quite some time.

The problem isn't religious people, Christians, or even Evangelical Christians... no matter how you define the demographic, studies show they support it. So then, who is truly in opposition to it, and why? May it involve factors other than religion, ie: political infighting over the distribution of research money to certain organizations that don't do this research? Just a thought.

Re:Dunno about this...

[thesandtiger]

If they were right - if this does turn out to be a viable way to work around what many consider to be a moral or ethical dilemma and still reap the benefits - then isn't that a net good? Are you seriously suggesting that it would be *better* if people *hadn't* come up with a way to have an ethical clean slate AND do the research?

What's funny is that you call the people who had objections - objections that may have turned out to be right - "freaks," but your stance seems to be much more dogmatic and close minded.

I'm not religious in the least, but I'm still able to appreciate that sometimes people I disagree with on many things can be right sometimes.

Adult Cells + Adult Cells + Trickery = Stem Cells

[MrSquishy]

Couldnt they just mix:

Adult Cell (Sperm)
Adult Cell (Egg)

give it a couple weeks and viola, Stem Cells.

There you have it, stem cells grown from adult cells. Who could have issue with that?
Profit to follow.

This is good

[MobyDisk]

The pie-in-the-sky type of results that people expect from stem cells may only be possible if we can produce these things in mass. This type of research may be the real key to viable stem cell treatments. If you want to grow back another limb, the only way to get enough genetic material is if your own body provides it.

It would be very ironic if the fear of stem cell research is what yields its ultimate success.

Re:This is good

[thule]

And this is exactly why there has been much more success with adult stem cells than there ever has been with embryonic ones. There have been real cures with adult stem cells because the body will accept something that it "knows," otherwise there are problems with rejection. I have my doubts that the embryonic cells can overcome this problem (but you never know).

Three statements and a query.

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

Your body is made of lots of little parts. Most of your parts are screwed up. These can help make new parts to replace those broken parts. Any questions?

Re:Three statements and a query.

[Frymaster]

Your body is made of lots of little parts. Most of your parts are screwed up. These can help make new parts to replace those broken parts. Any questions?

yes. what about the unborn babies??

Re:Three statements and a query.

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

Fertilizer.

Nice Dream

[SatanicPuppy]

Nothing will kill the controvercy around stem cells. If we found a way to turn post-consumer styrofoam into stems cells, while whitening teeth and curing cancer at the same time, the religious groups would still scream about it.

It's not about stem cells, see? Or rather, it is but it's not how they're obtained...That's just a nice straw man that they've been holding up (Your godless science is eating our unborn babies!).

What they're really scared of is all the stuff that they see stem cells leading to. Build a new kidney, fine. Does that kidney have a soul? Why not build a whole new, soulless, person? It's a whole new bio-medical can of worms, and it scares the hell out of them.

Fortunately, most people are in favor of stem cell research, so it's unlikely the fundies will be able to halt it forever.

Re:Nice Dream

[hcob$]

Nothing will kill the controvercy around stem cells. If we found a way to turn post-consumer styrofoam into stems cells, while whitening teeth and curing cancer at the same time, the religious groups would still scream about it.

Nice lumping of general religion in with the extremists. Just like I don't lump all democrats in with the likes of Michael Moore, don't lump me in with all the crazy, religious extremists like that church from Arkansas.

Re:Nice Dream

[Chris Burke]

If we found a way to turn post-consumer styrofoam into stems cells, while whitening teeth and curing cancer at the same time, the religious groups would still scream about it.

As well they should! Because once you have a way to turn post-consumer styrofoam into stem cells, then all post-consumer styrofoam becomes a potential life and is thus sacred. Every time you threw away a plate at a family BBQ, you'd be destroying thousands if not millions of potential lives! And since styrofoam is made from petrolium products, by taking oil and turning it into gasoline you are destroying still more potential life! Where does it end?!

Re:Nice Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be thinking of Jerry Fallwell. I am a very fundamental christian (I study the original greek new testament) who can also perform the calculus involved in computing age via radio carbon dating. I have a huge issue with the using of unborn babies for medical research, but I think generating stem cells from adult cells solves the problem quite nicely. I am all for that. Yes, there are some who are simply superstitious and therefore scared by things that don't fit into their little box, but you are painting with too broad a brush. The people you are reffering to need a security blanket, a bedtime story, and a lot more serious instruction on what the Bible actually says instead of what they think it means.

Re:Nice Dream

[Rimbo]

I do think you can make the case that a large number of folks remember that "stem cell research" is bad and forgotten why it's supposed to be bad. You haven't, but I do think you can. What you're suggesting here is that religion is inherently at war with science. In the spirit of your sig, I'd like to introduce you to my friend, "Straw man argument," and his two siblings, "Statistics of small numbers" and "Observational Selection".

You sound like someone who has distanced himself from religion. That has the benefit of preventing religion from influencing you. It has the disadvantage of preventing you from knowing very much about religion and what religious people actually believe.

If you want to know what religious people actually believe, you could try asking them.

Re:Nice Dream

[WarpSnotTheDark]

You have shown me the light. I now realize that I have been so immoral and selfish to resist my urge to sleep with (and produce a child with) every beautiful woman I could possibly convince to get into the sack with me. How many children have I murdered simply by not making sweet, passionate love to all the potential mommies out there who could have been coerced into a lapse of judgment sufficient for me to get a little procreation on? Woe is me, I shall strive to change my ways...hey baby, what's your name? Mind if I holla?

Re:Nice Dream

[caudron]

It's not about stem cells, see? Or rather, it is but it's not how they're obtained...That's just a nice straw man that they've been holding up (Your godless science is eating our unborn babies!).

I dunno about that but your mindless rant is eating our logical discourse. It most certainly is about how they are obtained for most of us who have a problem with embryonic stem cell research. I look forward to the advances that can be made with stem cells that were harvested without a loss to human life. So do most people who are against it that I know. Will there still be some on the fringe who continue to complain? Sure, but not the teeming throng you've villified in your rant here.

Seriously, how the hell are we supposed progress as a community if we can't even have civil discourse on the topic? Try a little understanding of your opponent's opinions next time. It'll carry you farther and make you damn bit more likely to be somewhat correct.

What they're really scared of is all the stuff that they see stem cells leading to. ... It's a whole new bio-medical can of worms, and it scares the hell out of them.

Yeah, oh, I'm so very scared. :-| See, this is what I mean. Quit with the stereotyping of those who don't agree with you. It's medieval-stupid. It's the very sort of ignorance that you seem to despise in your opponents on this issue.

Fortunately, most people are in favor of stem cell research, so it's unlikely the fundies will be able to halt it forever.

For the record, I happen to think you may be right, but this is just your opinion. What study have you read (prior to reading my reply here!) that told you that most people favor it? Again, I think you are right, but I've never seen a valid study done on the subject. I've seen opinion polls that show both biases. That's all.

Your post was marked "Interesting". Well, at least it wasn't called "Insightful" becuase that would've been depressing. :(

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/

Re:Nice Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're suggesting here is that religion is inherently at war with science.

Only in the sense that con artists are inherently "at war with" police detectives.

Re:Nice Dream

[Chris Burke]

Now you're catching on!

Re:Nice Dream

[Wooster_UK]

Even ignoring the tedious hyperbole, I fail to follow. I'm a "religious type" who is uncomfortable with stem cell research when it involves the destruction of embryos to obtain the aforementioned cells, and I have been waiting and hoping that eventually, researchers will find a way to produce stem cells without destroying embryos. (Actually, this kind of thing is relatively old news. I seem to recall that other results in the production of stem cells from adult cells have been kicking round for a few months, too.) Funny how the accusation of "fundamentalist!" comes from the narrow-minded secularist who cannot conceive of someone holding consistently to a different moral system. Pot-kettle-black?

Re:Nice Dream

[amliebsch]

Everybody bashes the religious folks, but at least they seem to be able to tell the difference between a stem cell and an embryo. Hint: Only one is a potential human being.

Re:Nice Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nothing will kill the controvercy around stem cells. If we found a way to turn post-consumer styrofoam into stems cells, while whitening teeth and curing cancer at the same time, the religious groups would still scream about it.

Being one of those "fundie" bogeymen you like to trot out, no, I have no trouble with them harvesting stem cells this way. I don't like killing living homo sapien organisms, but this doesn't do that.

As for "does it have a soul", you may or may not realize this, but nature has been cloning people for a very long time now. They're called identical twins. We're reasonably sure that twins have souls, thank you very much.

It would help to understand your ideological opponents' positions before attacking them. Then your arguments with them might even make sense, rather than attacking a ridiculous strawman position as if it were a very dangerous foe, let alone something real people actually believe in...

Re:Nice Dream

[Chris Burke]

Well for one I am religious folk, and for two it was a joke.

Re:Nice Dream

[rolyatknarf]

"I look forward to the advances that can be made with stem cells that were harvested without a loss to human life."

That statement makes any logical discourse impossible. Your opinion is set in religious stone and renders any discourse with you pointless.

Re:Nice Dream

[Charlie the Hammer]

Translation: he destroyed your position and you have no rational response.

Thanks for playing, though.

Re:Nice Dream

[Rimbo]

Oh for heaven's sake. By your analogy, Pons and Fleischmann were merely misunderstood, and Mother Theresa was running a scam.

Re:Nice Dream

[rolyatknarf]

I am an agnostic. If given enough incontrovertible proof of the existence of a higher power or supreme being I might very well change my beliefs. If you were given incontrovertible proof that there was no God could you do the same?

The game is never over - you just play another hand.

Re:Nice Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

> As for "does it have a soul", you may or may not realize this, but nature has been cloning people for a very long time now.
> They're called identical twins. We're reasonably sure that twins have souls, thank you very much.

I see. Do you have any evidence to back up that bold claim?

I think you could take an embryo apart into cells, take the cells apart into organelles, take those apart into molecules, and take the molecules apart into atoms and you'll never find anything you could call a "soul" that couldn't also be called "chemistry."

Re:Nice Dream

[Charlie the Hammer]

I am an agnostic. As am I. Nice unwarranted assumption about my beliefs there. Is that what you call keeping an open mind?

Re:Nice Dream

[rolyatknarf]

Where did I say "keeping an open mind"? You're reading things I didn't write. As for stem cells - no human life has ever been lost due to embryonic stem cells being harvested. My assumption about you may have been wrong but but the argument about a harvested stem cell being a loss of a human life is very popular with right to lifers and religious groups who very often are one in the same. It's hard to tell them apart when they all carry the same protest signs.

Re:Nice Dream

[Charlie the Hammer]

no human life has ever been lost due to embryonic stem cells being harvested. And your "agnostic" beliefs tell you this? Someday, son, when you grow up, you're going to realize that you don't get to decide the moral views of other people.

Re:Nice Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

>> who can also perform the calculus involved in computing age via radio carbon dating.

Holy Shit!!!

You ACTUALLY understand exponential decay???!?!!?? There must really be something to this fundamentalism stuff!!!! Count me in!!!!

Re:Nice Dream

[jamesh]

I'm not sure if there's an answer to this question yet, but if a 'stem cell' can be created from an adult cell, could this stem cell be converted (or is it already?) into a cell that could be implanted into a uterus and grow into a truly cloned human being? (as opposed to the semi cloned creations so far where the mitochondrial dna doesn't belong to the clone)

If that's the case, then yes, there will be ethical (and religious) issues that need to be addressed.

Re:Nice Dream

[Rostin]

Source, please. Most of the Christians I know or have read support research on stem cells from other sources, like umbilical cord blood. See for instance this article, which has nothing but good things to say about it: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/10284

Re:Nice Dream

[rolyatknarf]

"you're going to realize that you don't get to decide the moral views of other people"

Would that not apply to both of us? I don't try to legislate my beliefs, I just vote against those that do.

"And your "agnostic" beliefs tell you this?"

No, I see no evidence that an embryonic stem cell is a human life. That is not a faith based opinion.

BTW - I haven't been called son since 1964 and the man that did that was my father and he died. You can call me a lot of things, but "son" is certainly not one of them. That is unacceptable in any discussion.

Singularity?

[Cybert4]

But as people become true gods through technology, what power will the fundies have then? Transhumanism promises to change everything.

Re:Singularity?

[LucidWanderer]

And it is the arrogance of transhumanism that believes we should and can control our changes... And I'm not arguing from a moral/religious/fundamentalist perspective, but that "gods" may not be such a desirable goal to become...

Re:Singularity?

[WarpSnotTheDark]

Transhumanist is simply someone who advocates transhumanism. Transhumanism; an intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to enhance human capacities and improve the human condition. Transhuman would be a human more evolved than other humans. (Thanks to Wikipedia.org) I don't find Trahshumanism to be arrogant in any way. Someone claiming to be a Transhuman, however, would have to be one arrogant prick.

Re:Singularity?

[LucidWanderer]

What you mean, is someone who claims to be Posthuman. Transhuman is a person who's lifestyle is in someway on the road to becoming posthuman. My response to the arrogance of transhumanism is in the idea that there should be a posthuman, or that we can direct our own evolution... Which, whether openly expressed or not, is the end-all goal of Transhumanism. To put a person's genetic code, evolution and otherwise the rest of the non-posthuman world (via enhanced mental capacity through which the malicious could manipulate, control, or rule... well, scratch that, its already being done... but at least Bush is no mental giant...) under their will or control...

Re:Singularity?

[WarpSnotTheDark]

A posthuman or post-human is a hypothetical future being whose capabilities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer human by current standards (Anyone who would claim to be one would be stupid - not simply arrogant). It is a common error for social commentators to say that transhumanists claim to be transhuman; Adopting a philosophy which says that someday everyone ought to have the opportunity to become transhuman is not to claim that one is currently better or "more evolved" than one's fellow humans. Human = well...everyone. Transhuman = Human+Enhancements. Posthuman = Not Human Anymore - totally different, but has decended from humans. No disrespect - but I wrote exactly what I meant to wright. The political commentary doesn't really fit, but I know where you're coming from. Bush is kind of a weenie and he's a bit embrassing (I voted for him because McCain dropped out). But I can't regret my decision - Kerry and Gore are embrassments to the human race while Libertarians and Populists seem to be completely cracked in the head though all sides may spout something generally similar to a rational though from time to time. Money is what its all about. I don't have any, but I'm trying to change that daily.

Biological scientific breakthroughs

[MECC]

But the key test came when they labeled these ESCs with a fluorescent tag and injected then into recently fertilized mouse embryos at a time when the embryos were a small cluster of cells. The progeny of the engineered ESCs glowed green, and were found in every tissue in these embryos as they developed, as well as throughout adults. There seems to be little that's different between regular ESCs and the engineered ESCs.

How is it that so often scientific biological breakthroughs are accomplished by making something glow green?

Re:Biological scientific breakthroughs

[Herg]

It's the magic of "meteor rocks".

Re:Biological scientific breakthroughs

[ravenshrike]

Pretty often in the bio sciences actually. Or pink.

Re:Biological scientific breakthroughs

[lazybratsche]

Basically, it's a standard tool in molecular biology. GFP (an acronym for the creatively named Green Flourescent Protein) is a simple protein that's used as an indicator for all sorts of activity. Biologists, for example, will insert the gfp gene into an organism; if the organism glows, then that bit of gene splicing was successful. In other cases, GFP is tied into various genetic regulatory circuits again as a very convenient indicator.

In this case, the researchers added these "induced pluripotent stem cells" (tagged with the GFP gene) to a very early mouse embryo. Since the mouse had green glowing cells throughout its tissues, and the only grene glowing genes were introduced with the induced stem cells, the stem cells were clearly able to differentiate into many kinds of mature cells.

This research is more significant in that it shows the (apparently) minimal set of factors required to make cells revert to pluripotent forms. If only people would shut up about the politics and let scientists do the research...

Too bad I posted, and won't be able to moderate what looks to be a sparkling and witty discussion...

Re:Biological scientific breakthroughs

[MECC]

Personally, I would be suspicious of any technology developed by the Loknar

One Virus to rule them all

[LucidWanderer]

The ethical implications are not only in the possibility for destroying life; but what if some sort of virus mutated and made people immortal? I mean, look at fantasy literature and plenty of vampire fiction to realize that the quest for the cure to these diseases may inadvertently open a pandora's box. And this is not simply a dooms-day idea; what really would happen to our society if we managed to "solve" aging or death?

Re:One Virus to rule them all

[Anonymous Coward]

already been done.

That dog cancer which is just cells from a 1500 year old dog that are still alive and infecting other dogs...

Re:One Virus to rule them all

[Creedo]

Right. Because everyone knows that vampire fiction is a reliable predictor of scientific advances.

Re:One Virus to rule them all

[LucidWanderer]

Yes, and I am sure you swear by Star Trek as a predictor of the future... Beam me up, Scotty. Oftentimes the twin sides of the technology future are presented to an extreme. Some glorify it, others see the possibilities as undeath, or unbearable.

Telemere ?

[aepervius]

I might be wrong, but would not the telomere be of way different length, shorter in the adult cell transformed into embryo cell, and a real embryo cell ? Meaning if (fiction speaking here) you grew an organ out of it, it would anyway be as old as you are right now ?

Re:Telemere ?

[fullmetal55]

different biologic processes... basically what i've understood about stem cells is that they don't "grow an organ" rather they use the cells, which aren't specialized yet, to basically "regrow" your own tissues. So rather than transplant, give your body the cells it needs to rebuild itself.

Re:Telemere ?

[khedron the jester]

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. The parent poster's point was valid - that cells all have a telomere, which effectively limits the number of times it can divide. This is because each time the cell divides, the telomere is split between the two daughter cells. A cell with too short a telomere cannot divide.

GP's point was that if we used adult cells to produce stem cells, the telomere would remain the same length as in the adult cell - the cell's 'age' would not have changed. Therefore the (theoretical) organ being grown with the regressed adult cells would not be 'new' - it would be the same age as the adult cells, except that the rapid growth of the organ would mean that aging actually happened *faster* to the stem cells. That is, unless stem cells have a way of preventing such cell aging...

Re:Telemere ?

[RsG]

Eh, the way I see it, that's only really a problem if you want to use the cells for general purposes.

If you use your own cells to repair your own bodily tissues, then the new tissue will have virtually the same age as the old one. Compare that to the problems associated with tissue rejection in transplants, which using your own cells would avoid, and the adult stem cell approach comes out ahead.

I'll just grit my teeth, that's all.

[Grendel Drago]

This is great news if it pans out, but still, I'm going to have to do a lot of gritting-of-teeth to ignore the crowing from the pro-life crowd who are so, so happy about Sam Brownback's Amazing Dancin' Embryos being, um, kept alive until they get incinerated along with the rest of the medical waste.

I'm all for whatever it takes to get nifty medical research going on, but that part's going to give me a goddamned headache.

Scientist! Awesome!

[radarsat1]

Wicked, I had no idea Scientist could do this kind of stuff. And he's a great musician.

Strange though that he doesn't mention this kind of research on his myspace page.

Mmmmmm....brainless human meat....

[StressGuy]

AAAAAhhhhhhhrrrgggghhhhh....

Re:Lack of funding = a BAN !!!!

[hcob$]

It's just another version of the argument "The government not bothering to fund it = the government banning it". The argument has been used for years to portray the reduction in the funding of "official government art" as a draconian effort to censor things.

No, a ban means someone will come and charge you with a crime. Just because the government won't spend tax-payers dollars doesn't mean it's illegal to do it. Much like each state can set what ever drinking age they want. It just happens that if that age is below 21, they don't get any money to support their federal highways.

Blame Bush? Not for this one!

[krell]

"If Star Trek had had stem cells, they may have been able to give Jordi true-color vision"

I think the real reason had to do with a copyright dispute with Intel over some of the advanded rendering algorithms in the VISOR.

Your seeing the glass as half empty...

[StressGuy]

In the normal scheme of science and engineering, you often have to meet requirements that you don't fully understand or even agree with. Meeting such requirements is rarely seen as admitting they were correct, think of it more as eliminating another hurdle.

I really hope this works.

semantics, perhaps...

[Kozz]

Without making a statement regarding your opinion (which is yours to have), it's important that terminology is carefully used as to not make emotional appeals or confuse people. That being said, let's not suggest that "egg" has an equal definition with "embryo". Your use of the word egg makes it sound like you mean ovum. However, an embryo is the early-stages result from a fertilized ovum.

Most "right-to-lifers" give the impression that they view the moment of fertilization (and henceforth it's an embryo) as having potential for full development into a human being. So don't give someone the opportunity to dismiss your argument because of (ab)use of terminology.

Nanoo, Nanoo

[JoshDM]

Didn't "Star Trek" have an episode about a guy who had this condition?

No, that was Mork & Mindy. ;-D

This is a GOOD THING!

[neatfoote]

I find it amazing that many of the comments here are relatively negative in tone-- that people are still more interested in grousing about the religious right and their ridiculous ethics than they are in celebrating (however cautiously) an advance that may make it possible to reap the benefits of stem-cell research without compromising morals or sacrificing what some consider to be human lives.
 
  This development might offer a way for both sides to win. Should we really be feeling disheartened about that, like "Ugh, what if embryonic stem cells really aren't necessary, and they turn out to have been right all along?"? My impression was that supporting stem cell research was about being pro-science, not anti-religion.

Re:This is a GOOD THING!

[BoberFett]

[blockquote]?"? My impression was that supporting stem cell research was about being pro-science, not anti-religion.[/blockquote]
If there's one thing the internet has taught me, it's that atheism is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism to many people. Some people just get off on telling others that they're wrong.

Re:This is a GOOD THING!

[ndogg]

It's because it doesn't change the fact that religion has hitherto suppressed scientific research. The time and money that has been spent on bickering over its morality could have been spent on research, and we could have been far more advanced in medical technology by now.

Re:This is a GOOD THING!

[Seraphim_72]

I agree, and fundis are fundis regardless of the stripe. The wacko atheists are as nutty as the rest of them. Sad to see you get modded as a troll, as I am sure this post will be modded down as well.

Sera

Re:This is a GOOD THING!

[Solandri]

It's because it doesn't change the fact that religion has hitherto suppressed scientific research. The time and money that has been spent on bickering over its morality could have been spent on research, and we could have been far more advanced in medical technology by now.

The joke about prostitution is relevant here. A man asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for $1 million dollars. She agrees. He then asks if she'd sleep with him for $100. She says she's not that type of woman. He says they've already established that she is that type of woman, and he's just negotiating the price.

You seem to be arguing that the "bickering" over this issue was wasted effort because it was based on religion and morality; that science should be unimpeded by those two. If you hold to that principle, then scientific research should always be allowed regardless of the moral issues involved. Unfortunately, in doing so you've legitimized the Nazi medical experimentation on human subjects.

Once you agree that morality has to play some role in determining what science is and isn't allowed, all that's left is negotiating as to what degree morality should overule science. That was the argument that played out over the stem cell issue. Perhaps it was not decided as we would've liked, or was decided unfairly. But it needed to be negotiated and decided, and the time and money spent "bickering" over it most definitely was not wasted. To not have gone through the process would've meant giving up what sets us apart from animals.

Life doesn't begin at conception . . .

[PIPBoy3000]

or any other time, really. There's no valid scientific definition of life and death.

This is what the stem cell debate is all about, really. Religious people feel that life is a holy, special thing, and that human beings are unique due to divine will.

If a guy in a lab coat can take cells from inside my body and grow a new person, what makes me special? Life becomes just a mechanical process, a loose description for a certain type of interaction between atoms.

Re:Life doesn't begin at conception . . .

[wrfelts]

There's no valid scientific definition of life and death.

That would be correct.

This is what the stem cell debate is all about, really. Religious people feel that life is a holy, special thing, and that human beings are unique due to divine will.

This is also correct.

If a guy in a lab coat can take cells from inside my body and grow a new person, what makes me special? Life becomes just a mechanical process, a loose description for a certain type of interaction between atoms.

This would not be correct. If a guy in a lab coat CAN take cells from inside my body and grow a new person, then he just figured out how to instantiate a living human. That human still has his own life, which STILL cannot be defined properly by science. He becomes a distinct being with rights and value.
The ethical/religious issues with cloning center around the following:

1. Creating a clone whose life gets abused or terminated for scientific research.
2. Creating a clone that has life but is horribly deformed or goes through an otherwise miserable life because of scientific blunders or miscalculations in the cloning process that mess up the DNA or things that help control the DNA.

Sometimes the path of knowledge can be the path of cruelty. Use the Nazi medical "programs" on the Jews as an example of the thirst for knowledge gone awry. If the learning process involves cruel conditions for human life, we should look for other paths to solve our problems, such as the one mentioned in TFA. All-in-all Adult stem cell research is far more advanced AND SUCCESSFULL than embrionic stem cell research. The vast majority of results from embrionic research involves horrible failure and side effects (cancer, for instance).

Our objections to embrionic research (including cloning) are actually very similar to the far left animal rights activists except that our focus is on human life, not animals. To sum up a few of my favorite comparisons on left vs. right political/moral stances on things (from a semi-right-winger's perspective), consider the following:

• LEFT:
  1. Wants to protect lower species from abuse and cruelty.
  2. Wants to protect guilty criminals from execution (considered cruel).
  3. Doesn't care much about pre-birth life. Considers personal choice or convienience as more important.
• RIGHT:
  1. Wants to reduce animal cruelty, but will allow limited and controlled testing to help humanity.
  2. Supports highly restricted capital punishment of the guilty. (Justice sometimes requires the ending of someone's life that is bent on evil to protect the innocent.)
  3. Wants to protect innocent human life, once conceived.

To sum it up (again from the right-winger's perspective) we see the left (in general) valueing animal life and hardened criminals as more important than the innocent. This is, of course, not the entire picture, as there are right-wing wackos who DO follow the stereotypes (though they are few in number) and most left-wingers are much more pragmatic that the typical left-wing stereotypes. As a population, we are all much closer to center and share more common views than the politicos want you to know. in general, it is more about who wants control than what we beleive. The right has leaders who have said "this is the only way to reach our goals" and the left leaders have done the same. We generally have the same goals, just different methods to get there. If we could stop trying to wrest control from each other, we could come to a concensus and get things done!

Good news, but...

[Swift2001]

I think that those who find some moral problem involved with stem cells -- particularly after the discoveries made public yesterday about the non-destructive method of obtaining stem cells -- is kidding themselves about the history of medicine. We would know very little about what makes us tick if human dissections, made possible in many cases by professional grave-robbers, had not taken place in defiance of the religious objections of the day. If adult stem cells can be made useful, that's fine. But experiments with embryonic stem cells remain irreplaceable, and still more likely useful medically. Of course, we don't know for sure, because the research hasn't been DONE.

If we're going to get all squeamish about research and pander to the wishes of one or another religious group at this point in advanced human society, we're going to have to consent to genetic diseases that will have no cure, to diseases evolving to the point that they overwhelm the 19th-century germ science and early-20th-century antibiotics that we have to use against them, and generally to life falling back to the level of the 14th century. Not me.

Frankly, I find it completely bizarre for such tender-hearted regard to be extended to a blob of blastocysts that may produce a human being if everything goes right, while we approach the rest of humanity with the weapons of terror and elimination. Oh, you Christianists. Oh, wait, Christianity is a Religion of Peace, right? It's just a few that spread this terror and superstition.

Too bad Cell is a Closed Access journal

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad this work wasn't published in an open access journal like PLoS, PNAS, etc. Then everyone could read the article for free, instead of having to pay $170 per year for a subscription to Cell. http://www.plos.org/

Re:Too bad Cell is a Closed Access journal

[Antony-Kyre]

Why is it considered subscription only when the PDF file is there and completely viewable?

Knew someone in that situation

[TimTucker]

I knew someone whose parents had tried to abort them (and would remind them of it) -- definitely not the happiest of situations to be in.

Saved?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Countless embryos have now been saved from your murderous hands!"
and sent straight into the wastebasket?

92% the same..

[not-admin]

Mice share around 92% of their DNA code with humans, and much of that is realted to shared functions...
Why should nature re-invent the wheel?

Something that works in mice is likely to work in humans as well.

Stem Cells from Testicular Cells Already

[Anonymous Coward]

wherrera wrote:

Once we can take a patient's blood and make stem cells that are a perfect match for their tissue type, the whole fetal stem cell issue will be irrelevant. As it largely is already for those who look at where the field is REALLY moving.

Not from the blood -- from the reproductive organs, and it already apparently works in male mice. Back in March of this year, researchers in Germany were able to coax testicular cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells. If this works in humans (and a similar mechanism could be found for female humans), then as you said, this would eliminate the problem of foreign tissue rejection and the need to take anti-rejection medication. IMHO, this is really the best path for research to take, since a lot of ailments arise later in life, when the person is an adult, and may not have had his/her embryonic cells harvested.

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/03/24/AR2006032401721.html

Embryonic Stem Cell Success
In Mouse Experiment, Cells From Testes Are Transformed

by Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 25, 2006; Page A11

Scientists in Germany said yesterday that they had retrieved easily obtained cells from the testes of male mice and transformed them into what appear to be embryonic stem cells, the versatile and medically promising biological building blocks that can morph into all kinds of living tissues.

If similar starter cells exist in the testes of men, as several scientists yesterday said they now believe is likely, then it may not be difficult for scientists to cultivate them in laboratory dishes, grow them into new tissues and transplant those tissues into the ailing organs of men who donated the cells.

The technique would have vast advantages over the current approach to growing "personalized" replacement parts -- an approach that has stirred intense political controversy because it requires the creation and destruction of cloned human embryos as stem cell sources. The new work suggests that every male may already have everything he needs to regenerate new tissues -- at least with a little help from his local cell biologist.

No one knows whether cells with similar potential exist inside female bodies -- a crucial question if women, too, are to have access to new tissues genetically matched to themselves and so not susceptible to rejection by their immune systems. But recent studies have led many researchers to conclude that the possibility is greater than previously believed.

"We may not be as successful in getting the same result in humans as in mice," said study leader Gerd Hasenfuss, a cardiologist at Georg-August-University of Goettingen. "But I am very much convinced that this is the basis for a therapeutic strategy. I am optimistic."

Other scientists said the findings are exciting but reiterated Hasenfuss's first point, noting that mice have been cured of many diseases that still kill humans every day.

"The major caveat is that this was done in mice, and unfortunately we're starting to learn there really is a difference between mouse and human," said Evan Snyder, director of the stem cell program at the Burnham Institute in San Diego.

Embryonic stem cells are among the earliest cells to appear in newly developing organisms and have the potential to become every kind of cell or tissue in the body. In recent years, scientists have learned to keep them alive in laboratory dishes and, by adding certain nutrients or hormones, coax them to become pancreatic cells, cardiac cells, nerve cells or others that may someday serve as living "patches" for patients with diabetes, heart disease, spinal cord injuries or other degenerative conditions.

The new report, published yesterday in the online edition of the journal Nature, is not the firs

Re:Adult Cells + Adult Cells + Trickery = Stem Cel

[TheMeuge]

What kind of a douchebag marked the parent Flamebait?

First time for everything

[Tracer_Bullet82]

Now I don't like answering my own post.. never mind the replies or moderation.

and in 2 or 3 years of being a sldotter.. these is my first time to do it.

I WAS MAKING A JOKE>JOKE. JOke.

Re:First time for everything

[GeffDE]

I can see that. That doesn't mean that most people, either on slashdot or in "real life" don't seem to appreciate that. And it is jokes that like that lead to prejudices and the ignorance we have now...that's what I was reacting to.

Style

[Ksisanth]

Using quotes around the titles of television programs (radio programs, songs, articles featured in a larger collection, etc.) is a standard style, like using italics or underlining the titles of books, movies, albums and other complete works. However, since Star Trek was a television series, style guides often suggest the use of italics, while the title of a particular episode would use quotes (e.g., "Arena").

Re:Style

[Kreeben]

Hot diggedy damn, man, ur a super nerd.

Re:Style

[El Long]

But he does have style.

Who cares?

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Can the US catch up fast enough using this method?

It was your voters that RE-elected the fundamentalists. Now its time to reap what you sow.

Actually I have been working on a theory. The whole world knows about the legendary corruption of US politicians. So I asked myself, why oh why don't foreign governments just make like a corporation and buy the politicans that would make as much of a mess as possible out of the US?

Then I thought, hey maybe they already have! Massive debt, unneccesary wars, religious wing nuts tearing apart your academic foundations with bread-and-circus debates, erosion of civil liberties... Hell if I was a hostile power or even just a power with nothing to do this decade, I couldn't have done a better job on the US myself! :D

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was your voters that RE-elected the fundamentalists...

Hey, don't you live in a country (Ireland) that didn't legalize divorce until 1995, didn't legalize condoms until 1993, and where abortion is still illegal? You're not exactly in a position to be screeching about the "fundamentalist governments" of other countries, boyo.

Re:Who cares?

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Trends and graphs my friend, trends and graphs... Ours is slanting upwards towards civilisation, whereas in the US its slanting downwards towards the middle ages. Nobody under 30 gives a flying fack in hard vacuum about the church these days. Too many cases of paedophile priests.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you have something in London to bomb?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trends and graphs my friend, trends and graphs...

Sure, whatever you say. Snicker....

At your current rate of "progress", you might even have legal abortion or no-fault divorce 40 or 50 years from now.

The fact is, you live in a backward religious hell that's about two steps away from being the Christian equivalent of the Taliban, and you're arrogant enough to criticize someone else's country.

How's that "Irish Film Censors Office" thing working out for you, by the way? We got rid of our equivalent 40 years ago. Just as we legalized contraception and abortion.

Sign in the Dublin International Airport: "Welcome to Ireland. Please set your clocks back 40 years."

Heh.

Re:Who cares?

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Yawn. Hows that evolution thing coming along? Accepted 19th century biology yet? And hey, just as a point of interest, this backwards religious hell was voted the best place to live on earth in 2005 by the Economist.

Now sign in like a good lad and take your karma like a man, not a bitch queen of an anonymous coward. But hey, if that suits you, we know all English people take it up the arse. Enjoy!

Re:Who cares?

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

As I mentioned, all English people take it up the arse. Well known fact. Better to leave them to enjoy their sodomisation for a while yet. Now pick up the soap, Coward.

Re:Lack of funding = a BAN !!!!

[treeves]

I think if you read more carefully you'll see that you actually agree with the guy you're disagreeing with.

Here's the abstract..

[jabbo]

From Cell:

> Differentiated cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state by transfer of
> nuclear contents into oocytes or by fusion with embryonic stem (ES) cells. Little is
> known about factors that induce this reprogramming. Here, we demonstrate induction of
> pluripotent stem cells from mouse embryonic or adult fibroblasts by introducing four
> factors, Oct3/4, Sox2, c-Myc, and Klf4, under ES cell culture conditions. Unexpectedly,
> Nanog was dispensable. These cells, which we designated iPS (induced pluripotent stem)
> cells, exhibit the morphology and growth properties of ES cells and express ES cell
> marker genes. Subcutaneous transplantation of iPS cells into nude mice resulted in tumors
> containing a variety of tissues from all three germ layers. Following injection into
> blastocysts, iPS cells contributed to mouse embryonic development. These data demonstrate > that pluripotent stem cells can be directly generated from fibroblast cultures by the
> addition of only a few defined factors.

Funny, I was looking at the Young lab's results from Nanog/Oct4/Sox2 co-occupation of transcription factor binding sites (these genes appeared to control self-renewal in pluripotent stem cells) and thinking, "Why hasn't anyone tried this?"

Looks like they had... the paper was probably under review when Young et al. published theirs. I was surprised that Nanog was unnecessary for self-renewal; the belief had been that it was *THE* crucial gene regulating the others. Apparently not.

It will be interesting to see whether descendents of these adult-derived pluripotent cells exhibit the same bizarre "accelerated aging" as embryonic nuclear transplants (eg. Dolly) due to what seems to be patterns of DNA methylation. If they have found away around that problem I will be very impressed; the derived cell lines really would be just like embryonic lines in all respects. We shall see, and I'm sure with all this excitement, we'll see very soon if that's the case.

Ahh, bad analogy time!

[zippthorne]

I think if you take a computer apart into ICs, take the ICs apart into transistors, take those apart into molecules, and those to atoms, you'll never find anything you could call a "program" that couldn't also be called, "physics."

Re:Baby Nuggets

[Arivia]

Dude, you need to start listening to something *other* than Cannibal Corpse.

Flawed ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey how do we know these "synthetic" stem cells arent flawed in some subtle way ?

Adult Stem Cells are already in use

[kinglitho]

Most people assume that any discussion of stem cells refers to embryonic stem cells. The fact is that adult stem cells can be harvested from several parts of your body, such as your bone marrow and the nasal epithelium. These cells have the advantage of being a perfect genetic match to the recipient.

What's even less well known is that adult stem cells have already been used successfully to treat a number of conditions in humans, including spinal cord injuries! Meanwhile, embryonic stem cells have been used to treat exactly zero humans.

The big pharma and biotech companies already know this. That's why they are spending their research money on adult stem cell research and not the embryonic kind. The researchers complaining about the lack of government funds are all academics who rely on federal grants for their jobs. Embryonic stem cell research, like AIDS research, has such an incredibly far away success horizon that it is great for making a research career out of.

Embryo research is still needed

[DerangedAlchemist]

These findings don't lessen the value of embryo stem cell research at all. It means that therapies developed using embryo cell research could be switched to using this technology once it came of age. This is a great result that shows it is possible to create stem cells from adults that behave like embryonic stem cells, but this isn't near being ready yet for practical purposes. It will likely take several years to find proper methods of controlling the genes involved. That still means years of falling behind and research on therapies and, therefore, many people dying.

Bush's stance is stupid and hypocritical. If you actually cared about the embryos wouldn't you prevent them from being created in the first place? Embryos were not going to be created for stem cell research. Unwanted embryos were going to be used find ways to cure diseases instead of being incinerated.

Morally superior christian view:

Embryos incinerated alive.
The sick suffer and die. Just like God intended. Ahmen.

Unscrupulous pragmatic view (likely promoted by ungodly evolutionists!):

Embryos die advancing research and are incinerated, or live on in others, curing disease.
The sick may be cured.

Sorry, started ranting. Religous fundementalism (of all kinds) terrifies and irritates me.