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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."
What about the rights of the innocent human cells killed in this process? Have these scientists no moral fiber whatsoever?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I can finally grow myself a twin!
Oh wait, I already am one.
Quads it is then...
Summation 2
Didn't "Star Trek" have an episode about a guy who had this condition?
Where were you when the voynix came?
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.
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.
Will this lead to our eventual ability to grow brainless human meat in vats, the most ethical meat we can cook up?
but.. but.. but.. that cell can turn into a living breathing human being.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
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.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
See you can't even READ about it unless you've got money... so it starts...
You're nothing; like me.
Where did you get that info? The government just isn't providing any funding.
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.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
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.
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 :(...
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.
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.
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?
I have nothing to say.
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?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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