Slashdot Mirror
Skin Cells Turned Embryonic
anik315 writes "Nature is reporting a major breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research. A straightforward procedure using mouse fibroblasts harvested from the skin can be used to produce pluripotent stem cells that can potentially become any other cell in the body. Not only can Yamanaka's method use the most basic cells, it can be accomplished with simple lab techniques. Possible applications of this breakthrough are to check molecular changes in cells as certain conditions develop. Stem cells produced using this procedure, however, can not be used safely to make genetically matched cells for transplant."
Just a few more years and it should be possible to cause fibroblasts to grow into embryos. IRC, it's more or less possible now but it involves mixing and matching parts of different cells (the nucleus from the fibroblast and the cytoplasm from a fertilized egg cell.
Anyway, that should throw the anti-abortion crowd for a loop: "Oh no, he's cut his skin. He's killing babies!" After all, the usual argument is that if something can develop into a human then it should be considered to be a human even before it develops into a human.
Actually it is. We have already been using skin grafts to cure minor cosmetic flaws from burns or scars with no moral repercussions. I don't see why it would suddenly become immoral to expand that to much more life-threatening diseases and ailments.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
A straightforward procedure using mouse fibroblasts harvested from the skin can be used to produce pluripotent stem cells [...] Stem cells produced using this procedure, however, can not be use to safely to make genetically matched cells for transplant.
I think I found the source of the problem.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
Actual papers for those interested (it was published simultaneously by three groups): (Nature probably requires subscriptions, the first one is free access)
e xt?uid=PIIS1934590907000203
t /full/nature05934.html
t /full/nature05944.html
Nimet Maherali, Rupa Sridharan, Wei Xie, Jochen Utikal, Sarah Eminli, Katrin Arnold, Matthias Stadtfeld, Robin Yachechko, Jason Tchieu, Rudolf Jaenisch, Kathrin Plath, and Konrad Hochedlinger
http://www.cellstemcell.com/content/article/fullt
Keisuke Okita, Tomoko Ichisaka & Shinya Yamanaka
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurren
Marius Wernig, Alexander Meissner, Ruth Foreman, Tobias Brambrink, Manching Ku, Konrad Hochedlinger, Bradley E. Bernstein & Rudolf Jaenisch
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurren
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Seriously, this is not a scientific question, but a moral/ philosophical question. There IS room for debate. However, as a promising source of embryonic stem cells, this discovery may reduce the importance of the debate. I think that the abortion debate in general should be solved in this way. Make the debate less important by solving the problem of unwanted pregnancies directly with good birth control.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Why are they running these experiments on mouse cells? Why aren't they starting with human skin cells and developing their techniques there? It would avoid the secondary step of having to transfer the technique from mouse tissue to human tissue.
I always assumed that the reason that experiments are done on mice and other animals is that they are easier to obtain than human subjects and that we can do things to them that would be considered unethical when done to a human (leaving aside some people's feelings that they are unethical when done to animals too).
But with skin cell experiments, I don't see the reason to do the research on animals. Human skin cells ought to be readily available, ethical to obtain, and ethical to experiment on.
Why start with mice on this? Why not start with humans and cut one step out of the process?
Sure, but the same people who are the biggest advocates against abortion also tend to be the ones that seek to limit access to birth control, so that argument doesn't get very far either.
"Farts".
Or, I suppose, "FartWare".
"The four transcription factors used by Yamanaka reprogramme cells inconsistently and inefficiently, so that less than 0.1% of the million cells in a simple skin biopsy will be fully reprogrammed."
As noted, the major problem is not just the inconsistency, but the locating of the modified cells.
However, unlike many other slashdot articles, this is is in a peer-reviewed journal, it is based on a technique which has been run for a while and altered based upon other followup work, and it might prove a useful addition for labs to do research, while of limited use in therapeutics.
But that also depends on cost. People forget that a successful research lab has got to get costs per experiment down - if it costs me $20 per sample and I have a plate of samples, I'll go broke trying to run any sizeable research of any note, especially that with significant data that can answer more than 2 basic questions of statistical significance.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I meant the argument doesn't get very far in the real world debate because the people you are debating with have these views against birth control as well, not that it is logically flawed in any way.
Frankly, I think we should do it just out of spite... for people who would spout the kind of self-important ignorant garbage that just evacuated itself from the barren environment of your skull.
the same people who are the biggest advocates against abortion also tend to be the ones that seek to limit access to birth control, so that argument doesn't get very far either.
Sure it does, if reasonable people can ignore the others. The problem is unwanted pregnancy and reasonable people can work together to reduce it and support the people who have the problem. The use of obnoxious and confused advocates is an underhanded way to kill off a proposal.
The counterexamples are communists, extreme feminists and corporate monsters who put production above personal well being. They don't value babies because they don't value each other.
You don't have to be religious or hate sex to think that abortion is murder. In almost all cases, if no one does anything to a pregnant woman, a child will be born. The person who stops that birth has ended a human life. It is a terrible thing to do and it is not justified by other terrible things, lack of resources or potential uses for the remains.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Of course, I was just being facetious -- parodying the extreme and ludicrous characterization of embryonic stem cell research/therapy as involving "dead babies." Except that my description of the procedure is actually technically accurate (at least so far as I can tell, if it went beyond the animal testing stage). Of course, if you have to explain the joke, you've already failed as comedian. I apologize for my inept attempt at humor. :)
... about the only way that you can raise such concerns is to assume some sort of empirically unsupported vitalist superstition.
I have no problem with this technology or research, but then I also think there is no ethical dilemma with the use of embryonic stem cells for medical purposes/research either. I think it's ridiculous to say we have a moral obligation to a tiny clump of cells with no nervous system
The poster makes a serious ethical point.
However emotively he put it, surely it's quite different to take tissue from a consenting human donor than from a subject whose life has just been ended - however "potential" its (his? her?) humanity may be.
Don't all but the most extreme "it's the woman's body till it's born" zealots regard the abortion of a foetus (with its potential to grow into a human adult) as a necessary evil, rather than a simple lifestyle choice?
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Either that or you'll wind up cloning a Cheeto.
Why is the abortion debate involved in this at all? Stem cells used in research are not acquired from abortions! Abortions are a terrible source of stem cells for research purposes.
the most vocal, and therefore the most influential anti-choice proponents claim that birth control for women is tantamount to abortion as most prevent the egg from adhering to the wall of the uterus, or prevent it from traveling down the fallopian tubes, where it can grow further. Condoms, therefore, can be the only one they can support, but those same supporters tend to be the ones who want to preach abstinence because their head seems firmly implanted in the sand, doomed to pretend people from kids to grandparents do not have sex or sexual urges (This mindset seems to be the biggest barriers against sexual education in youth.)
This is why the argument does not go far. The only ones who speak loudly enough to argue, tend to be the very evangelical of the crowd. That comes from firsthand experience at protests. Those very vocal people are quick to judge. Even at clinics where women who have gone through a non-induced miscarriage that was no fault of their own go to seek treatment afterwards, pro-life people stand and hurl insults at them, not knowing even a part of the story.
I support embryonic stem cell research, as I have Type 1 diabetes and stand to gain from this research. Most of the eggs used were discarded and would never have come to fruition as a human anyway.
First, if you would RTFS, much less article, much less paper, you would know that one of the fascinating things about this procedure is that it uses skin cells, not embryonic cells as a base. Very few people who believe in any invasive medicine have a problem with this. This is a breakthrough in part because it fixes problems like embryonic harvesting or even The Island-esqe people harvesting because a given sick person could use it on him or herself.
Secondly, a work force that lives productively into their 80's would be a lovely thing for any society's economies. A government should certainly be concerned about its nation's economy, yes?
Thirdly, medical research=good for people. Democratic government=group that uses pooled funds for betterness of group. Are there spending issues? Duh. But still better than most systems. I want to put my money in a pool that can fund science. Hooray that there is an automatic way that this happens for me. I don't even need said science to produce economic results for me to be happy about it. But if it's going to, I won't turn that down.
And for the record, a considerable majority of Americans do want stem cell research, even from embryos. Google news reports around last Nov's Missouri senate elections, & there were several stories about how while most Americans support it, it's a non-issue in the polls.
To answer your queries
1) It's worthwhile pursuing other avenues of research in case this avenue doesn't pan out
2) It's worthwhile pursuing other avenues of research that use stem cells from normal sources until this method is more reliable in producing the raw materials for those complementary avenues of research. Those other avenues of research also add to our understanding of cell differentiation which might provide positive feedback into your favoured avenues of research.
3) The pharmaceutical industry is a lot more interested in producing treatments than cures. You can make a lot more money out of an ongoing treatment than from a one shot cure. Private industry generally also isn't interested in funding multi-decade long term research projects but want much shorter time frame ROI. Even in the pharmaceutical industry, where safety testing causes development times that can exceed a decade, the amount of research that remains before these approaches can be commercially viable are too long to attract the necessary investment.
4)...
5) Keep your religious and capitalist ideology to yourself and out of the way of scientist trying to further our understanding of whether it's possible to make this work. Once we start havign a reasonable understanding the fine grain mechanisms of cell differentiation and start looking at widespread clinical trials, then you can bring out your hobby horse.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Now all we need is a bunch of over-religious nutters telling me that the skin on my ass is a child that hasn't been born, yet is entitled to all the rights of an individual.....
Maybe I'll even get to use the "Stem cells are people MY ASS!" line, and actually be correct on BOTH sides of the issue at the same time!
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
what is the justification for using public money for research that tens of millions of people consider murder?We hope this is so, but have absolutely no way of knowing.
Additionally, no stem-cell research that I know of is focused on any public health concern such as communicable diseases; rather, it is focused on private health issues such as cancer or Parkinson's disease. Hence, it is debatable whether such research is the domain of government at all.First off, I'm not sure I buy your proclamation (where are the tens of millions fighting against in-vitro fertilization). Tens of millions also consider eating animals tantamount to murder...let's kill off the USDA. Tens of millions believe in creationism, let's stop geology/archeology/cosmology research. Tens of millions of people believe lots of crazy shit that should not be directing gov't policy, thats the way democracy works.
1. *That* you know of. Even the researchers don't really know how widely stem-cell therapy might or might not be used, that's why you research it. 2. So you are positing that only those lucky enough to have suffered from a communicable disease should be a concern of the gov't? Really? And what defines a public health concern? Cancer from industrial pollution? vCJD from mad-cows...that happens to be similar to parkinson's (and alzheimer's)? So people who had the unfortunate luck to be born with a disease are SOL, yet those with preventable sexually-transmitted diseases are the beneficiaries? What the hell kind of moral system did you pluck that from?
If the government is going to intrude so deeply into the private sphere, should it not do so under only the most benign of manners?Right, so how about, say, abortion? Or euthanasia? Should the gov't butt out of those 'private spheres'? And if so, you've lost the support of those "tens of millions" who have an issue with stem-cell research.
In contrast, there is no compelling reason for the government to fund stem-cell research at all...and even less so, given its controversy.Well, public support for gov't funding of research is a pretty damn compelling reason. Again, democracy and all. If you can convince a majority to do away with basic research funding, then we can have a debate about the societal benefit of gov't support of research. Until then, we, as a society, have pretty clearly decided that it is in our interest to support research (of non-communicable diseases as well as stem-cell related technology).
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
To keep it in the same terms, lets put it into perspective to keep the comparison real. But she doesn't have right to kill the trespasser without giving them enough time to leave. In almost any state, with the exception of Texas maybe, if you find a trespasser/intruder and they pose no direct harm to you or anyone there, you tell them to leave and then kill them because they didn't leave fast enough, you will be going to jail. But pregnancy isn't even a trespasser or intruder, it is a welcomed guest. You have to take certain actions to invite a fetus into your home(body). And in every state, if you invite someone into your house and then kill them, it is murder.
I know this is someone else's rationalizing. But we can often make judgments to justify something that other see as wacked. You cannot run over a kid playing ball in the street because thats where cars drive when you have plenty of time to stop. Saying the kid shouldn't be playing in the road is just an attempt to justify it to yourself but doesn't make it just. Leaving out the fact that the intruder is crippled and will take a certain amount of time to leave the property and killing them before they can do so because you ordered them out makes no sense either. And repeating this nonsense make even less sense.
You know, after the first read of your comment I agreed with you. But after I thought about it, if I had Parkisons, which isn't as treatable as diabetes, I just might consider this new treatment as an alternative. At least some forms of cancer are treatable, and with the prior knowledge of a 20% chance of occurance, it would seem that doctors would be able to get a jump on treatment of the cancer. Tough call.
Then again, your wailing about "encourag[ing] promiscuity" and how those damned sluts deserve to be punished with unwanted pregnancies because, well, they were asking for it, what with the having sex and all, leads me to believe that your motives may not be that different.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
What makes one stage or state of your children's existence more important than the others? If you can't draw a meaningful, qualitative distinction between one state and another based on what we know about existence, then I see no rational basis for assigning higher value to one or the other. I understand the intuitive and emotional appeal to such thinking and I suppose that's fine, but we shouldn't erect ethical barriers to embryonic stem cell research on that basis, when it has the potential to improve the lives of conscious human beings, like yourself and your children (note that I don't know how you feel about stem cell research itself, I'm just noting that the sort of observation you made is often closely followed by an argument against such research).