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Stem Cells From Fat Create Beating Heart Cells
Amenacier writes "Melbourne scientists recently discovered that stem cells isolated from human fat could be made to turn into beating heart muscle cells when cultured with rat heart cells. This discovery may lead to the use of fat stem cells in repairing cardiac damage, or fixing such cardiac problems as holes in the heart. It is proposed that culturing the stem cells with rat heart cells allows them to differentiate into heart muscle through signals from the rat cells. In the future it may be possible to inject/transplant the stem cells into the damaged area and have them naturally differentiate into the type of cell required, with only the natural stimuli provided by surrounding cells, without any danger of rejection by the body. Quoting: 'The next step is to implant the human heart cells onto the damaged heart of a laboratory rat to see whether they repair the heart. Then they would be trialled in higher species such as sheep and pigs before human applications could be considered. Clinical application could be five years away ...'" The Age has a multimedia treatment (Flash) of the discovery.
Nah. We've already got those.
Why am I having visions of average Joes being fatted up for their stem cells... wait, but... those darn fast food companies may be on to something!
(captcha: exporter ["We will be exporting fat stem cells from obese Americans!"])
my fat cells are killing my heart cells
might as well sacrifice a few of them to give back what they took
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That from the fat of the overweight American comes the cure for heart disease brought on by his poor diet!
With two thirds of Americans overweight, this is promising news.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Pabst Brewing co., is that you?
That McCain/Palin don't get elected if you want this kind of research to continue.
no matter who gets elected in the USA, future research won't be effected by this. Unless said president decides to attack Australia. Please do more research next time before making off-hand comments about politics.
Hey, I tried Pabst Blue Ribbon for the first time the other day, and it wasn't too bad. Everybody always talking about how bad it is, but they should just give it a try.
Beer, and this includes your favorite beer, is something you grow to like. In reality beer is nasty shit and we all know it. We just learn to tolerate a certain flavor, and we like to stick to what we learned to tolerate. Many may deny it, but in reality all we really want is the alcohol, or one to have the taste to remind us of the alcohol.
Yep, I just said that a beer didn't taste bad, and then went on to say that all beer tastes bad.
"Where have all the good people gone?" - Jack Johnson
See, Saul won't go to waste. Soylent Cells, the wave of the future.
"Where have all the good people gone?" - Jack Johnson
I have enuf in my gut to be wealthier than Warren Buffet.
Table-ized A.I.
So the plan was to get the entire world to bulk up and then sell their fat back to them as a means to save them...
the first rule of stem cell research is you don't talk about stem cell research.
Well, you've just proven yourself uneducated on this topic.
The lack of government funding (not an outright ban) was on stem cells harvested from fetuses.
1) So, these fat stem cells aren't in that fetus stem cell funding ban.
2) The private sector can do what the damn well please. Fat stem cells or fetus stem cells.
But you keep living the lie.
Melbourne scientists recently discovered that stem cells isolated from human fat could be made to turn into beating heart muscle cells when cultured with rat heart cells
Making the joke "hung like a mouse" a little more true to life.
I am sorry if I offend anyone here but... no wait I am not.
Why can't we just use the stem cells from fetuses, drop the friggin "soul"-discussion now, ok? Stem cells are probably the most promising research field in biology today, can't we just drop the fundamentalist christians from the whole thing? In the name of humanity? Please?
The beauty of using adult stem cells is that they can be taken from and used on the same person without fear of rejection because they are already marked as "self" by the body...foetal stem cells may still cause problems because they have their own unique DNA.
Amenacier
There's a lot of questions that have to be answered here - it's not as simple as they say it is. Adipose-derived stem cells are definitely nothing new - adult stem cells are widely studied and commonly used in bioengineering labs. The problem is that translating this into a clinically useful tool is far from reality, and there are a lot of fundamental issues that have to be resolved before something useful can be made:
In Australia things might happen faster, but for the US, getting this particular system running is full of regulatory issues and problems that aren't going to be easily addressed - 5 years is frankly impossible. I'd say 10 years, and that's AFTER they get all of the animal studies up and running. Ah, and it will cost tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions.
I'm hung like an infant: 10 pounds, 18 inches.
Why 5 years? I am sure they got enough funding to shorten that to at least a few months, them lazy b...
"This discovery may lead to the" will become "This discovery has lead to the"
Conservatives oppose embryonic stem cell research, not adult stem cell research.
When we learn how to create any cell out of any other cell, from any species of animal, the Christian (sic) Right (sic) will most certainly have something to say about it. They don't like it when science replaces the need for their magic sky fairy.
When "research" includes such things as "discovering that other nations exist," we are well and truly fucked.
Well, I wouldn't know what Christians are saying. As far as I can tell, they're not saying anything about adult stem cells. They were opposed to embryonic stem cells because of how they were harvested, and it wasn't just Christians who were opposed.
By the way, mocking Christianity on Slashdot for easy upmods is too easy.
Just think, people like you are voting Obama the Christian and Biden the Catholic into office. Whoopee! We'll have an administration that thinks America invented AIDS and demons are running around influencing world events.
Eh? Was there a beating heart in The Cask of Amontillado? Maybe "the beating of his hideous heart" from The Tell-Tale Heart would have been more appropriate?
Doctor Who
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Reprogramming normal tissue cells into other types usually involves inserting new genes randomly into the genome of these cells. This process is highly mutagenic. I wonder if this is the "mixture" they mentioned in the article is some kind of viroid to insert these genes. If this is the case the patients threated with this method my end up with cancer.
Even more so, since this is not embryonic stem-cell research (to which McCain, Palin, and many other Christians object), but rather adult stem-cell research (to which only Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists object, as far as I know).
Personally, I have yet to read of truly successful research with embryonic stem cells (because they are generally rejected by the recipient), whereas many large advances have been made with adult stem cells (since the donor and the recipient are the same person, rejection is eliminated) -- for men at least, pluripotent cells have been found in the testicles, so that any type of cell could be produced without having to use embryonic stem cells. I also recently saw a report about a person with congenital heart disease who was apparently cured by an injection of his own bone-marrow stem cells.
So I suppose my question would be why the intellectual elites want to spend their research monies on embryonic stem-cell research that is more expensive, less successful, and morally questionable to a large sector of society, rather than on research in areas where successes keep coming, the cells are available without moral complications, and the costs are in general lower. A cynical person might think that it's all about getting drug patents and getting money out of the consumers and padding their own checkbooks...
Clearly a humongous discovery. Should these cells be made to repair damaged heart muscle, it will revolutionize medicine. And without all the tedious hoo-hah about embryonic stem cells. Cardiac cells, like neurons, cannot be replaced by the body when damaged. This in fact is why many people die from heart failure years after surviving heart attacks. Heart attacks cut off the oxygen supply to cardiac cells, which die and can only be replaced by non-functional scar tissue, which is like the body's spakfiller. You lose enough cells, the heart cannot pump properly.
I think this is what the post was referring to. Australia does have some small oil reserves after all!
Yep, I just said that a beer didn't taste bad, and then went on to say that all beer tastes bad.
Ah. I guess that means you're drunk :-P
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I did saw "stem cells extracted from human farts..." had to re-read it a second time wondering where the science could ever stop
giving me a hard time for being big ... "You're killing yourself" ... No, I'm just well prepared.
This is just a really roundabout way to prove that the way to man's heart is through his stomach.
Feed a man lots of fatty foods, he gets fat.
Turn those fat cells into stem cells.
Turn those stem cells into heart cells.
Done.
Yep, I just said that a beer didn't taste bad, and then went on to say that all beer tastes bad.
For the majority of commonly available beers, I tend to agree with you. As the troll pointed out, many commonly available beers range from "frosty piss" to "bitter, frosty piss," and as such, only lend credence to your point of view.
I do challenge you, however, to try beers available from local breweries. Beers like Budweiser and PBR are brewed for price and consistency. Independent breweries brew for taste.
If you're in the Great Lakes region, anything available from the Great Lakes Brewery, especially their seasonal brews, can be very good. Nosferatu, out for Halloween, is particularly good.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I would bet most people, although certainly not all, drink beer because they do like the way it tastes. And, amazingly enough, some of us actually like to try a variety of beers because we don't want to taste the same one every time.
Stay for the heart surgery?
.. who the primary to thank for this. If it wasn't for them, I highly doubt this research would have been possible. Can we give a big round of applause to McDonalds and Burger King!
Why is that?
This isn't embryonic stem cell research at all.
Nobody has any problems with this research.
So
1. You don't know what your talking about.
or
2. You are using lies and fear to support your political viewpoint.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You've apparently never had Professor Gesser's Mind-Numbing Ale from the Bluegrass Brewing Company,... ;-)
Liposuction + heart fix
Come out thinner and heart-healthy, all in one swell foop (without all that tedious dieting and exercise).
Someone is going to make a fortune.
Even Jehovah's Witnesses don't have an objection to banking and reusing their own personal blood. A lot of people are trying to make religious objections larger than they actually are in an effort to make religious people seem foolish or weird. Don't get taken in.
Actual christians (instead of the caricatures and straw men you see on slashdot and elsewhere) are rather happy about adult stem cell therapies and wholeheartedly support them.
Possibly because they think there might be some potential to embryonic stem-cell research. If they knew what was going to happen, it wouldn't be research at all. As for the morally questionable element, well, keep in mind that the "large sector of society" is also mostly ignorant of the details, so it's probably best not to let them handicap science too much. There are ethics boards for this sort of thing and I haven't noticed them smacking stem cell research down. That seems to be the exclusive domain of the religious right.
When we learn how to create any cell out of any other cell, from any species of animal, the Christian (sic) Right (sic) will most certainly have something to say about it. They don't like it when science replaces the need for their magic sky fairy.
Atheists may not believe in gods, but they nevertheless need to cling to some sort of a Satan-figure upon whom the world's troubles can be blamed.
You can almost hear their fearful vision of pitchforks-and-pointed-ears when they say "Christian (sic) Right (sic)".
Or anything made by Bells up there... everything they touch turns to gold.
for men at least, pluripotent cells have been found in the testicles
Shit. What a decision.
"We can save you life. But, in order to do so, we have to cut open your scrotum and remove a few cells."
"How many is 'a few'?"
"Look, let's not make this about what we're taking from you. Think about what we're giving you: another chance at life!"
Good for you Mr. Fancy Pants Beer Drinker. Nothin' wrong with PBR; it's quite drinkable. To be honest, I prefer Hamm's though, and Budweiser before it turned into a froo froo Belgian beer ;)
Just say NO to beer snobs ;)
Budweiser, PBR, Hamm's, etc. are perfectly drinkable, tasty beers. Sure if I could drink Celebrator or Delirium or microbrews every day, but why spend so much on beer if a cool, crisp brewski is all you want?
So I suppose my question would be why the intellectual elites want to spend their research monies on embryonic stem-cell research that is more expensive, less successful, and morally questionable to a large sector of society, rather than on research in areas where successes keep coming, the cells are available without moral complications, and the costs are in general lower.
Well, human embryonic stem (HES) cells have already proven invaluable in research. Notably it was by studying them that we found out how to make induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS), basically how to make any cell into personalized embryonic stem cells without the embryo or the tissue rejection. That's not something you can say about adult stem cells: they won't ever be able to make new spinal cord cells. IPS cells can, and if we hadn't been researching HES cells, we never would have figured out how to make IPS cells.
And THAT'S why you don't ban different types of research: you don't always know where it's going.
And then they saw that other nations existed, remarking "they'll have to go."
It seems to me though, that this is a massive discovery and a huge step forward in technology. So why is the only publication that they list a multimedia presentation on, The Age? Shouldn't Science and Nature be all over this? At least it should be in the Journal of Tissue Engineering.
That's incredibly silly. If I just want alcohol with a nice taste, I'd drink vodka with mixers. Some people actually *like* beer and wine. If you don't, it's your problem. I could easily say the same thing about coffee and caffeine. Just because something doesn't instantly set off happy feelings in your taste buds doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable.
Also, not all beer is created equal. I've personally gotten a girl who said she hated beer to happily drink a Hoegaarden.
Looney, but...
One that goes to Walgreens and other stores similar to them in San Francisco, and weekly buys boatloads of sticky rat traps (peanut-butter-scented) to help these stores make up for loss of cigarette sales since SF banned sales of cigs/tobacco in stores like Walgreens & Rite-Aid. (Actually, those traps smell pretty good, but, i don't have a rat heart, fortunately....)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Now we can sell our abundant liposuctioned fat into the cardiac stem cell market. Sweet!
Actual christians (instead of the caricatures and straw men you see on slashdot and elsewhere) are rather happy about adult stem cell therapies and wholeheartedly support them.
Speaking as one of those fundamentalist christains you've been warned about, I support adult stem cell research.
>mocking Christianity is too easy.
fixed that for you.
This has been McDonald's plan all along.
If you only care about the results, then yeah, but in the real world, that's actually an incredibly sticky question of medical ethics.
I mean, take Mengele's research, for instance. Would you allow it because you didn't know where it was leading? What about the rest of the Nazi research? Some of it had the potential to save many lives, but would you have allowed it to take place just to get to the result? How about the Tuskegee experiment? The list is, sadly, not short.
Would you allow all of that because you don't know what good might come of it?
Some research is not worth the price: The ethical taint it puts on *all of us*. Even if the results are beneficial.
The question is, as it's always been, what's ok and what isn't.
If you come to the table having already decided that jews, or blacks, or the poor aren't really people, you're not going to have much empathy for people who think we shouldn't experiment on them. You might even object to analogies to groups you have decided are people, but whom have had tragedies inflicted upon them in the name of research, as specious or as "straw-men."
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Yes, there are. Here's my non-biologist attempt to explain what a real biologist explained to me:
Bone marrow seeps blood stem cells slowly into your blood every day. An AIDS patient has blood drawn, and that is spun down for the small number of adult blood stem cells present (so they are partially differentiated like the fat cells in this article - they can become blood cells but probably not liver cells).
The filtered cells are cultured, differentiated to T-Cells, and allowed to divide in culture until they reach 50x normal body levels. Then they are put back into the patient's blood stream and, ideally, the body wins the war by brute force.
I probably screwed that up but as I understannd it, it works some of the time and they were able to get through this process in a few months and save a few people a year.