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Stem Cell Treatment To Cure the Most Common Cause of Blindness
The Times Online reports that researchers from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital have developed stem cell therapy that can treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness. They are currently moving the treatment through the regulatory approval process, and clinical trials are expected to start within two years. Quoting:
"Under the new treatment, embryonic stem cells are transformed into replicas of the missing cells. They are then placed on an artificial membrane which is inserted in the back of the retina. ... [Professor Pete Coffey, director of the London Project to Cure Blindness] said the treatment would take 'less than an hour, so it really could be considered as an outpatient procedure. We are trying to get it out as a common therapy.'
But don't let this discourage any mad scientist from creating ocular implants, especially ones with wifi and defensive laser beams.
I feel sorry for Larry Niven. Back in the 1960s and 1970s he was writing works of science fiction (e.g. the Gilm 'The Arm' Hamilton stories in Flatlander ) that suggested that organ transplants were going to be so widespread as a cure that even the most minor crimes would get the death penalty. Instead, it looks like the human race may realize stem cell cures faster than anyone could have imagined. Oh, and Kurzweil suggests we'll all be in robot bodies before the century's end, so those great hard science fiction writers of half a century ago fall even further behind.
IAAO (I am an Ophthalmologist).
Although the article does not mention what kind of cells and membranes are transplanted and wether it is going to be used in exsudative or non-exsudative AMD I would assume that it's retinal Pigment Epithelium and Bruch's Membrane being used in wet (= exsudative) AMD.
Therefore this seems to involve subretinal surgery, which is not a piece of cake and usually diminishes visual accuity.
Previous attempts in this direction have already been done (macular rotation, retinal pigment epithelium transplants, etc.), results have not been all too gratifying.
Most of the medical profession believes that adult stem cells are more likely to offer cures than embryonic stem cells, so your complaint will prove a non-issue.
Reading the article, is hardly ready for use, so far only tested on rats and pigs. There'll be many years of trials before its ready for use on people. Plus Stem cells have be known to turn cancerous, cancer of the retina, would be quickly fatal, there so close to the brain.
Stem cells have tremendous potential to cure disease and even to reverse the aging process. The next twenty years of research might total change the sad process of aging in human.
Stem cells feed at Feed Distiller
Are the answer to most any illness that doesn't have a hard genetic base to it. ( since the 'new' cells will eventually take on the same old genetic deficiency )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"On hearing the announcement that researchers have found a cure for AMD, a spokesman for computing giant Intel said 'It's about bloody time.'".
/ducks
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
Finally! Now, can someone do something about the hair on my palms?
There are far fewer cells in these embryos than there are in the typical snot you pull out of your nose. I don't think they really need to be mourned. You've lost far more living human cells picking a scab.
This space available.
So if you had a choice between saving a vat of frozen embryos from a fire or a single person of any age, you would pick the embryos? How about if the single person was your child; would you still pick the vat of embryos?
By the way, for all the folks who are against using stem cells to cure disease, feel free to go blind while the rest of us enjoy our vision. As someone who has a genetic predisposition towards getting MD when I get older, I am more than happy to sacrifice a few bundles of cells that were going to be tossed into the trash anyway to keep my vision when I am older.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Someone tag this !porn because I was seriously confused for a minute.
Hi. Medical professional here. Do you have a source? Because that's not my thinking, or the thinking of most others I've discussed the issue with.
So if you had a choice between saving a vat of frozen embryos from a fire or a single person of any age, you would pick the embryos? How about if the single person was your child; would you still pick the vat of embryos?
Indeed. In this thought experiment of yours, how did the vat get full of frozen embryos, I wonder?
Lecture by Dr. Bill Deagle, discussing many things including health industry. After you're done with the lecture, here's a more recent interview of Dr. Bill Deagle by the people behind Project Camelot...enjoy ;)
This isn't a choice between saving one or saving the other. It's killing one to save the other vs. not killing one, leaving the other to die. The vast majority of people consider killing very different from not saving.
(I, however, would kill the embryo. No mind (no mental activity) = no moral significance, as far as I'm concerned.)
Hi. Medical professional here. You don't speak for us.
Much smarter people than you talk about the stem cell issues here: Adult Stem Cell Lies: Everything Old is New Again
Basically the conclusion is this: more study is needed before there can be an objective conclusion. What the professionals believe is not a good arbiter of what will actually happen. Just look at all the treatments believed by medical professionals to be effective over the years, like leeches, blood draining, etc.
Let them go blind.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Too late, you've already slipped it in, with, "how taking the life of an embryo...is anything other than [vampirism]..." Plus, you already posted as AC, so apparently you won't stand behind your word, your belief?
The question, really, is how religious nutjobs decided that they have jurisdiction over women's bodies. Maybe it's time to go back to Biblical times, women are property?
To the mod who modded me offtopic, how is discussion of stem cells off topic in an article on stem cells?
Fucking coward, if you don't like what I'm saying at least have the balls to mod correctly or respond via comment.
This space available.
So stem cells have cured masturbation related blindness? That's awesome!
Both posts are conveniently made under AC, I dunno who to believe :P
ics
Soul?
Wrong website there, buddy.
I'm a different medical professional, and neither of them speaks for me.
HTH
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
I know you wanted to sound cool and confuse me even more but I was sorta just joking. Anyway, it worked, now I think I should try to experiment on my own or something and find the truth :P
ics
I just don't see how taking the life of an embryo so that the older or sick can keep on living is anything other than vampirisim (in a loose sense of the word, or course).
Erm, someone correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't this been discussed time and time again. Embryos for stem cell research are not bred just for the purpose of being "killed". The cells, at least acording to what I've heard/read (again, prove me wrong if you know any better, I'm not a professional) are taken from embryos that were fertilized for the purposes of fertility treatment/artificial impregantion. During those treatments multiple embryos are fertilized and some of them are the discared. The stem cells are extracted from discarded embryos. This means that the embryos would "die" anyway and at least this way they're being used for something beneficial.
Moreover, I don't understand the problem at all. Embryos aren't humans. They are clusters of cells. They are by no means sentient or intelligent. So what's the whole deal about "vapirism"? People donate blood and organs all the time - this is not so far from it. Bottom line is: The embryo is alive in the sense all cells are alive but it has no "life" to be taken away. If you seriously think that way I suggest you stop eating any food because by eating vegetables you're basically taking the life of another organism so that you can live and according to you, that's "vampirism".
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
What the professionals believe got a lot of people killed over the years. It used to be that mainstream medical opinion that washing one's hands was of limited to no use in preventing disease.
Hi Medical Professional here, you may recognise me from such medical products as "Your First Colonoscopy" and the award winning "Bilateral Orchiectomy."
I'm not a medical professional. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
> Most of the medical profession believes that adult stem cells are more likely to offer cures than embryonic stem cells
Because this article is just a troll for more funding and to give Obama's recent stem cell ruling credibility. Sorry guys, truth time. Who in their right mind is going to want to take drugs the rest of their life to stop the body from rejecting the implant? Those drugs can be wicked. That is why this procedure isn't going anywhere until they find a way to do it with the patient's own cells as source material.
I know some on the left get erect at the thought of embryonic stem cells, probably because it involves dead babies[1], but it's a dead end. A small amount of good might come from it in cases like this were early research can go ahead while other teams work out the rest of the details on adult stem cells but that is the extent of it.
[1] From observing that most on the 'left' favor extreme environmentalism including wiping out a good 90% of the human population, get off on abortion, infanticide and euthanasia (volunteer and forced) it's pretty obvious they hate themselves and by extension their entire species.
And yes kids, THIS is how one does a troll. Pure Truth, yet presented in the most inflamatory way possible, is the surest way to drive folks into a blind rage.
Democrat delenda est
When your vision is restored is the baby jesus crying.
Come on, you guys are talking ancient history. Those examples are from before medical treatments were evaluated systematically through scientific studies, and when there was no germ theory of disease.
If you think that lesson has anything to do with modern evidence-based medicine, you've lost your marbles.
...stem cell therapy that can treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD)...
A spokesman for Intel expressed great interest in the technology:
"AMD has been a problem we've tried to combat for years, but until now, no matter how much we tried to suppress it, it always managed to survive. Not anymore."
NVIDIA declined to comment on this news story.
It's just yuck factor, you'll get over it. It comes with a lot of new medical advances. When the first live organ transplants were done people thought of Dr Frankenstein and Igor cackling over the patchwork man on the slab. Blood transfusion similarly met with superstitious opposition, which survives in some sects to this day. And going back further, you should take a look at some of the cartoons commenting on the first vaccinations. People move on pretty quickly once they see the benefits.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's, the USA would fund such things because we were a rich nation. We, that is society, felt that by funding regular research that we would improve everybody's lot in life, as well our nation. Fortunately, reagan and the republican party saw how much money that fundamental and applied research was costing America and had it stopped before it bankrupted America. Combine that with W's tax cuts for moving research and jobs offshore and we have now accelerated the growth of that research.
On a side note, you have forgotten the recent camera implant for the eye socket. Right now, it does not solve much, but with some research by the govs in China, India, Brazil, and even Iran, it will happen.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So let's say they come up with a cure for something, anything, using embryonic stem cells.
The next logical step is to produce this cure in production quantities. How long until the supply of embryos in storage from artificial insemination attempts, etc. are exhausted?
What then? The only option is pay men and women for their sperm and eggs so that they can produce the embryos from which to harvest the stem cells. I understand that extracting eggs is an expensive and painful process. Of course, give a guy a Hustler and he's good to go.
So in order to commercialize the cure, even in limited quantities, you essentially have to set up embryo factories.
If that does not give you pause, then there is something wrong with you.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Good point. Here's a better scenario:
Your small plane ditches in the ocean. You manage to drag one other person (who is unconscious) to the life raft, along with a vat of frozen embryos. You are the only one capable of navigating the raft back to civilization. Unfortunately, the raft can't support the weight of both people plus the vat, so one of them must be left behind. You must physically throw one of them overboard and watch them sink, or else the raft will sink and everyone perishes.
In this scenario, you have to either kill all embryos to save one person, kill the person to save all embryos, or have everyone die as a result of your inaction.
I think part of the worry comes from a mistaken belief that each treatment will mean the destruction of an embryo - hence the "vampirism" fear. Maybe I'm wrong in this, but the treatment comes from a stem cell line - i.e. once upon a time there was an embryo, and now it's billions and billions of constantly growing individual stem cells. Objecting to stem cell *treatments* because of embryos being destroyed is like a vegan refusing to be treated by a doctor who once ate meat ten years ago.
Perhaps; perhaps. Perhaps you are correct.
However, and this is an important however: your post is not going to receive funding. The research discussed in the article, however trollish, likely will. So, I've learned something from your post, even if it wasn't directly what you were conveying. :)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I continue to be appalled by the bigoted and histrionic comments of religious Americans who do not seem to understand that not even all Christians agree with them let alone the rest of us, and then Squabble endlessly over exactly what Bush's disastrous decision in Health was, again never mind his contributions to Foreign Affairs or the Economy. He set health research back eight years while presiding over un-necessary wars and the de-regulation of the financial system which has resulted in the greatest depression in four generations and the rise of more crooks, fraudsters and scam agents to shake a stick at.
For the record I, and most outside the US, do not care whether the stem cells are embryonic or not, so long as the medics have the genetic material, and that means diversity of genes, to search for cure to debiliting illnesses especially as there is a surplus of fetuses for other reasons.
Restoring pluri-potence to the patients own cells may well be desirable but is not essential as various gene splicing and gene injection techniques generate neither cancer or rejection as some comments, clearly FUD from the US rabid right suggested.
What is clearly necessary is better scientific education and that is better done by paying attention in school rather than church.
Thank goodness Obama at least sounds rational.
I have to think that, assuming this research is actually promising (rather than a cynical ploy for more funding as the opthamologists above seem to fear), there will soon be a version of it using adult stem cells that's a lot safer. I mean, who wants the possibility of some horrible tumor with teeth and hair inside your eye!?
Or is there some reason this can only be done with fetal stem cells? Everything I've read says that fetal stem cells are easier to do research on, while adult stem cells offer superior treatments, though I admit that's a somewhat simplistic way of putting things.
Still, I'd much rather go blind than accept the chance that my eyeballs will grow teeth. Teratomas are enough to give you nightmares.
I don't think it's fair to list you as a flaimbit - it was a legitimate question.
My response (and probably echoing hundreds of others) - there is no death involved.. The stem cell, on the contrary, is being given a chance to live on as a new replicating mass organ. I would imagine if the cell could experience thought - it would be thanking us for saving us from the bowels of the toilet.. Which is where ALLLLLLLL stems cells go when their host mother has their period.
-Michael
Do not look directly at the shark-mounted laser without suitable eye protection.
Have gnu, will travel.
The cells, at least acording to what I've heard/read (again, prove me wrong if you know any better, I'm not a professional) are taken from embryos that were fertilized for the purposes of fertility treatment/artificial impregantion.
Correct, and fears that we'll start encouraging abortions to get stem cells are also absurd: by the time a woman knows she is pregnant, "embryonic stem cells" as in completely undifferentiated cells good for replacing any organ, are not found in the fetus. ESC useful for that are only found within a window of 3-5 days after fertilization, before the embryo has implanted into the uterine wall and before a blood test would even indicate a woman is pregnant.
Oh, yeah! yeah!! Jacking off to "Aborted Fetuses Gone Wild!!" Oh yeah, baby!!!! Hey jmorris42, whydoncha bring over one of those huge aborted fetus posters like you carry at the anti-abortion rallies? And grab a bottle of JD and your crack pipe, too!
And, I'm betting on Earth First against The FBI in the season opener!
The problem with conservabots is they can no longer separate their slimy rhetoric from truth.
Right behind a successful conservative move to control women's bodies for pregnancy and birth, there'll be liberal move to control men's dicks. And conservatives will scream... what, you didn't think what you were doing was controlling women's bodies?
First, it's not religious FUD. The fact that a human embryo is, well, human, is not disputed by any in the scientific community. Nor is the fact that a fertilized embryo will, under the normal course of nature (i.e., implanted in the womb, carried to term, etc...) become what most people recognize as a human being.
What Bush did was simply stop federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Which didn't ban it outright, it just meant that taxpayer dollars wouldn't be used to fund it. Which is kind of remarkable that the press called it a 'ban', because it was nothing of the sort - private interests could still fund stem cell research to their heart's content. Given the U.S. stance on intellectual property, such a ban actually furthered private interests by freeing them from competition; instead of having publicly funded research result in public-domain cures, now private investors were free to fund their own research, patent the results, and reap exorbitant profits from whatever cures were forthcoming.
Except that they didn't. When you consider the fact that during the dotcom days investors were throwing money at any company with a business plan, let alone a product, the fact that stem cell research funding went lacking is telling. IOW, the prospects of (embryonic) stem cell research were so bleak that even the stupidest and riskiest of VC firms chose not to fund it. Which, quite frankly, speaks volumes about its perceived value for finding actual cures for diseases.
The stem cell debate isn't a debate over science; it's a debate about who society considers deserving of life. Two hundred years ago, people of a certain skin color were considered subhuman. In the last century, the Nazis considered it acceptable to kill off Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, Christians, etc... "for the greater good of Germany". The scientific fact of the matter is that the embryos from which stem cells are derived could have become living, breathing people.
Think about that the next time you can't find a date.
Instead, that stem cell became an experiment. And one day, after perhaps thousands, or even millions are killed in the name of science, we may find a cure for a disease. A disease which affects those who already have had the privilege of being born. IOW, people are being denied their very lives, in order that others who already have lives may live them with less discomfort.
If I were blind, I would really appreciate a cure which allows me to see again. But I wouldn't sacrifice my wife or any of my children for that cure. Nor would I expect anyone else to die so that I could be cured. It just isn't worth it. I'd rather live with a disease than do without the lives of those people I love. And for me to ask someone else to die so that my disease could be cured would be the height of arrogance.
It is the unfortunate fact of life that capitalist societies have reaped their wealth from the backs of the poor and voiceless. The dispassionate attitude toward those less privileged, those without a voice in their defense, is a staple of capitalist societies. From the Southern plantations and the slave trade to Chicago's recent establishment of "pan-handle-free" zones, the oppression and marginalization of the weak and unfortunate is a recurring theme in American society. The possibility of "miracle cures" has science drooling over the prospects of embryonic stem cell research; they have a motive of becoming famous; the drug companies, of course, see the potential profit; but who is looking at the grand scheme of things? Are we really a more progressive nation than that which fought the civil war? Do we really look out for those who can't speak for themselves? Or are we merely arrogant, attempting to assuage our guilt about the misdeeds of our forebears, all the while committing offenses that even they would have considered immoral?
The debate over embryonic stem cell research isn't a matter of science; it's a matter of morality. To support it requires
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Wish I had mod points.
And yes kids, THIS is how one does a troll. Pure Truth, yet presented in the most inflamatory way possible, is the surest way to drive folks into a blind rage.
This is one of the reasons why The Left like to live in cities. Cities are by definition nuclear targets. Suicide by terrorist nuke is their desired means of exit because these are too intimidated to commit suicide^W^Wengage in post-natal self-abortion and it also takes out 'the surplus population'.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Moreover, I don't understand the problem at all. Embryos aren't humans. They are clusters of cells. They are by no means sentient or intelligent.
Hey, that's a lot of subjectivity in there. I could make up any definition really, to say you aren't human, and from there, harvest all your parts. We only really say that embryos aren't human because they can't argue with us, and we can't see them. But, if it ever came out that eating a black guy would make white poop gold nuggets, there would be no black people. They'd be hunted to extinctions.
Killing humans is just the way people are. I know it may sound a little crazy, but with so many gray areas about what is human and what is not, maybe we need to reconsider if genocide is actually wrong. Maybe its not.
This is my sig.
I kind of admire your ability to conflate your beliefs about a few into a vast, publicly-stated desire by the many (the Democrats) to DESTROY THE U.S. CITIES BY NUCLEAR ATTACK BY TERRORISTS!!
See, in the real world, we call that schizophrenia. You best get some treatment.
And I'll never get over your ability to lie to yourself. Never. Neither should anyone else ... it's people like you who make the Stalins, Hitlers, and Mussolinis possible. "They're terrorists! They're financial terrorists! They're Jews! Lock them all up!!"
Fuckhead.
"The fact that a human embryo is, well, human, is not disputed by any in the scientific community"
I'll dispute it. Well actually I might dispute it, depending upon what your definition of human is.
When that sperm an egg meld together and feverishly start multiplying, then that 'could be' implanted in a womb and 'could become' a person. It's still just a lump of cells and personally I couldn't give a monkey's what's done with it.
When we move into abortion I get a little more uncomfortable. Officially I'm a pro-choice libertarian blah blah, but I don't like it as at some point it is a person - and I've just never quite managed to work out where that point is. I am sure however that a ball of cells doesn't count as a person.
Often wonder in this age of cloning, why all cells aren't considered by some as sacred? "If the DNA of that cell had been harvested, swapped out with that in a fertilized egg and implanted - that could have become a person etc." Is it the DNA that's sacred, or the fertilized egg? How about the fertilized egg without the genetic material? The sperm and the unfertilized egg?
But I digress. Probably also worth keeping in mind that religion doesn't seem to be too good at backing advances in Science. Sometimes wonder where we'd be if we'd all listened to those papal decisions and put down our telescopes and microscopes when asked.
Where do you plug the embryo vat freezing unit into on this raft? May as well ditch it if you can't..
Unless you crashed the plane in the Arctic Ocean of course in which case you're all screwed anyway (apart from the embryos but they have no frigging idea what's going on).
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. - Oscar Wilde
Even if Obama screws up everything else he touches, having the sense to lift the ban on stem cell research makes him a success in my eyes.
This ban was probably the single most destructive thing Bush did, not just for us, but all of mankind.
Other countries are light years ahead of us on SC research because of this.
I can't wait til the people against it get their lives saved, or can walk again, because of advances made through stem cell research.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
thank you for your excellent post. unfortunately I lack mod points at the moment.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
So it will prevent you from running with scissors, or shooting your eye out like Ralphie with a Red Rider bb gun?
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
The Christians are going to be hopping mad about this one.
The Ixians are going to be pissed.
Your very long comment is unfortunately valueless, and completely misses the point, __AND__ is yet further evidence of the lack of education in the USA. I do not have either the time, nor inclination to dissect your arguments in detail.
Pluri-potent cells, unlike differentiated cells, have the ability to morph into the needed tissue type, differentiated cells, alone cannot effectively repair injury or organ failure, stem cells, embryonic or not can. Autonomic (self generated, Pluri-potent cells) are to be preferred, since they cannot, per se, generate rejection. BUT genetic defects need new, working genes to provide the factory that the defective gene implies the lack of.
To do the research you need the diversity, so Bush's decision was doubly idiotic, in limiting the stem cell lines to a small number of already contaminated cytotypes. Having been a grad student at the beginning of the IT age, in the 60s, let me tell you that most VC funding comes when someone else has made money from what you need to do. Biotechnology is in that phase now.
Put shortly, you are clueless.