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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.
I realize this is likely to get modded -1 Troll in about 4 seconds, but I feel like I need to write it anyway.
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).
And don't bother dismissing me as a religious nutjob. I'm certainly not the former, and probably not the latter.
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.
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 ----
i'm blind, but i can see! oops, nearly fell in that hole in the ground!
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
"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?
Someone tag this !porn because I was seriously confused for a minute.
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 ;)
Let them go blind.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
So stem cells have cured masturbation related blindness? That's awesome!
Soul?
Wrong website there, buddy.
When your vision is restored is the baby jesus crying.
...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.
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.
to deliberately murder for this procedure? Does anyone know what the baby murder footprint is for this procedure? Hopefully somewhere in the tens of thousands...
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.
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.
Do not look directly at the shark-mounted laser without suitable eye protection.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
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.
"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.
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.