Team Use Stem Cells to Restore Mobility in Paralyzed Monkey

interval1066 writes "From the article: 'Japanese researchers said Wednesday they had used stem cells to restore partial mobility in a small monkey that had been paralysed from the neck down by a spinal injury.' This is huge news in the world of stem cell research; restoring some muscular control to a simian is a huge step. This means that stem cell therapy is a demonstrably viable path to restoring motility for millions of accident victims, palsy and ms sufferers, the list just goes on."

Comments

Induced pluripotent stem

[makubesu]

So not embryonic stem cells. Everybody wins.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[butalearner]

So not embryonic stem cells. Everybody wins.

Except for wheelchair manufacturers.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I was just going to point out that the article trolls about embryonic stem cell usage in the final two paragraphs:

"Scientists say the use of human embryonic stem cells as a treatment for cancer and other diseases holds great promise, but the process has drawn fire from religious conservatives and others who oppose it.

Embryonic stem cell research is controversial because human embryos are destroyed in order to obtain the cells capable of developing into almost every tissue of the body."

The cells used in this treatment were derived from adult skin cells. No controversy here. Everyone wins. The article barely alludes to the fact that adult skin cells were used (not even a complete sentence is devoted to this critical fact), and they devote their closing 2 paragraphs to trying to gin up controversy over the embryonic stem cell issue without pointing out how this treatment bypasses that issue. I find it very disingenuous, and the Slashdot editors should have caught it and addressed it in the summary.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[transami]

Not really. An embryo doesn't get to save a life before it's flushed down the drain.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[Hatta]

The cells used in this treatment were derived from adult skin cells. No controversy here. Everyone wins.

The fact that adult stem cells are useful should lead us to believe that embryonic stem cells are useful too. In this way any work on adult stem cells is linked to (the lack of) work on embryonic stem cells. If we can save lives with adult stem cells, what if we could save even more lives with embryonic stem cells? Shouldn't we at least do the research to find out?

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[h4rr4r]

What controversy is there for anyone in the least bit educated?

Who opposes fertility treatments? If you do not oppose those why would you oppose the methods used to dispose of the left over embryos?

They were going in the garbage anyway.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[h4rr4r]

Not sure about compulsory, but organ donor status should indeed be the default instead of opt-in.

Smokers are fine by me, they pay a lot more in taxes than they cost.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[MillionthMonkey]

Hmm. so your criteria for being a live human being is having a head?

That sounds perfectly reasonable. Carl Sagan had a better suggestion, that a useful criteria for ethical or moral purposes can be that the brain is working, claiming that this happens in the seventh month of pregnancy. Of course the technical criteria is earlier than that; I would certainly consider a zygote to be technically a live human being!

You use "live human being" and "human" in an argumentum ad lexicon, confusing descriptive and proscriptive definitions. The people who oppose Plan B tablets engage in a similar fallacy, as if preventing a blastula from implanting is the same as murder. (Well it can't possibly be any other species of animal in there, can it? So it must be human, ergo, taking that tablet is committing murder.)

Trying to come up with a single definition for something that's useful for all purposes will lead you to think you have to "draw a line" somewhere. I certainly wouldn't want to be eight months pregnant with a brain dead baby inside and find myself on the wrong side of some "line" drawn by people who think anything spelled the same must be the same.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[Bacon Bits]

I'd love it if they were the next buggy whip industry.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[Arterion]

I wonder if the GP had a teratoma, would he respect its right to live? It is, after all, human life -- a living bundle of human cells.

What a jerkoff.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[mcgrew]

Hmmm... it seems you must be poor, as you're too stupid and lazy to register an account.

I don't know about your country, but in the US there is no welfare and hasn't been since 1996. The closest is SNAP, which used to be food stamps.

Do you know who is on the SNAP program? Wal-Mart and McDonald employees! That's right, the people who are WORKING. Who really benefits from the SNAP program? Wal-Mart and McDonalds, who don't have to pay their employees a living wage. Raise the minimum wage to a reasonable level and there would be little need for the SNAP program.

And your "let the fucking poor kids starve" attitude is sociopathic to the point of psychopathic. You REALLY need to see a mental health expert... if you can afford on.

Re:Induced pluripotent stem

[Jason Levine]

Someone I know online found themselves in pretty much that situation. Their baby-to-be was diagnosed with a rare birth defect and had zero chance of survival. The choices were a) abort now or b) go through a difficult pregnancy and risky birth to give birth to a dead baby. Awful choices to make and ones I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

They opten for the abortion but time was a factor and the hospital couldn't get it done in time. So they went to a family planning center/abortion clinic. Of course, there were protestors outside. On this, the worst day of their lives, when they were heading in to end the pregnancy they had so looked forward to, the protestors thought it was a good idea to shout at them and tell them "You're killing your baby!"

When his wife was taken away for the procedure, he realized he couldn't just sit in the waiting room. He turned on his video phone, walked out and politely confronted the protesters.

http://www.daddyfiles.com/2010/07/13/abort-protesters/

The fun part is when the protesters get annoyed at him for bothering them and threaten to call the police. So calling someone a "baby murderer" when you don't know anything about their situation is fine but asking you questions in a polite manner (when he had every right to yell scream and curse at them) is cause for calling the police?

Peer-Review v. Newspaper

[sonnejw0]

There's only a handful of reasons why you'd hear about this first from a newspaper called "The Inquirer" as opposed to Nature Neuroscience ... I'll leave it to you to figure out what those reasons are.

Re:Peer-Review v. Newspaper

[Kelzar]

Because the Philippine Daily Inquirer publishes daily instead of monthly?

Re:Peer-Review v. Newspaper

[allanmackenzie]

Hideyuki Okano has almost 300 papers and some of them in very reputable journals. This is most likely the real deal.

This'll show them...

[iluvcapra]

Monkeys should really be more careful and should never, ever dive into the shallow end of the pool.

Salute.

[sbenson]

"that had been paralysed from the neck down by a spinal injury" -- Bet it wasn't an accident.
I for one wish to honor our little buddy that took one for the team, Not his team, our team, the team two branches over on the evolutionary tree.

Re:Salute.

[Stregano]

I was thinking that as well. How often do Japanese people run across paralyzed monkeys and then think, "I bet this monkey would be good for stem cell research"

Re:Salute.

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Honestly, I don't care if some intern in a lab halfway across the world has to snap the spine of 100 monkeys by hand. If the research pays off and eventually does lead a treatment that can restore full mobility to MS, palsy, ALS, and other paralysis victims, I say go ahead and break as many monkey spines as you need.

Re:Salute.

[OzPeter]

I was thinking that as well. How often do Japanese people run across paralyzed monkeys and then think, "I bet this monkey would be good for stem cell research"

Yes thats correct. They run accross the monkey first, then think, "Yep he is a good candidate for stem cell research!"

Re:Salute.

[Pharmboy]

It's a sticky wicket to say the least. It bothers me terribly for cosmetics to be tested on animals, and don't think it should be done. It bothers me somewhat less so to know animals are being used for medical testing. But it still bothers me. I still think it is a good idea to have animal testing for medical research, as yes, there are some amazing discoveries made because of it, which is admittedly hypocritical. And yes, it also bothers me that I am willing to be hypocritical to save humans lives, but I'm not willing to give up the science, even for the poor critters.

For it is worth, at least I am honest about my own hypocracy. Sometimes life just gives you shitty options to choose from, and I gotta choose the shitty option that saves more human lives.

Re:Salute.

[h4rr4r]

You had better hope we never have monkey overlords.

So long as the monkeys were properly anesthetized and they only did the 100 monkeys they needed not a couple more just for jollies then I say go for it.

No need to torture the little bastards.

Re:Salute.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's okay. They only do it to the bad monkeys. The Hitler monkeys, Mussolini monkeys, and occasionally the "give me your lunch money or you get another swirlie" monkeys.

All the good monkeys are treated with utmost respect, given massages every day, and an up-to-date subscription to HBO.

Re:Embryonic or adult?

[bknabe]

iPS cells are usually adult stem cells. So it's probably adult, although there's a slight chance they're embryonic. I suspect they were adult because of the way the article was written. They never mention type until they start talking about embryonic stem cells at the end of the article. That way they didn't lie, they just forgot to mention that little detail.

Re:Embryonic or adult?

[CrustyMustard]

Yeah, what bknabe said: http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics10.asp. Score another one for adult stem cells.

Re:Embryonic stem cells

[Dthief]

Clones that are born with the same DNA would not be the same person at the very least because they are born into a different context (i.e. hitler born today would unlikely be able to lead germany into genocide and world war). Also their life experiences will be completely different no matter what you do (GW Bush did not grow up with the internet, his clone would have to.....unless he lives in a jungle which would also alter the adult version of GW #2).

The issue is really whether one should be able to pre-select the DNA of their children.

Re:"motility"?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Surely you meant "mojility".

That'd be funny if it contained an element that was humorous.

Re:Embryonic stem cells

[bmo]

Uhm....

There are "clones" out there already.

They're called Identical Twins.

I'm sure you can agree with me that one twin is not the same person as the other.

--
BMO

Well...

[grub]

All you naysayers can fuck off. I've just told my paralyzed monkey about this new and he's most excited.

Go rain on some other parade!

Re:Well...

[R3d M3rcury]

Uh, I think they're referring to a "simian" monkey. Not the one you spank. For that, there's still viagra...

Re:Embryonic stem cells

[RapmasterT]

I've never understood the unease that people show about human cloning. My reaction is usually "so what"? Who gets the first clone? Hell, I don't know, or really care. Why SHOULD I care about that any more than I do about those people reproducing the old fashioned way? All of the people you listed already have offspring, what would change if they were clones (essentially infant identical twins), or regular kids?

This all reminds me of Louise Brown, the first "test tube baby". When she was born there was a fantastic amount of outrage about "playing god" and I even remember some evangelist saying she wouldn't have a soul. Now, nobody give a fig about in vitro fertilization. Cloning will be the same in a very short amount of time after it's perfected.

Re:Embryonic stem cells

[Securityemo]

People perhaps cling to the illusion that clones would somehow inherit the originals personality.

How does help MS patients?

[wealthychef]

Is the poster just ignorant, or is there something really here for Multiply Sclerosis sufferers? That would imply stroke victims as well. But I don't think this applies to brain damage, does it?