Stem Cell Breakthrough Uses No Embryos

Source: ABC News/AP


Scientists in Japan, US Report Stem Cell Breakthrough From Human Skin; No Embryos Needed


Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.

Laboratory teams on two continents report success in a pair of landmark papers released Tuesday. It's a neck-and-neck finish to a race that made headlines five months ago, when scientists announced that the feat had been accomplished in mice.
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The "direct reprogramming" technique avoids the swarm of ethical, political and practical obstacles that have stymied attempts to produce human stem cells by cloning embryos.

Scientists familiar with the work said scientific questions remain and that it's still important to pursue the cloning strategy, but that the new work is a major coup.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3891061

;-)

:rofl:

It's not nice to get LBN posts locked! :lol:

:thumbsup:

But use a spoon, you want to get every drop.

Alternate.

Thanks for getting there first! :D

:rofl:

and allow them to grow up...they'll make useful soldiers.

Isn't that the game plan anyway for Republicans who are "pro-life"

"Republicans want live babies so they can grow up to be dead soldiers" - George Carlin.

Damn, that's the grossest thing I've read all week...:beer:

Progress is amazingly fast... the technology is amazing.

As everyone knows, bloodthirsty liberals demand human embryos to further their diabolical research about scientific stuff!:-(

Frankly neither we nor they are giving the other side credit for sincerity on this question.

The narrative from the anti-stem-cell folks is that we aren't really doing this for research, we're doing this deliberately to devalue human life in embryonic form.

The narrative from our side is that even though no woman is compelled to be pregnant to keep these embryos from being destroyed, this is really part of their attempt to devalue reproductive liberty.

They can't imagine that we actually just want research, and we can't seem to imagine that they actually just see ethical problems with destroying a human embryo to do research.

from what I gather, they aren't demanding such research be banned by private institutions or by universities, but that such research won't receive Federal funding.
I suppose there are more philosophic and esoteric arguments being made by both sides on this issue than I'm aware of, but my understanding is all about the funding mechanism side of the arguments.

of hours. Giving you a K and R because this is so important.

Source: Daily Mirror (UK)

Mike Swain, Science Editor.

It is a scientific milestone as great as the first flight, a medical breakthrough to rival antibiotics.

In simultaneous announcements yesterday scientists in Japan and America said they had discovered how to take an ordinary skin cell - and transform it into any other kind of human body cell.

It means that in the not-very distant future doctors will take a scraping of your skin and grow you a new heart or liver. Or special insulin-producing cells to end the misery of diabetes.

Or develop any number of treatments for any number of life-threatening or debilitating conditions.

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It means scientists are on the way to creating your very own body repair kit. And in the process it will eliminate the need for controversial embryo cloning.

The technique is simple in theory, complex in practice."



"Its potential for treating diseases such as Parkinson's, which is caused by the loss of brain cells, is incalculable.

In theory it could also one day spell the end of transplant surgery as scientists would be able to regenerate damaged parts of the body without the need for donated organs.

Leading British stem cell researcher Professor Ian Wilmut of the University of Edinburgh, who created Dolly the sheep, has already announced that he is abandoning cloning in favour of the new technique.

"This is extremely exciting," he said. "We can now envisage a time when a simple approach can be take it all the way back and then turn it into any kind of body cell. It is quite incredible what we can now do.

"It is relatively easy to grow an entire plant from a small cutting, something that has seemed inconceivable in humans.

"Yet this study brings us tantalisingly close to using skin cells to grow many different types of human tissues.

"Normally when you grow skin cells in a dish, they just make skin cells.

"But they have re-programmed them into embryonic-like stem cells with the potential of turning into any different cell types." There is still a long way to go - only 10 cell clones were obtained from 50,000 skin cells. But in the Japanese laboratory clumps of skin cells treated to become heart cells started to pulse - just as heart cells cause the heart to beat.

"It is at a very early stage. But by using different genes we will hope to gain a good insight into how this magic takes place," Professor Surani said.

"What is clearly possible is that we can make cells from any individual with a simple skin biopsy.

"Or we can take cells from someone with a history of heart disease and study them to see how the heart cells are developing.

"Then we could develop targeted drugs to treat them." One of the most exciting aspects of the discovery is the simple fact that since the new cells or even new organ come from your own body there is very little likelihood of rejection.

Japan's Professor Yamanaka said: "We are still a long way from finding cures or therapies from stem cells and we don't know what processes will be effective.

"But we are finally in a position to make patient-specific stem cells for therapies without fear of immune rejection."







Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/healthnews/2007/11/21/new-stem-cell-leap-89520-20138114/

Other than that it's great news! Would replace a lot of donors as well, probably even blood-donors. Hmm.

the local news carried this story -- and with an additional bit about how embryonic stem cells may still hold the best promise.

I think it's pretty exciting. It was one of the headlines on the front page of my local fishwrap.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071121/news_1n21stem.html

... he's covered, because they can just use some of his own. Otherwise, he'd be out of luck -- any other living organism would reject HIM.

This would seem to avoid rejection issues, which is a lot more important long term than where the therepy is developed from.