Ethical stem cells approved by US

[Az1698]

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The government announced the approval of the first ethical human stem cell lines. Any thoughts about this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091202/sc_nm/us_stemcells_usa

 

[EulerianCircuit]

 

[randombetch]

Awesome. We need way more than 13 lines though.

 

[mdeast]

Grrrr. American politicians. These are the 13 lines that probably have already been previously approved for research use...available and stored in the Stem Cell Bank at UW-Madison. Many of them are genetically abnormal (i.e. extra chromosomes) and were derived years ago...and have been used in research for some time now. Seems silly that we waste the time on setting up committees to approve the "ethics" of lines derived outside of NIH-funded research, when you could alternatively just let NIH-funded labs have the freedom to develop new lines under these same accepted, ethical protocols. It'll still happen regardless and if you want to stop so called "unethical" lines, their derivation might as well happen under regulated boundaries that the NIH can control because they fund the labs that do it (as opposed to the current system).

 

[Handinhand]

Great news for UW-Madison. Some really genius people on campus here that were being held back because of it being a state school. James Thomson specifically.

 

[bamtuba]

From the article: "The cells, for instance, have to have been made using an embryo donated from leftovers at fertility clinics, and parents must have signed detailed consent forms."

Hmmm, interesting.

The "parents" of the "leftovers" must sign consent forms.

Says it all for me.

 

[c5212]

Well, something is better than nothing. Although I disagree with Obama on almost every single major issue facing the US 😡, I agree with this decision in every way, shape, and form.

Good to see that the ball has finally began to roll in the research of/use of stem cells. 👍👍👍

 

[FasterThanAll]

I'm pretty sure we already got around the ethical problem:

"UCLA stem cell scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells without using embryos or eggs."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080211172631.htm

Can't find the original research though, a guy in Japan did it first (I think).

 

[FIREitUP]

I'm pretty sure we already got around the ethical problem:

"UCLA stem cell scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells without using embryos or eggs."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080211172631.htm

Can't find the original research though, a guy in Japan did it first (I think).

i would assume it would be easier to have access to the already undifferentiated cells. and they're free, no resources needed to undifferentiate them.

 

[Handinhand]

I'm pretty sure we already got around the ethical problem:

"UCLA stem cell scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells without using embryos or eggs."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080211172631.htm

Can't find the original research though, a guy in Japan did it first (I think).

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151526

It was Dr. Thomson at UW-Madison. He's the one who first isolated human embryonic stem cells.

 

[mdeast]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151526

It was Dr. Thomson at UW-Madison. He's the one who first isolated human embryonic stem cells.

Nope. These are iPS Cells (induced Pluripotent stem cells). Discovered by a Japanese group that basically made 100s of vectors with different potential target genes and then added them to cells (via viruses) in a huge number of different combinations to arrive at the delivery of 4 genes that when activated seemed to re-program cells. They're good for modeling disease (you can take a diseased patient who may have a genetic component to their condition and study development and regeneration using ES cells). iPS cells came out about 2 years ago, so they're a standard procedure now in lab (this is NOT new). They are however, unsafe for clinical transplantation (these factors cause cancer), are uber expensive to produce, and take months to derive. Generic ES cell lines are the way to go, assuming we can figure out the immune system.