Challenge to Bush in new stem cell breakthrough

[cal04]

Scientists have perfected a way of making embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryos from which they derive, a breakthrough that will challenge George Bush's opposition to the research. The discovery of a technique to extract stem cells without impairing the embryos could remove a major hurdle facing scientists who are trying to develop treatments for diseases such as diabetes and motor neurone disease. Religious and rightwing groups claim embryonic stem cell research is unethical because the cells are produced by creating embryos which are later destroyed.

The Bush administration has banned scientists from using federal funds to create new embryonic stem cells, a policy many believe has stifled progress and discouraged investment in research. Last year, the US threw its weight behind an alliance of several countries to call on the UN to draw up a treaty banning all cloning, including therapeutic cloning, the technique used to create embryonic stem cells.

The new research, carried out by Robert Lanza at the Massachusetts-based stem cell company Advanced Cell Technology, shows embryonic stem (ES) cells can be created without resorting to the creation of embryos themselves - a process known as therapeutic cloning, which was legalised in Britain in 2001.
In work carried out in mice, the researchers let fertilised eggs divide for two to three days until they formed a ball of eight cells.

They then removed one of the cells and cultured it in a dish. They found it grew into a mass of cells, some of which turned into ES cells. The remainder of the cells were reimplanted into surrogate mothers and allowed to develop normally. In 48 attempts, foetuses developed in 29 mothers, a success rate comparable to that seen in surrogate fertility clinics, the researchers claim.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,2763,1593850,00.html

[DanCa]

1. Thank you so much.

:hugs: May I please put this on several parkinson's boards? I know alot of people whose week you just made. Thank you Danny :toast:

[cal04]

4. here's the Times article on this

I'm glad that this is possible. I hope this helps


Stem Cell Test Tried on Mice Saves Embryo

Scientists have devised two new techniques to derive embryonic stem cells in mice, one of which avoids the destruction of the embryo, a development that could have the potential to shift the grounds of the longstanding political debate about human stem cell research. The destruction of embryos is a principal objection of anti-abortion advocates who have strenuously opposed federal financing of the research.

The second new technique manipulates embryos so they are inherently incapable of implanting in the uterus, what some see as a possible ethical advantage in the proposed therapy, which converts a patient's skin cell into embryonic cells and then new tissues to repair the body. Both methods are described in today's online edition of Nature. The technique for making embryonic stem cells without compromising the embryo has yet to be adapted to people, but the two species are very similar at this level of embryonic development. "I can't think of a reason why the technique would not theoretically work in humans," said Brigid L. M. Hogan, an embryologist at Duke University.

If it does work in people, which could take many months to find out, the technique might divide the anti-abortion movement into those who accept or reject in vitro fertilization, because the objection to deriving human embryonic stem cells would come to rest on creating the embryos in the first place, not on their destruction. "This gets around all of the ethical arguments, except for that small minority of the pro-life community that doesn't even support in vitro fertilization," said Representative Roscoe G. Bartlett, Republican of Maryland, whose Web site describes him as "a pro-life legislator."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/health/17stem.html?hp&ex=1129521600&en=fb6134d5a374e5dc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Spinzonner]

2. They will still oppose it as tampering with a living human being

and as posing a risk, however small, to the embryo.

[Ezlivin]

3. There is a god!

Just not the one Bush thinks.

B-)

[DanCa]

5. Bush thinks thats funny :D thanks for the articles cal04

You made alot of hopeless people happy tonight.

[rodeodance]

6. god works in mysterous ways is the message to Bush.

[whalerider55]

7. my take is that...

this is the knife that slices the gordian pretzel bush has tied himself into over stem cell research.

he'll live with this. the ones to watch are the senatorial/gubernatorial and congressional neanderthals... how will they handle this.

opposition is futile. the real national base of 39% is revealed; probably 25% of that are fundies, the other 14% are morans. anyone with national aspirations who continue to support the ban can kiss their presidential future ta ta.

i think bush will parse this one, and say it vindicates the highly moral
position he has taken to now, and that if he hadn't set the tone, this never would have happened.

whalerider

[WildClarySage]

8. But what's the point? We're not going to use

embryos that are created for implantation because regardless of the low risks, there are some risks involved and parents aren't going to want to pay all that money for a chancy procedure to have further reduced liklihood of conception introduced just to save the consciences of a few nitpicky fundy types. Anyway, how is this going to keep us from having a bunch of leftover frozen embryos that no one wants to discard but can't really use either? Seems like needless cowtowing to the right, if you ask me. Those fundy idjits should just STFU and let science get on with the business of being science. If they don't want to use medical technology then they can decline the treatments that arise and continue to let God soothe the ravages of diabetes, parkinsons, etc.

[Igel]

13. Federal funding. n/t

[papau]

9. No Embryos Lost to New Stem Cells

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20051017/ts_latimes/noembryoslosttonewstemcells;_ylt=Atwr6D_6D2e53UZ4mBFll9J34T0D;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-stemcell17oct17,0,3178182.story?coll=la-home-headlines

THE NATION
No Embryos Lost to New Stem Cells
By Karen Kaplan
Times Staff Writer

October 17, 2005

Scientists say they have created viable embryonic stem cell lines without destroying any embryos — a development that could clear ethical barriers that have sharply restricted federal funding for the controversial research.

Two separate techniques were demonstrated in mice, and researchers are optimistic the processes could be replicated with human cells. The new methods were published online Sunday by the journal Nature.<snip>

Neither method "really quells the ethical debate," said Dr. George Q. Daley, a professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. "It's not clear it's going to answer all the critics."<snip>

[vi5]

10. So maybe I'm misunderstanding this not being a scientist...

..but it sounds like they are putting effort into researching how to research, rather than researching how to actually, you know...cure diseases and stuff. Is this all to calm the frayed nerves of religious extremists or is there some additional research/medicinal benefit to this as well? I mean we know we can do research on embryonic stem cells. Is the only reason they are doing this so that they can do the research and please the pro-life crowd as well?Admittedly I don't know so hopefully someone can clear this up for me.

[Igel]

11. Yes, they're researching how to research.

It may be pointless research, but if it frees up federal money for it, good. Funding's always been permitted for embryonic stem cell research, but federal funding has been permitted only for specific stem cell lines.

Whether or not it's pointless research we'll know in a few decades: from time to time other 'pointless techniques' suddenly become useful. Indeed, embryonic stem cells were a useless bit of detail for decades.

On the other hand, some embryonic stem cell research is still on how to do research: to get the cell lines stable and the like. Not on achieving cures. In some ways, they're at the basic science level, not applied science level.

[Centered]

12. not sure but there is a bright side...

I would think that without a requirement to preserve the embryo the scientists involved in this particular research may never have come to this method.

It is wonderful news for everyone on every side of this issue. Now the stem cell research can continue with much greater ease and if the embryo isn't lost then the supply will never be exhausted.

Researching cures takes a very very long time and it is a very painstaking process with lots of "baby steps" and massive documentation.

[papau]

14. Article ends with "The challenge is to define what an embryo is"

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051010/full/4371072b.html

Researchers claim to have found an ethical way to harvest embryonic stem cells
Published online: 16 October 2005; | doi:10.1038/4371072b
'Ethical' routes to stem cells highlight political divide
Split opens over methods to create nonviable embryos.


<snip>Until now, such methods have been purely theoretical, but in work published online by Nature this week, two teams report their successful use in mice. Rudolf Jaenisch and Alexander Meissner of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology describe a variant of therapeutic cloning called altered nuclear transfer (ANT), in which a gene in the patient's donated cell is switched off before the nucleus is transferred into a fertilized egg. The resulting egg grows into a normal ball of cells called a blastocyst from which ES cells can be derived, but the deactivated gene means that the ball lacks the ability to implant in a uterus and so develop into a baby (A. Meissner and R. Jaenisch Nature doi:10.1038/nature04257; 2005).

In the other paper, a team led by Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, plucked single cells called blastomeres from eight-cell embryos. They derived new ES cell lines from the blastomere, while the embryos went on to form apparently healthy mice (Y. Chung et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature04277; 2005).

This method is similar to a technique used in in vitro fertilization (IVF) called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), in which a blastomere is removed from the eight-cell embryo for genetic tests before it is implanted. The work by Lanza's team raises the possibility that fresh stem-cell lines could be derived from human embryos being used in IVF before they are transferred to the uterus.

<snip>And either way, the ethical debate over what constitutes life ? or the potential for life ? looks set to dog the field. "The challenge is to define what an embryo is," says Hurlbut. "We need to sort that out or we'll be having this argument all the way along."

[Centered]

15. nothing wrong with that debate...

But science and philosophy have rarely ever been in agreement.

For whatever reason progress is progress. This is not to imply that the end justifies the means... but any progress even the smallest step forward is still a step.

On a side note... if it is proven that as the article states the embryo can not become life (from the start) then I personally see very little to debate about... it is entirely possible that the name embryo should no longer be used... instead use Blastocyst Stem Cell Research...

well I admidt it doesn't have the same ring to it :)