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I'm afraid I wasn't specific enough based on Mike's and Stephen's
replies, which were good and informative by the way.
I understand the concepts of stem cell use and some of the different
techniques. That's not where I'm getting bogged down really. (actually
the biggest thing I don't understand is why people don't concentrate
more on umbilical stem cell harvesting and use in these research
situations... A lot less controversial, but not as appealing to the
scientists who don't want to spend the time and effort and wait as
umbilical cells are a heck of a lot harder to amass in sufficient
quantities than just blending a couple of embryos)
I was being disingenuous to a small extent in what I really wanted to
know is this...
A bunch of people are putting forth the opinion rather vehemently that
if any strictures are put on the scientific research that those people
advocating strictures are basically killing everyone with cancer,
Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, childhood diabetes, whatever.
They make big claims that it might very well be possible to "Cure
Parkinson's disease in 'my' lifetime," and the like, and use these
rather fantastic and broad and wondrous claims (which may actually be
true.. I'm not debating that) as arguments to say, "What's really the
price you're trying to save of x number of embryos and such when
compared to these vast phenomenal benefits to humanity."
It works too... I find myself wondering if Spock was right and that the
good of the many outweigh the good of the few...
Heaven forbid that you tell people that you don't want embryos blended
to save Michael J. Fox. These people will crucify you and put you up as
some sort of evil extremist who would delight in the death and suffering
of others.
What I was really wondering is.... all these claims that people are
making... i.e., "We could see a cure for Parkinson's in 'my' lifetime",
and the like.... Are they in any way based on the Korean research?
I'm wondering if it's now, "We thought the technology was promising and
such that cures for Parkinson's and cell therapy for damaged organs
could be almost a certainty very shortly down the research pipeline, but
we were basing it all on this house of cards which has fallen, and we
really need to reexamine to see if a) the research has viability in
itself on it's current path, or b) if we'll have to take a completely
different path altogether and see if we can arrive at the same outcome,
and reexamine what the timeline would be in light of the new path."
I guess I'm asking how significant the Korean research was.
Have all the scientists had a huge rug pulled out from under them, or
were they standing on their own rugs?
Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
Christian M. Cepel wrote:
What does this mean for the subject of stem cells on a broader basis?
There are so many different 'types' of uses of stem cell that are
currently being discussed out there that I (and I think the average
public) cannot keep them straight... therapudic cloning, etc...
This is the explanation I was given.
Stem cells are cells that have not yet differentiated (become blood
cells, nerve cells, etc), and as such are ready to become any of these.
Various triggers are used to tell the cells what they should become,
for example, what kind of special proteins called (I think) homeoboxes
are present. You can get stem cells from embryos in their very early
stages, just after they have done lots of cell division, but not much
differentiation. You can also get them from adults, but I don't
remember where (maybe bone marrow?).
The point is, you need to have stem cells that have the same DNA as the
patient. The way to get embryonic stem cells is to create an embryo
that has exactly the same DNA as you have. Thus if it were allowed to
keep growing, it would, in theory, become a clone. But you kill it just
at the point before it starts differentiating, and then harvest the cells.
My guess is the current approach to creating these clones (replace the
nucleus of one of your cells in a fertilized human zygote - i.e. the
cell that is formed right after the sperm impregnates the egg) has been
shown to be false. But I'm not quite sure about this, or whether it was
this particular Korean's particular research that was shown to be false.
There's the research Bush banned, there's the issue on the 2006
Missouri ballot, there's all these other debates and conflicts and hopes.
Hopes.
Even for those opposed to a lot of the procedures, the biggest thing
regarding stem cell research in general has been Hope. You've got all
these celebrities and folks with reputable names out there pushing for
cures for all sorts of ailments and disease... Michael J. Fox is the
first that comes to mind with his own battle with Parkinsons, and, if
I recall, Superman was hoping for some therapudic solutions/treatments
for those with spinal chord injuries before he expired.
So the hope is if you put these stem cells into a part of your body that
is damaged (e.g. brain tissue destroyed by Parkinson's disease) then it
will take the cue from its environment, and itself become just like the
cells surrounding it. Apparently this happens rather well. The only
problem is is that the newly created nerve cells are not built into the
current infrastructure, so while they seem to act just like nerve cells,
it is not obvious that they improve brain function. On the other hand,
their presence seems to act in stopping further decay of existing brain
cells, so while the cure might be hope, certainly the preventative
aspects seem more than hope.
Well, this is what I got out of a I heard from lecture from Chris
Pierret. He is a graduate student at MU who is also a catholic, and has
strong views, but is also a very nice person. If you email him, my
guess is that he would be only too happy to answer you to the best of
his abilities.
What I'm asking is... I don't understand the significance of the
Korean research... was all the other research validated based on their
work and now rendered invalid, or is there still some exciting (if
controversial) stuff still out there? I.e., is it all a Red Herring,
or do you just want to avoid Herring caught in the Asiatic waters off
the Korean peninsula?
I am with you here - I also would like to know the answer to this one.
Mike Miller wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005, Jonathan King wrote:
So last week, we thought that maybe 2 of the 11 stem cell lines were
real. Now it looks like the other 2 were faked, causing Science to
postpone the paper's retraction so that they can print the *right*
retraction:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/31/science/31clone.html?pagewanted=print
And now, the more important 2004 stem cell cloning paper is suspect,
since a key figure was found to be copied from a 2003 paper,
and...maybe even Snuppy (sniff).
I've been keeping many of the news articles (e.g., from NY Times)
here for anyone who would like to see them:
http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/cgi-bin/webglimpse/rmnews?query=woo+suk%2Cwoo-suk
Of course, we have to expect that *all* of Hwang's attention-grabbing
research was fraudulent. He was first to create human embryos from
adult human cells, first to clone a dog from a cell of an adult dog,
and first to make human stem cells from adult human cells, or so he
claimed.
With that kind of high-profile fakery, it was always a matter of time
until he was apprehended. He had to know this day would come.
We don't know yet that he faked all of it, but that's what I think.
Mike
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