Stem Cell Research

[copper68]

Does anyone know if stem cells are actually being used yet.. or is it still being researched..

just curious because my dad has severe heart disease, will most likely need a heart transplant in the future.. we harvested my daughters stem cells when she was born.. i know that researchers are making great strides and stem cells seem to be growing new heart tissue, just wondering if anybody has any idea if it's actually being done..

 

[Free4Life11]

As far as I know there is no ban on using stem cells. We knew someone who was having an experimental stem cell transplant for some disease he had. I'm sure anything that is being done is preliminary and experimental but I really don't know for sure.

 

[wvrevy]

Research is ongoing. It's not "banned", but has been severly curtailed by the republican banning of any stem cell line that was not in existance at that time (5 years ago, I believe). Despite the best effort of actual scientists - and they are working, trying to find other alternatives - the fact that the research has been so severely limited has ******** any real progress that might have been made since the science's birth.

Unfortunately, any real progress from now on will probably have to be made in other countries, since the right wing in America values a cell cluster more than a living, breathing human being.

 

[jgmklmhem]

Research is ongoing. It's not "banned", but has been severly curtailed by the republican banning of any stem cell line that was not in existance at that time (5 years ago, I believe). Despite the best effort of actual scientists - and they are working, trying to find other alternatives - the fact that the research has been so severely limited has ******** any real progress that might have been made since the science's birth.

Unfortunately, any real progress from now on will probably have to be made in other countries, since the right wing in America values a cell cluster more than a living, breathing human being.

From my understanding nothing has been banned but Government funding for research on new lines. Private companies can spend their own money to research other lines if they so choose.

 

[wvrevy]

From my understanding nothing has been banned but Government funding for research on new lines. Private companies can spend their own money to research other lines if they so choose.

In other words, pretty much all research institutions - the places that do the vast majority of medical research - are precluded from researching any but the original lines, which are now pretty much played out. Who else is going to do this research ? Drug companies ?

 

[arminnie]

Please be aware that there are two types of stem cell research being conducted - adult stem cell (bone marrow usually) and embryonic stem cell. It's only the embryonic that has the restrictions.

Some scientists (and I do mean scientists not necessarily pro-lifers) at major universities are putting their efforts into adult stem cell research as they feel that the embryonic stems cells are too difficult to control (have been more likely to cause cancer in some research).

There is an ailment called brittle bone disease that is exactly what it sounds like. Children born with this often die young because their bones can break even from breathing. St. Jude's hospital in Memphis has had some success in treating brittle bone with adult stem cell therapy.

Adult stems cell are relatively easy to grow - easier than embryonic. There's a lot of research going on, and there are some other things that they are actually being used for. I can't remember as it's been a year or so since I saw the presentation. I'm on the board of one of the universities doing the research, and this was just a factual presentation - no political undertones.

I'm not knocking embryonic research, but think it is important that we also continue the adult stem cell research also. We should not put all of our eggs into the one basket of embryonic stem cell research when adult stem cell research has such promise too.

Here's an article that I found:Tim Radford, science editor
Tuesday August 23, 2005
The Guardian


[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]US scientists have fused a human embryo stem cell and a scrap of adult skin to make cells that could become almost any tissue in the human body.

In doing so, they claim to have created a new tool for research, confirmed hopes of new ways of treating hitherto intractable human diseases - and sidestepped a bitter controversy.

Embryo stem cells are tiny biological agents that in just 40 weeks turn a single fertilised egg into a complete human composed of 100 trillion cells of 200 different kinds. The technique could lead to a new way of making human tissue without the creation of any further human embryos. This is a contentious matter in the US, where the Bush administration will not back such research, and even in Britain, where such techniques were authorised in 2001.

But the latest embryonic stem cells could never be used to treat patients. They have twice the usual numbers of chromosomes. In effect, each cell received DNA from four parents rather than the usual two. But even so, these cells could answer profound questions about how life develops.

The research, to be published in the journal Science on Friday, once again raises hopes of new treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's disease, liver failure and so on.

The dream is of laboratory dishes of "personalised" stem cells that could be used to replace failing nerve cells, or heart muscle, or pancreatic tissue. But the latest step also highlights a huge ideological and ethical divide. Many scientists in the US and Europe argue that adult stem cells taken from a developed human - for instance from umbilical cord blood, or from bone marrow - could be reprogrammed to make a range of different tissue.

Many in Britain believe that the technology that led to Dolly the Sheep should be used to grow embryo stem cells from embryos left over from fertility treatments that would otherwise be destroyed.

In May, British scientists announced that they had created a cloned human embryo. On the same day, a South Korean team announced that it had gone further: it had created human embryo stem cell lines from 11 patients in a Seoul hospital.

Last week a team from Kingston University announced that it had worked with researchers in Texas to "grow" foetal stem cell lines from umbilical cord blood, using technology developed for the International Space Station.

Other researchers, using fat stem cells from liposuction, and samples from bone marrow, have also claimed to be able to reverse the developing process.

Kevin Eggan of Harvard University and colleagues will report in Science that they used a detergent-like chemical to force samples from a line of already existing embryo stem cells to fuse with skin cells. The effect was to "turn back the biological clock" and make tissue that seemed to have the characteristics of an embryo.

They could then guide this experimental tissue to grow into nerve cells, hair follicles, muscle cells and intestinal lining.

But the Harvard researchers stress that the technique pioneered in Britain that led to Dolly the Sheep in 1996 is still a powerful and necessary tool for research.

"These cells are almost identical in every way to normal stem embryonic cells. By every method that we can test, these cells have the properties of embryonic stem cells, with the exception that they have twice as much DNA as regular cells. This simple point renders the cells that we use useless for therapy," said Dr Eggan. "It could be 10 years before we get to where we want to go."

Ian Wilmut, of the University of Edinburgh, the first scientist to clone a mammal from an adult cell and an egg with the mother's DNA scooped out- Dolly - said the latest US research could be exploited to help scientists understand one of the great mysteries: the way a cell can "reprogramme" itself and start life again. But he warned: "Let us not waste time. There are methods of deriving embryo stem cells from cloned embryos that could be used to study and in time treat human disease. Let's get on with this, for the sake of thousands of patients."[/font]

 

[Kermit]

There is no ban at all on stem cells collected from umbilical cords at a baby's birth. Research is ongoing.

From what I understand, none of the great discoveries with stem cells that have been tested and proven have come from embryonic stem cells. They've all come from stem cells collected from other sources. (I heard that a while ago, so it could be different now.)

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I would support the donation of umbilical cords for stem cell harvesting. Throwing it in the trash is a waste.