A team of Texas and British researchers says it has produced large amounts of embryoniclike stem cells from umbilical cord blood, potentially ending the ethical debate affecting stem-cell research -- the need to kill human embryos.
The international researchers said the cells -- called cord-blood-derived-embyroniclike stem cells, or CBEs -- have the ability to turn into any kind of body tissue, like embryonic stem cells do, and can be mass-produced using technology derived from NASA.
"It looks very promising," said Dr. Randall Urban, an endocrinologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He stressed more research has to be done.
In a report published in the August issue of the journal Cell Proliferation, Dr. Urban and researchers at Kingston University in England described how they turned the CBEs into human liver tissue.
Scientists believe the ability to replicate tissue could lead to the development of ways to replace organs as well as treat life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, which have been the focus of stem-cell research.
...Dr. Urban said he sees a need for both adult and embryonic stem-cell research, but recognizes the objections of the pro-life community. In contrast, he said, "cord blood is normally discarded tissue" after birth, so there are no ethical concerns.
In addition to the moral questions surrounding their use, embryonic stem cells are rare. The Texas and British researchers point out that cord blood is an attractive source for stem cells, given that 100 million babies globally are born each year, 4 million in the United States alone.
...[The research] is especially interesting because it comes just two weeks after scientists at the University of Pittsburgh announced they have discovered a type of cell in the human placenta that also shares the ability of embryonic stem cells to regenerate a wide variety of tissue.
This is good news, isn't it?
Great leaps are being made in stem cell research.
Cord blood is showing even more promise to fight disease than it has already delivered. Advances can actually be made without destroying human embryos.
Obviously, stem cell research is an emotionally charged issue on many levels. For those believing that life begins at conception (like John Kerry), destroying life to preserve life is a moral dilemma.
Putting the ethical issues aside for a moment, it is helpful to understand the state of research on embryonic and adult stem cells.
U.S. Florida Congressman Dave Weldon, an OB/GYN, said, "Adult stem cells and, in particular, cord blood stem cells are going to be the sources for the regenerative, miraculous medicine in the future. Embryonic stem cell research is just not getting good research results."
He's right.
While embryonic stem cell research has yet to cure a single patient, so far, more than 6,000 patients and 66 diseases have been successfully treated with stem cells from cord blood.
There are no currently approved treatments being used on patients as a result of research on embryonic stem cells. No human trials are underway. Twenty years of embryonic stem cell studies reveal that they have produced tumors, caused transplant rejection, and have formed the wrong kind of needed replacement cells.
Because embryonic stem cell research has been shown to be problematic, private investors have put their money toward adult stem cell research.
It should be noted that no one has put the brakes on embryonic stem cell research in the private sector. Nothing stands in the way of privately funded research projects.
All of this doesn't begin to address the moral issues involved when experimenting on human embryos. (Keep in mind how vehemently some people oppose using animals in medical research and testing, finding the exploitation of animals to be morally objectionable, even when medical advances and cures are at stake.)
Politically speaking, the advances in non-embyronic stem cell research are so encouraging that it will be that much easier for President Bush to veto the bill to INCREASE federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Life does not need to be destroyed to find treatments and cures for conditions that threaten life.
"[T]here is no such thing as a spare embryo. Every embryo is unique and genetically complete, like every other human being. And each of us started out our life this way. These lives are not raw material to be exploited, but gifts."
--President Bush, May 24, 2005
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