It's yet another breakthrough in stem cell research that does not require the destruction of embryos.
From The Washington Post:
Three teams of scientists said yesterday they had coaxed ordinary mouse skin cells to become what are effectively embryonic stem cells without creating or destroying embryos in the process -- an advance that, if it works with human cells, could revolutionize stem cell research and quench one of the hottest bioethical controversies of the decade.
In work being published today, the scientists describe a method for turning back the biological clocks of skin cells growing in laboratory dishes. Thus rejuvenated, the cells give rise to daughter cells that are able to become all the parts needed to make a new mouse.
If the process also works with human cells, as scientists suspect it will with some modifications, it would mean that a person's own skin cells could be converted directly into stem cells without having to collect healthy human eggs or destroy human embryos -- steps that until now have been required to obtain embryonic stem cells.
Those stem cells could then be used to make a wide variety of personalized replacement tissues.
The findings have generated tumult on Capitol Hill, where the House is set to vote today on a bill that would loosen President Bush's 2001 restrictions on the use of human embryos in stem cell research.
Acutely aware that their new work could undermine that key political goal, the scientists cautioned that their success with mouse cells does not guarantee quick success with human cells. They called for Congress to pass the bill, which would give federally funded researchers access to embryos slated for destruction at fertility clinics.
The researchers are "acutely aware" of "key political goals"?
Are they scientists or lobbyists for libs?
Destroying innocent human life is morally wrong.
It's absolutely repugnant that embryos, AKA genetically complete human beings, are created at fertility clinics and then just tossed out like trash.
There should be outrage over the fact that the embryos are going to be destroyed at these clinics, not that they aren't being used as material for medical experimentation.
Although the embryos have been sentenced to death, that doesn't make their destruction by researchers morally acceptable.
President Bush should veto any legislation that dismisses the sanctity of human life.
Stem cells hold promise. Absolutely.
That promise doesn't have to come via immoral acts.
"[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."
--George W. Bush, May 24, 2005
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What a surprise!
The New York Times runs damage control for pro-death EMBRYONIC stem cell research supporters.
While intriguing, a new approach for producing embryonic stem cells faces considerable hurdles before it can be used to develop medical treatments, executives from stem cell and other biotechnology companies said yesterday.
...“Once you muck around with the genome, all bets are off,” said Dr. Thomas B. Okarma, chief executive of Geron, a company trying to develop medical treatments from human embryonic stem cells. Dr. Okarma said getting approval from the Food and Drug Administration would become “enormously more complicated.”
In scientific papers published yesterday, scientists in the United States and Japan said that by inserting four genes into mouse skin cells, they could change those cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells.
The method does not involve the destruction of embryos, thereby circumventing ethical issues that have led to restrictions on federal financing in the field. That controversy has also deterred some pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Yeah, right.
I don't buy that ethical issues have stopped any company from trying to find a magic bullet, a stem cell-based cure or treatment, that would surely reap enormous profits.
Profit is the bottom line.
Joydeep Goswami, vice president for stem cells and regenerative medicine at Invitrogen, a company that sells tools for stem cell research, said the new technique could get more companies interested in stem cells.
Not only does it eliminate the ethical issues, he said, but it also might provide a way around stem cell patents held by the University of Wisconsin that some scientists and corporate executives say have hindered work in the field.
Oooh! A swipe at UW-Madison and Governor Jim Doyle's plan to make Wisconsin the clone capital of the world!
So Doyle, EMBRYONIC stem cell champion, has hindered work in the field.
Did anyone tell Michael J. Fox that before he did the campaign ad for Doyle?
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