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Da_bear
storyteller
Username: Da_bear
Post Number: 214
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 6:41 pm: |     |
New Scientist
Any thoughts on the ethical or moral problems of this??
'Humanised' organs can be grown in animals
19:00 17 December 03
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
It's bad news, says your doctor. Your liver is failing. So he extracts stem cells from your bone marrow and injects them into a sheep fetus while it is still in the womb. When the sheep is born, much of the animal's liver will consist of your own cells - ready to be harvested and given back to you.
This dream therapy is still years off, if it happens at all, but the first steps have already been taken by a team led by Esmail Zanjani at the University of Nevada, Reno. "Esmail has some pretty startling results," says Alan Flake of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Zanjani's team hopes the animal-human chimeras they are creating will one day yield new cells genetically identical to a patient's own for repairing damaged organs, and perhaps larger pieces for transplantation.
It might even be possible to transfer whole organs, since in some cases having at least a partly human organ would be better than a purely animal xenotransplant. Immune rejection of the animal portion would still be a problem, but it is not insurmountable, says Flake. "I don't think that in 10 to 15 years that's out of the question."
Growth factors
If perfected, the technique could overcome some of the big stumbling blocks facing researchers who want to make tissues and organs for implants. It might yield significant quantities of just about any kind of cell or tissue, for instance, with no need to fiddle about with different culture conditions or growth factors.
Instead, the host animal's own developmental program guides the injected human stem cells into their final roles. "We take advantage of the growing nature of the fetus," Zanjani says.
It would also allow doctors to obtain immune-compatible cells without having to create human embryos by therapeutic cloning. Human cells could be separated from the animal ones simply by modifying existing cell-sorting machines.
Providing the method really does produce normal human cells, they would not be rejected. And any stray animal cells would be killed off by the recipient's immune system.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. |
Pine
storyteller
Username: Pine
Post Number: 298
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 7:55 pm: | |
What ethical problems, bear? Like any experimental treatment there are safety issues, uncertainty regarding efficiency or whether the treatment will result in unexpected negative long term effects. That is a risk anyone entering an experimental treatment should be aware of. I agree that informed consent with all these unknowns does not have the same meaning as informed consent to a well established treatment.
Or were you thinking of anything else? |
Da_bear
storyteller
Username: Da_bear
Post Number: 215
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, December 18, 2003 - 10:00 pm: | |
Mainly safety and viral concerns.
I was interested in the idea that a sheep with human brain cells might not be safe to consider only a sheep.... sorta like some of my students.
da bear
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. |
Da_bear
flint knapper
Username: Da_bear
Post Number: 696
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 1:44 am: | |
Follow doctor's orders
Now that Sen. Bill Frist, a surgeon, supports stem cell research, other GOP senators should see the light
Published on: 08/02/05
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's turn-about on stem cell research provides hope that the Senate may be able to pass a veto-proof measure allowing the government to help find treatments and cures for deadly and debilitating conditions. That's very good news.
Earlier this summer, Frist (R-Tenn.), a respected heart surgeon, had indicated that he wouldn't support a House-passed measure to expand federal financing of research on donated frozen embryos. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill, holding fast to his belief that using stem cells from embryos is, in effect, destroying human life.
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But, in a statement on the Senate floor last week, Frist said the restrictions placed on government-backed embryonic stem cell research in 2001 "will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases." Because of that, he said, the government's policies must be modified.
In coming to that conclusion, Frist becomes the most powerful voice in the Senate to push for expansion of research; Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) are the sponsors of the bill.
Democrats in the upper chamber are united in support of removing the restrictions.
In changing his mind, Frist has placed himself in opposition not only to his party's political leader but also to a good portion of the Republican Party's anti-abortion base. However, the change in his stance could make him more appealing in the 2008 presidential race to his party's more moderate elements — a group probably alienated by Frist's questioning of whether Terri Schiavo was really in a persistent vegetative state prior to her death.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0805/02 edstemcell.html
Just some stuff that may change the US stance on stem cells.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. |
Hitman84
gatherer
Username: Hitman84
Post Number: 153
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 6:33 pm: | |
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C04E3D71731F931A25752C1A96E958260
This seems to be a major breakthrough in stem cell research. After many years, I leafed through my high school biology textbook to recollect my knowledge on human cell 
My Chess Blog
"It may be that brain hardware has co-evolved with the internal virtual worlds that it creates. This can be called hardware-software co-evolution."
- Richard Dawkins |
Hitman84
gatherer
Username: Hitman84
Post Number: 154
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 5:19 am: | |
Admin,
Duh! That's outdated news!(got the date mixed up)
I'm sorry, I wanted to post this link..I was collecting information on this and had opened too many links.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444436&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=
Could you change the subject name please ? maybe to stem cell research or anything that's close enough to the topic. BTW its Human-Sheep this time!
Its embarrassing.. second or third time this has happened to me, I'll be careful in the future.
My Chess Blog
"It may be that brain hardware has co-evolved with the internal virtual worlds that it creates. This can be called hardware-software co-evolution."
- Richard Dawkins |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2022
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 7:45 am: | |
New posts on stem cell research moved here.
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
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