You probably know that an “ethical stem cell” is a stem cell that doesn’t require the destruction of a human embryo in order to have and use. This term has, of course, arisen from the fact that religious organizations have expressed their belief that a human embryo (it has to be fertilized I believe) is a living human being, and therefore destroying it for any purpose is tantamount to murder. Recently, 13 lines were approved by the Obama administration for use. U.S. approves first “ethical” human stem cell lines
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 2009 (Reuters) — The U.S. government approved the first 13 batches of human embryonic stem cells on Wednesday, enabling researchers using them to get millions of dollars in federal funding as promised by President Barack Obama in March.
Now, these stem cells do originate form a destroyed embryo, but that was some time ago. They are duplicates – new cells that have divided many times from that original cell that was taken from the embryo. Clones, I suppose you could call them, since they are in effect genetically identical. And that’s what makes them “ethical.” Or is it? I’m not sure. Perhaps they were extracted from an embryo that was never going to live anyway. Does anyone know? Drop me a comment if you know what criteria are used to classify a stem cell as “ethical.” It would be interesting to know.
“We have been very fortunate at Harvard to have been the beneficiaries of philanthropy but it has dried up in past years, in part because of the economy and in part because of the perception that the government was about to step in and clear everything up.”
The NIH says it has funded 30 proposals totaling more than $20 million that would use human embryonic stem cells. Now the researchers can get the cells and get going, it said.
“This group of grants includes research using human embryonic stem cells for the therapeutic regeneration of diseased or damaged heart muscle cells, developing systems for the production of neural stem cells” among others, it said.
Collins said these cells are still needed for research even though scientists have found ways to turn ordinary cells into what resemble embryonic stem cells.
What I find fascinating about all of this is that we may never have developed the technology to turn ordinary cells into stem cells if it had not been for restrictions pressed in ethical debate by religious organizations. It is ironic that it focused our efforts into turning ordinary cells into stem cells so that we could then say they didn’t originate from an embryo. In the end, the second technology may allow us to culture adult stem cells with an appropriate genetic match (and therefore surface protein structure) for use in people with nerve, organ or skin damage. I’m not so sure the embryonically-derived stem cells would ever have allowed us to do this. Even now, these experiments are taking place in animals. It is very possible that we’ll be able to cure paralysis caused by nerve damage using this technology (and within our life time).
Filed under: Daily, Future | Tagged: adult stem cells, ethical stem cells, stem cells | Leave a Comment »
Up until reading this article:
Here’s the website:
So, I’m sitting around at work waiting for my parser to get done formatting Word docs into online help, and suddenly I had an epiphany. Actually, that’s a pretty strong word. Let’s call it a revelation. No, that’s too strong too. Let’s just say I had a stupid idea and leave it at that. Since no one was here to stop me, I decided to act on that idea, and therefore started digging through the blogosphere for radical blogs and posts that are either particularly stupid (in my humble opinion) or are just plain off in la-la land.
Look, man, if you’re expecting me to watch football with a bunch of people I only see twice a year, then I’m getting sloshed. First off, I hate football. It’s fricken stupid. A bunch of big dudes in plastic body armor chase each other over a field of fake plastic grass and fight over a brown ball that doesn’t even roll right. It’s not even round! For years I’ve wondered what the retard who invented this game was thinking when he made it up. It’s like he didn’t have a ball, so he used whatever he could find. Maybe all he had was a sock puppet filled with peanuts. That was probably the first football: a peanut filled sock puppet. I hope it was a monkey sock puppet, because that would be funny. Watching a bunch of guys chase a peanut filled monkey sock puppet might actually be worth watching. Maybe they should take football back to its roots, and make it more nostalgic. I can hear the old folks now:
Have you ever been faced with a decision that you didn’t want to have to make? I’m sure it happens to most of us a lot of the time. For example, you have a choice between getting a new set of tires for your car (because it really needs them) or buying some expensive electronic toy you’ve been saving up for. Or maybe you have a decision between buying the airlines tickets for that vacation you’ve been wanting to go on, or paying for those dental crowns you need to get before your teeth fall apart.
In my youth, I observed that many people believed many things about the world, about other people, and about the reality they lived in. Moreover, they did not agree with each other. No one I encountered seemed to believe exactly the same thing about everything. It seemed very odd to me. Every single person was different, and unless they were all wrong about a wide variety of things upon which they held their opinions, then the only logical conclusion was that they were all correct about what they themselves believed. Ignoring the fact that this was impossible, which is something I frequently do, I had to ask myself what explanation might exist to account for this flexibility in the fabric of realty. At which point I realized that reality was quite relative, and that we all live in our own little bubble of it. Yes, reality is relative, and if you don’t like it, that’s okay, because reality doesn’t care.
Recently the following article came to my attention: