Re: Keep Stimulating Those Eggs

Nantz wrote:
On Jun 29, 5:14 pm, High Miles <2Blue...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Scientists: Stem Cells Created From Eggs
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer

Thu Jun 28, 5:27 PM

NEW YORK - Scientists say they've created embryonic stem cells by
stimulating unfertilized eggs, a significant step toward producing
transplant tissue that's genetically matched to women.

The advance suggests that someday, a woman who wants a transplant to
treat a condition like diabetes or a spinal cord injury could provide
eggs to a lab, which in turn could create tissue that her body wouldn't
reject.

Ethicists disagreed on whether the strategy would avoid the
long-standing ethical objections to creating embryonic stem cells by
other means.

Such cells can develop into virtually any tissue of the body, and
scientists hope to harness them for producing specialized tissues like
nerve cells or pancreas cells to treat a range of illnesses. But the
process of harvesting the stem cells destroys embryos, which many people
oppose.

To create tissues that genetically match a patient, some scientists are
trying to develop a process called therapeutic cloning, in which DNA
from the patient is inserted into an unfertilized egg, an embryo is
produced and stem cells are harvested. But nobody has made that work in
humans.

The new work tries another tack: stimulating a woman's unfertilized egg
to begin embryonic development. Scientists believe this development
can't continue long enough to produce a baby, but as the new work shows,
it can produce stem cells that are genetically matched to the egg donor.

Such an approach could not provide matched cells for men, of course.

The work, published online by the journal Cloning and Stem Cells, is
reported by scientists from Lifeline Cell Technology of Walkersville,
Md., and from Moscow.

Jeffrey Janus, president of Lifeline and an author of the study, noted
that stem cells produced by the method might prove useful for patients
other than the egg donor, in combination with anti-rejection therapy.
That's the case with standard stem cell lines created from ordinary
embryos, he said.

He and colleagues report producing six lines of embryonic stem cells,
one of which had chromosome abnormalities. They obtained their eggs from
five women who were having eggs harvested for test-tube fertilization,
and who agreed to donate some for the research.

"It's a big deal, it's a very nice advance," said Kent Vrana of
Pennsylvania State University, who has done similar work in monkeys. The
process appears efficient, he said, and it provides "an additional tool"
beyond therapeutic cloning.

George Daley, a scientist at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, called the
work interesting.

"It's a new type of embryonic stem cell line from a different kind of
embryo," he said. "We just don't know whether these cells will be as
good as embryonic stem cells from naturally fertilized embryos."

One question, he said, is whether the lack of a father's DNA
contribution would impair the performance of the stem cells. DNA in
sperm carries particular markers that differ from those found on DNA in
an egg, and these markers affect the activity of specific genes.

Ronald M. Green, a Dartmouth College ethicist, said he believes the
egg-stimulation process will prove an ethically acceptable way to create
stem cells.

"People will see that these are activated eggs ... they do not of
themselves ever develop into a human being," he said. "This is not
anything biologically or morally like a human embryo, and it's a very
good way of trying to provide human embryonic stem cells that does not
involve the destruction of an embryo."

And then an idiot is heard from.............................

But the Rev. Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in
Philadelphia disagreed.

"My view is that if these grow as organized embryos for the first few
days and then arrest, they may just be very short-lived human beings,"
he said.

"One is very possibly dealing with a defective human being. And at a
minimum, the benefit of the doubt should be given here, and these
embryos should not be created for the purposes of destroying them."

___
+++++++++++++
Sounds like something some of the fundies might go along with, there's
no sperm involved, and it could not grow into a baby. Imagine the
medical miracles that could happen.

I don't remember any of the candidates being asked about their views
on stem cell research. Is this just my bad memory?

Nantz

It may be one tater they all agreed to leave in the pot.

D
.

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