The Hope of stem cell research

The Hope of stem cell research

rawstory.com

BRITISH scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time.

The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital.

This week Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical research company, will announce its financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.

No matter your position on stem cell research, you've got to admit this is fantastic news.

-- Stephen C. Webster

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[edit on 4/20/2009 by semperfortis]

This is great news! It just fascinates me how much they can do with stem cell research. I believe that they should focus on this type of research instead of spending billions on weapons and we might get somewhere . We might be able to find incredible results from research regarding stem cells. Blindness today , whats next?

rawstory.com
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[edit on 4/20/2009 by semperfortis]

Awesome NEWS

thank god humanity will chose progress over dogma everytime.

It is sad however to see that nobody could care less (I'm the first)

S+F

Champagne and girls all around

I think in order for this to be mainstream we would need a way to acquire stem cells besides embryos. Not to turn this into a stem cell debate, but I believe any embryo that can be brought to term should be. I'm not naive enough to believe that that will ever happen, but there are millions of people around the world that are against using embryos and that's a major obstacle for things like this.

Originally posted by LiquidLight
I think in order for this to be mainstream we would need a way to acquire stem cells besides embryos. Not to turn this into a stem cell debate, but I believe any embryo that can be brought to term should be. I'm not naive enough to believe that that will ever happen, but there are millions of people around the world that are against using embryos and that's a major obstacle for things like this.

Well there if there is judgement after life then let it come, those who do not partake will not have their relationship with god tarnished one red cent... Til then we are on the Earth responsible for our own future and well being.
Humans ALWAYS PROGRESS - or we would still be tending to our fires cowering in the dark

therefore progress must be sanctioned by god.

Same mindset called for woman to serve man and death for unholy "thoughts"...
You cannot stop progress, it is the only constant, so why delay the inevitable?

One day our mentality will be viewed as savage - the future calls and sitting idly by is
the new savage...

[edit on 20-4-2009 by mental modulator]

reply to post by Fatality


Hey Fatality, thanks for posting this article! S&F.



LiquidLight- Check out these articles:

Stem cells with the capacity to form any type of tissue can be created from adult cells without destroying embryos, according to new research that suggests a way of sidestepping ethical controversy over the field.

www.timesonline.co.uk...
www.timesonline.co.uk...



[edit on 20-4-2009 by rapinbatsisaltherage]

Perhaps we could start culling the poor or unproductive for their internal organs. Now we've progressed enough to be fairly successful at transplants wouldn't that be ok, in fact we could just start a program of growing humans to harvest their organs for those in need of new heart, kidneys, livers, cornea etc.

We don't because morality and science are not actually independent of each other though enough people these days are deluded enough to think so in the case of sacrificing human life in its most vulnerable form.

Originally posted by LiquidLight
Ithere are millions of people around the world that are against using embryos and that's a major obstacle for things like this.

the most pragmatic approach would be replacing these embryonic cells with stem cells from the patient if that is possible of course. let'S face it, embryonic cells are good for research but too limited a resource for large scale use.

a whole lot of issues, few of which are ethical in nature could be avoided by moving to 'adult' stem cells.

Hmm, very nice.

A brief search on Pfizer, the company that wishes to back this "miracle cure" turns up some interesting results, like the time they experimented on critically ill Nigerian children.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Or the time where they will eventually replace their employees with foreign workers.

www.economyincrisis.org...

Or the time they manipulated their own studies to push forward their drug Neurotin, for use on other disorders.

www.nytimes.com...

Hmm, what an odious company. Surely they wouldn't tamper with the miracle cure now to make it more profitable, would they?

There was an interesting article in the Science and Technology section of the Economist a while ago, just before POTUS allowed embryonic stem-cell research, that spoke of some of the research that had been progressing under the previous administrations limits:

ISCo has found a way of producing embryonic-like stem cells from unfertilised eggs. The egg is chemically stimulated to create a group of cells that form a non-viable (and unfertilised) “embryo”. This, explains Kenneth Aldrich, the firm’s boss, is something that could not be implanted into a woman’s womb and produce a child. Nonetheless, the cells it contains have the same characteristics as stem cells.

Besides any ethical advantages this procedure may have, it could also have medical ones. Because lines of stem cells created in this way have only one parent, they are immunologically simpler than normal embryonic cells—in other words they have a smaller variety of the proteins that trigger rejection. That lack of variety, says Dr Aldrich, means it might be feasible to create a bank of stem-cell lines that could be matched to every immune type in the human population, rather as a blood bank carries blood of all the different groups (A, B, O and so on). Replacement stem cells might then be ordered off the shelf.

The Economist

Seperating morality from science leads to lazy science, proper restrictions (yes, moral ones) lead to the innovations as outlined above which has many more benefits that just ethical. The science is there, it costs more in terms of R&D which is probably why Pfizer etc. are happy enough to take the "easy" route and boost their bottom line.

[edit on 20/4/09/ by Supercertari]

Originally posted by MacDonagh
Hmm, very nice.

A brief search on Pfizer, the company that wishes to back this "miracle cure" turns up some interesting results, like the time they experimented on critically ill Nigerian children.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Or the time where they will eventually replace their employees with foreign workers.

www.economyincrisis.org...

Or the time they manipulated their own studies to push forward their drug Neurotin, for use on other disorders.

www.nytimes.com...

Hmm, what an odious company. Surely they wouldn't tamper with the miracle cure now to make it more profitable, would they?

No, they are going to give it away for free, and the money they spent to research it was grown on trees ... and the initial test subjects were only computer simulations...

You know what? That would be very nice if they would do that. Then they wouldn't need to kill CHILDREN to test out their faulty drugs and recklessly endanger human life to make a profit.

You're such a dreamer. I hope that they do the right thing with this potential cure to blindness and sell it for free or at least an affordable price.

[edit on 20/4/09 by MacDonagh]

A statment about stem cells. They are concidered important because they bypass the fundamental issue with transplants, incompatability. Cells withdifferent genetics from the host poseses an enormous chance of being regected by the host's imune system. Stem cells from the patient (in adulthood, the few that remain are primarily stored in bones) could be used to replace the need for doners. The assumptions made earlyer that we would need to use embrios for anything other than recerch on the proces is flawed.

Oh, also, anyone else hear that this might end up curing type 1 diabetes?

I believe that they could obtain stem cells from other sources other than embryos . It's just fascinating how much they can do with this type of research .

reply to post by mental modulator


Exactly.

I always think there is a moral ground we as a species need to be at...but as time continues, it is slowly pushed farther away - to allow more "heated" matters to take place.

Now, aside from the discussion of morales, this is one thing that could be added to the pros of abortion.

Even with babies that ARE aborted currently - it gives them a use rather than trash.

Heres comes the abortion arguement. I say anyone who wants to force religion on others be stoned to death when they break their own religions laws.

reply to post by Memysabu


Abortion isn't about religion, it's about killing a human being. Why should it be okay to kill a baby when it's still in the womb, when it's not as soon as it's born (or for a specified period before it's born). It's arbitrary, and it's wrong. Just because it isn't aware of its existence doesn't mean it doesn't have the right to live.

The abortion and embryonic stem cell research issues overlap in one crucial area that being "what is life?"

Now those who appear to reject religion and its belief element and suggest belief should have no place in these scientific questions are patently manifesting hypocrisy.

The anti-abortion lobby certainly has its religious members who confuse the issue at times but the fundamental question is when is something a human life. Science (biology, genetics, etc.) tells us human life is something which has the genetic signature of the species and manifests the defining features of life. From the moment of conception the embryo has that genetic identity and manifests all the defining features of life. Therefore the "pro-choice" lobby have had to invent a "belief" to justify the termination of these lives in something called "personhood." This notion has no empirical, biological, etc. foundation - it is impossible to find a "particle of personhood" so it is a belief.

This question is not above anyone's paygrade its a scientific fact, but deny it and deny that these are human lives being manipulated, experimented on or disposed of, happy in your "belief" that it lacks "personhood".