10-30-2006, 12:39 PM
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#87 (permalink)
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Banned
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
The rather funny thing in all this I didn't bring up is that there may not even be a need to harvest fertlized cells as there are already stemcell lines out there. These are the pluripotent cell types.....
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Is your point compatible with these:
From post #75:
Quote:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/...n-disease.html
Stem cell trial to combat childhood brain disease
* 12:13 25 September 2006
* NewScientist.com news service
* Helen Phillips
The first clinical safety trial of a purified human fetal stem cell product is about to begin in the US for a rare and fatal childhood brain disease. The trial could pave the way for neural stem cell transplants to treat a range of brain and spinal cord disorders....
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The team expect to treat the first child before the end of 2006. The children will receive injections of neural stem cells that have been purified – isolated from other cell types – and grown from donated human fetal tissue. The stem cell product and isolation technique was developed by StemCells Inc, of Palo Alto, California, which is sponsoring the trial.
Children with Batten’s disease suffer seizures, motor control disturbances, blindness and communication problems. As many as 600 children in the US are currently diagnosed with the condition – death can occur in children as young as 8 years old.....
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Quote:
http://www.ascb.org/index.cfm?navid=...887&tcode=nws3
Stem Cells & Cloning
Testimony on Stem Cell Research Before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Presented by Douglas Melton, Ph.D.
Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences at Harvard University
Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
September 5, 2001
....President Bush's plan for sixty embryonic cell lines
President Bush has made clear his commitment to support research on human embryonic stem cells, highlighting the importance of this research. The President's plan provides the opportunity to advance embryonic stem cell research in the US, at least for a few years, and as such his plan marks an important commitment. The Honorable Tommy Thompson has worked diligently for this research and his continued leadership will be critical in moving forward with the President's plan.
For this field the date of the President's speech, 9 August 2001, is important because only stem cell lines in existence at that time, estimated to be about sixty, are eligible for federal support. This date was not chosen for scientific reasons and its arbitrary selection will have an effect on the progress of research. For example, it will not be possible for federally funded researchers to explore new ways to derive human embryonic stem cells nor work with cells that have been isolated without possible contamination from mouse or other supporting cells. Nevertheless, it is now possible for the nation's researchers to initiate studies on how embryonic stem (ES) cells differentiate and we can begin to explore their therapeutic potential.
Looking ahead to how the plan will work, I turn to two issues: the quality of the sixty cell lines and their access or availability.
Quality of the human embryonic stem cell lines
Scientists are, by their nature, inquisitive and skeptical and we hold dear the practice of publishing results following an independent review by qualified experts. Moreover, by publishing results, scientists generally agree that the reagents reported, including cells, are available to be shared with the research community. In this way results can be independently verified and new directions and discoveries can be explored. In the present case, only a handful of the sixty+ embryonic cell lines have been published so it is not yet possible to evaluate or comment on the quality of cells. Nonetheless, legitimate scientific questions about the growth, differentiation potential, age, and purity of the lines must be considered. Decades of experience with mouse embryonic stem cells have shown that ES cells can lose their differentiation potential, become contaminated, accumulate mutations, and tend toward spontaneous or uncontrolled differentiation. The fact that mouse ES cells lose their full potential with increasing age or passage number is only one reason to believe that the sixty+ cell lines will not be sufficient for the years of research required to investigate therapies with these cells. Looking ahead to clinical applications, including transplantation and the problem of immunological rejection, there will certainly be a need for broader genetic diversity of cell lines. There may also be a need for cell lines that have been isolated without the use of mouse feeder layers.
I hasten to add that I am not criticizing the NIH nor the scientists who have reported the isolation of the sixty human embryonic stem cell lines. Indeed, the scientists have not published their work and they may well wish to further characterize the cells before doing so. It is therefore too early to tell how many of the sixty+ lines are truly useful embryonic stem cell lines. Preliminary indications from press reports do suggest that the final number will be significantly less than sixty. If the available lines have been grown extensively and have a high passage number that will further reduce their value.....
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