I think one has to have walked in the shoes of a person who suffers from the diseases that can be cured. OTOH I'd be very sad if it would lead to cloning tyrants...
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I think one has to have walked in the shoes of a person who suffers from the diseases that can be cured. OTOH I'd be very sad if it would lead to cloning tyrants...
Hi, Charlie.
>>OTOH I'd be very sad if it would lead to cloning tyrants...<<
Very unlikely -- the sort of cloning being dicsussed goes to a very early age, so as to obtain stem cells for injection back into the cloned adult. The hope is that stem cells from a clone of Christopher Reeve, for example, might cure his quadroplegia. I have no qualms about the procedure at all, because the embryo is harvested at the pre-implantation stage (most modern birth control pills block implantation of an embryo, rather than actually preventing fertilization -- one reason why the anti-abortionists plan to target such pills as soon as they get abortion banned, though they don't tell the general public that fact).
-- Dave K.
Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!
Dear Dave
Don't know if I understand your post entirely, but....
Over here (UK) this arrived last night and ran for "several" hours about this stem cell breakthrough. This morning, however, scientists were not slow to jump in and say that (in no particular order) (a) there ain't enough human embryos to do this sort of research, and (b) this ain't the way forward because experimental cells can be adjusted in the lab to act like "spiders" (my words as I understand it) to be capable of reacting to and re-generating parts of the body.
I will try to find a link for this, but I don't think I will need to look very far from the UK.
BTW I slightly object to your reference to Christopher Reeves, depending on exactly what you are saying, because it was reported here that his improvement was so far courtesy of experiments on animals.
Well, there I am
Regards
Mo
Hi, Mo.
This is an area I know a LOT about -- I'm trained as a molecular geneticist (PhD in biochemistry), and trying to cure genetic diseases has been my dream since I was in high school. There's simply no way that experimental cells can (now, or in the forseeable future) be "adjusted" to act like stem cells; there was one report to the contrary quite some time ago, but no one else has been able to replicate the reported feat. While the hope is that embryonic stem cells may not have recognizable "self" antigens and so would not be rejected, many biomedical scientists expect that as they mature the derived cells will start "displaying" their original identity, and so will be atacked and rejected by the host's immune system. In that case, using stem cells derived from one's own extremely immature (256-cell) clone would be the only option, which is why the Korean report is so important. Of course, the problem is that would require individualized stem cells, and so would probably only be available to the wealthy.
-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com
The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!
Dear Dave,
I'm fumbling around here. Having said that it should be easy to find a link because it was so much reported here, I am not finding it easy at all. Mainly because all of the links I find are so technical that I'm really not sure if they are supporting what was said or not. What they seemed (to me) to be saying was that they had been successful in isolating/advancing specific elements/attributes of cells in a bath rather than via the use of embryos. I think I might have misled you by my use of words because I don't think they were talking about overcoming rejection. If I can be more precise, I will re-post.
I already guessed you were some sort of expert in this field, and I guess I was right (and how!) That is why I thought you might be interested in the comments.
Our University of Cambridge might be of interest to you (though I'd be a bit surprised if you didn't know of this already) and I came across these two also:
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/cloning/cloning.jsp?id=22522200
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=122576
Thank you for your reply. It is a tremendous field to actually be working in. I always wanted to be either a genetic engineer (as it was called in those days) or a barrister (attorney?) and I'm absolutely delighted that you "did it" and speed to your heels. I finished up as an accountant (boring - or what?).
Regards
Mo
I think cloning to create a human being is silly. Don't we have enough people already? Besides, I remember reading about cloning a horse. They cloned dozens of eggs and implanted 17 and only one survived. That is really carrying ego to extremes.
As to stem cell research, most unused test tube embryos are flushed. Might as well use them for something worthwhile.