New Stem Cell Success Still A Failure?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in ScienceDean Esmay points out a story about a new process that pulls the stem cells from an embryo, while still maintaining the integrity of the embryo.
From Globe and Mail:
MEDICAL REPORTER — Two teams of U.S. scientists have found ways to harvest stem cells from embryos without sacrificing a viable life in the process.If these proof-of-principle experiments, which were conducted in mice, can translate to humans, they might ease the fierce ethical and political storm that surrounds embryonic stem-cell research.
Stem cells from human embryos are considered the key to regenerative medicine. They have the power to multiply indefinitely and grow into all the various tissues that make up a human body. As it stands now, the only way to access these cells is to snatch them from the inner mass of a budding embryo that is destroyed in the process. For those who believe life begins at conception, the method is tantamount to murder.
But scientists at the Massachusetts-based biotech firm Advanced Cell Technology and the University of Wisconsin have now demonstrated that if they pluck a cell from an embryo that is a speck of just eight cells, the embryo can survive to be implanted in a uterus and result in a normal pregnancy.
However, Lindsay Beyerstein (who read this NY Times article about the same thing) points out that there could still be a fatal flaw in this stem cell logic.
What the article doesn’t mention that the ovum will be discarded anyway. If this technique were used to generate human stem cells, the fertilized egg would have to be thrown away. Nobody would want to gestate an ovum after it had been raided for stem cells.
Let’s hope she’s wrong.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 17th, 2005 and is filed under Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 17th, 2005 at 10:41 pm
I don’t think that’s true. In genetic diagnosis, one cell is taken from an 8-cell embryo to analyze for hereditary diseases. (This is in-vitro fertilization and embryo selection in families with an identified gene for an illness like cystic fibrosis or Tay-Sachs disease.) The embryo is unharmed.
October 18th, 2005 at 12:08 am
Well, I hope you’re right. I’d like for nothing better than this issue to be taken off the political radar so real progress can be made in the field.
October 18th, 2005 at 10:46 am
On NPR yesterday, they talked about this very thing, and I think what they said mirrors what amba said. The idea is that they are already doing this - taking one from eight - in order to test for diseases. The only caveat they mentioned is that there has not been enough testing of this yet to be able to say for sure whether or not it’s safe. And, the obvious problem is figuring out who you’re going to get to volunteer for such an experiment.
My answer to that would be to use the people who are already doing it to test for disease. Am I missing something? Wouldn’t that be a good group to use?
October 19th, 2005 at 2:06 pm
I don’t see why people would have a problem raiding an embryo for stem cells, when some families give birth to kids to “raid” them for genetically compatible organs, blood or tissues for ailing older siblings. Sounds like the same principle to me, just down at different points in the kids exsistence.