Posted on 02/07/2005 8:31:08 PM PST by hocndoc
U.S. Fertility Group Offers Embryo Stem Cells
Thu Jan 27,11:19 AM ET
Health - Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A human genetics clinic said on Thursday it had developed 18 new lines of disease-carrying embryonic stem cells and was offering them to researchers eager to study their potential for treating inherited diseases.
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The action could be a small boost for scientists who have been stymied by strict federal limitations on stem-cell research, including a ban on federal funding for development of new lines of embryonic stem cells or for research using new lines.
Although lines of normal stem cells have been previously made available, the new batches are the first of diseased cells to be publicly released, said Dr. Yury Verlinsky, chief executive officer of the Reproductive Genetics Institute.
They could be used to study a range of serious inherited human diseases including a form of anemia called thalassemia, Fanconi anemia, and the brain-destroying Huntington disease, he said.
The clinic developed the lines in its work screening embryos for couples who are at risk of passing on genetic diseases and wish to have children.
Verlinsky's report on the new lines is published in the January issue of Reproductive BioMedicine Online. On Thursday he was due to announce the availability of the stem-cell lines and the New York opening of a branch of his multinational clinic, which is headquartered in Chicago.
Scientists wishing to use the cells from Verlinsky's clinic will be charged a nominal fee.
Despite the federal limitations on funding for stem-cell research, which would apply in this case, many scientists are clamoring for embryonic stem cells. They say the cells offer an opportunity to study diseases in ways never done before -- practically from the moment of conception.
EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS
The diseased lines could be used to test experimental treatments such as gene therapy or new drugs, Verlinsky told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"Because this line can differentiate into different tissues and organs, you can look at how drugs act on the cells -- heart, kidney, lung, liver and so on. I foresee this could be a substitute for the study of drugs on animals."
Embryonic stem cells come from days-old embryos before they have begun to differentiate, or form the beginnings of the different tissues and organs in the body. They have the potential to become any kind of cell or tissue, if nourished properly.
Scientists want to study them to understand the basic biology of disease and perhaps to use them to grow new organs or tissues for transplants. The hope is to treat or even cure many diseases, from cancer to broken spinal cords.
Stem cells from genetically diseased embryos could be used to grow heart tissue, for example, that could then be studied to see how the faulty genes affect the heart.
But opponents, including President Bush (news - web sites), say destroying any human embryo is wrong.
The stem-cell lines come from both healthy and genetically affected embryos donated by the couples, Verlinsky said. The embryos would otherwise be destroyed.
Verlinksy said his clinic has also made available healthy stem cell lines for researchers who want to study them. Scientists have complained that stem cells available under U.S federal government funding are not sufficient for research.
These embryos which were created by in vitro fertilization for mothers and fathers who wanted children, but who were at risk for genetic diseases.
Evidently, these embryos were tested and found to have the disease, then donated for research. But, the embryos were evidently viable since in order to be useful as stem cells, the embryos were grown for about 5 days and then the embryonic stem cells were harvested. The cells harvested from the now dead embryos - dead because the part of the embryo that would have been the placenta was removed - are grown in the lab and multiply and then they are offered to various researchers, as stated in the article.
The research carried out on these cells will not be funded by Federal tax money.
While there may useful information discovered by this research, Mengele, the doctors at Tuskegee, and the Chinese doctors who harvest organs from death row prisoners made the same utilitarian arguments.
For that matter, most of us have extra skin, an extra kidney, and an extra liver lobe, and any one of us could be the source of new cell lines that could be useful for research, even without killing us. All that seems necessary is for us to be deemed less than a person.
I only saw this article today, so it's a little late.
The goal of "scientists" who see no problem with redefining what is "human" as necessary is to turn these humans into cell cultures for experiments.
Where is the line that we will not cross?
Mustn't upset PETA...
From what I understand, this is a major hope of researchers. They envision vats of embryos and stem cells that are growing while exposed to different drugs. No more lab rats, just lab embryonic humans.
"strict federal limitations on stem-cell research"
What "strict federal limitations" - there are none - the only restriction is that they CANNOT USE OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO DO THEIR DIRTY DEEDS.
BUT .. THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS ON THIS RESEARCH - THEY JUST HAVE TO PAY FOR IT THEMSELVES.
Sort of a variation of the Robin Cook novel "Coma." Saw that movie in '78 and though "Nah, no way anything like that will ever happen!" Wrong!
Since when was there ever a "Line"? As we can see, the loony left has turned any pre-conceived "line" into a fuzzy grey area, where practically anything as bizarre as can be imagined is allowed to exist. The "line" that mother nature drew has been covered up by layers of decaying litter, which is made up of what once was mankind's moral ethics, common sense, and caution.
Surely "science" can unravel the mysteries of how God created everything using existing, healthy material rather than risk creating something that we don't know enough about to stop.
We already have dangerous prionic proteins floating around which were once thought incapable of transmitting disease, prions which at this point are unstoppable and have the potential to eradicate a large portion of the population.
Do we need to mistakenly create more of these type of things without knowing? Lets learn more about what we already know we can't control before creating more things we can't control. Embryonic research can't proceed until we can unravel the folds of the prion, because these proteins are the building blocks of life including embryonic t-cells. We are decades away from being able to "see" things that small.
On the up side of things, maybe science can find what makes people "left" and blind to the rational thinking process. You never know, a cure might be close at hand.
Thanks for the bumps and the comments.
Nuzcruizer, the line used to be "First, do no harm." The desire to do good must be tempered by an aversion to infringing on human rights. Historically, health and liberty are increased by this philosophy.
Unfortunately, now we have "For the greater good."
1) the cell lines come from healthy embryos and handicapped embryos; if the reader will grant that embryos are not humans, then what's the difference in healthy and unhealthy? ... it takes 'being a member of a species' to be deemed unhealthy;
2) donated by the couples, thus it is only choice in action ... these parents chose to donate their children at the children's' earliest age, for experimentation and exploitation unto death;
3) the embryo-aged human members of the species would otherwise be destroyed ... killed in some way other than dismemberment or allowed to die by natural causes such as 'starvation' or 'suffocation', or ... well, you get the picture.
After studying the industry of in vitro fert, I'm not their biggest fan. In fact, I consider the entire exercise as now carried out to be cannibalistic exploitation of human beings at their earliest age in lifetime already under way. If the 'industry' would move to conceive one or two embryos per effort/at-a-time and insert each and every one for life support, the process wouldn't be so close to cannibalistic exploitation. But I still wouldn't agree with the process given that there are so many alive unborn in need of adoption. [And I speak from experience on that score.]
Pro life bump.
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