Posted on 01/08/2007 4:52:46 AM PST by Liz
Scientists said they had found a plentiful source of stem cells that sidesteps the controversy over destroying human embryos.....Researchers at Wake Forest and Harvard reported stem cells drawn from amniotic fluid donated by pregnant women hold much the same promise as embryonic stem cells........they were able to extract the stem cells without harm to mother or fetus and turn their discovery into several different tissue cell types, including brain, liver and bone. "Our hope is that these cells will provide a valuable resource for tissue repair and for engineered organs....." said Dr. Anthony Atala, of Wake Forest.....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Looks like the scientists are saying the stem cells in the fluid are not embryonic stem cells.
Indeed.
I have done a lot of my own research on this topic and I concur with Rush that embryonic stem cell research is not likely to produce any positive results for many, many years, if ever.
It will be exciting to watch the Dems try to spin this.
Actually, IIRC Rush said that embryonic stem cell therapies have suffered from the "minor" setback that they tend to result in cancerous growths. To date, there are over 70 (last I checked) effective stem cell therapies, and yet none of the effective therapies have involved embryonic stem cells.
If the umbilical and amniotic stem cells are shown to be as stable as the adult variety, then we will have three sources for therapies. The grail of embryonic (IOW fetus-derived) stem cell treatments remains beyond our scientific reach, though.
Scientists Find Potential Stem Cells In Amniotic Fluid A New Source?
Science Daily — Research by Austrian geneticists has raised the possibility that stem cells could be isolated from amniotic fluid the protective 'bath water' that surrounds the unborn baby.
Geneticist Professor Markus Hengstschläger and his team at the University of Vienna have isolated a subgroup of cells from amniotic fluid that express a protein called Oct-4 known to be a key marker for human pluripotent stem cells.Reporting the findings today (Monday 30 June) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction, Professor Hengstschläger stressed that the investigation was at an early stage. A lot more work had to be done to verify the finding, and tests were now under way to establish in which direction the cells could be differentiated. However, preliminary experiments have already provided evidence that they can be differentiated into nerve cell.
If, after extensive research these stem cells do prove to have similar potential to embryonic stem cells, ultimately it could reduce the need to use human embryos as a source, thus easing the tensions in this ethically controversial area.
Professor Hengstschläger believes that his team will know within two years what the amniotic cells are capable of becoming. "We have already presented good evidence in this paper for the existence of stem cells in amniotic fluid and we have evidence for neuronal differentiation. The question for the future will be what can these cells do, in which directions can they be differentiated? Whether these cells have the same potential as embryonic stem cells is a question that can only be answered by a variety of experiments. However, our gene marker analyses demonstrate that they at least appear to resemble embryonic stem cells."
Professor Hengstschläger's group is the first to identify amniotic fluid as a potential source of pluripotent stem cells although others have previously suggested that amniotic fluid cells might be able to make skin.
To find the cells the researchers examined amniotic fluid taken from routine diagnostic amniocentesis on pregnant women. Genetic tests on 11 independent samples revealed Oct-4 mRNA (messenger RNA) in five of the samples. They went on to test for further indications of their potential and identified stem cell factor (a growth factor), vimentin and the enzyme alkaline phosphatase mRNA expression. All three of these molecules are markers for pluripotent stem cells.
"There is no doubt as to the importance of Oct-4 for the maintenance of stem cells," said Professor Hengstschläger. "Each mammalian pluripotent stem cell line expresses Oct-4, which rapidly disappears when the cells differentiate."
Further tests on the nucleus confirmed that the correct molecule had been analysed and suggested that the Oct-4 protein expression in the amniotic fluid cells was indeed functional. Professor Hengstschläger said that the fact that only half the amniotic fluid samples were Oct-4 positive and that only 0.1 to 0.5% of cells within these positive samples expressed the Oct-4 transcription factor indicated that there was a distinct sub-population within the amniotic fluid cell sample with the potential to differentiate, rather than indicating that they had simply found a low general background Oct-4 expression. The cells were also shown to have dividing ability because cyclin A a crucial protein that drives cell division was present.
"Even if, in due course, we find that this new source of stem cells only have the ability to differentiate into a specific subset of cell lines, this is still an extremely interesting finding," he said. "We believe that our findings, together with the recent demonstration that amniotic fluid can be used for tissue engineering, encourages the further investigation of human amniotic fluid as a putative new source of stem cells with high potency."
Remember -- most of the research that is now finding better stem cells probably would NOT have been funded had Bush, in 2001, allowed all uses of Embryonic Stem Cells.
Remember that a significant number of REPUBLICANS supported embryonic stem cell research, including some "pro-life" senators like Orin Hatch.
I believe they thought they were being sincere and looking for the greater good. But if they had had their way, we wouldn't be finding out all these new techniques that will make it unnecessary to even consider killing babies to save adults, like selfish adults wanted to do.
Had this news come out in October, we would not have lost control of the Senate. (Talent vs. McCaskill)
The cells were not taken after the baby was born, they were taken during pregnancy. The risk to the mother and child in extracting small amounts of amniotic fluid are small but real -- my guess is this was done using fluid extracted to test for fetal anomalies.
And the cells are not embryonic, embryonic refers to cells in their earliest stages, when the embryo is in the 1-10ish cell range, before there is any differentiation.
The undifferentiated cells "seem" to have promise because they can be "anything", but so far it turns out being able to be "anything" has meant that they can't really be "anything useful" -- like there is too much possible variation to make actual use of the cells.
Even if this new source of stem cells doesn't provide stem cells that are useful, who cares? It's not the performing of research that leads to dead ends that is the problem with embryonic stem cell research, it's that for many people that research is KILLING BABIES, terminating human life.
The argument that embryonic cells are useless may be truthful, but it is a dangerous one -- it argues that if embryonic stemm cells actually WERE useful, then it would be OK to kill babies. However, we were losing the argument, and some people who WOULD be willing to kill babies to save themselves would join our side if they thought the killing was for no purpose at all.
With new ways of getting these stem cells, we can stop arguing about whether research will lead to cures, and simply argue on the merits that you shouldn't kill humans to try to save other humans.
You misunderstand where these stem cells are coming from. They are not samples of fluid taken during pregnancy but instead are captured after live birth in the amniotic fluid resulting from birth. This represents a breakthrough. Read this article for a better understanding. The researchers say that the cells captured AFTER birth can be used not only for the child in later years but for 99% of the population.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/08/STEMCELLS.TMP
Hmmm... I guess the abortuaries will have to find another form of validation.
To find the cells the researchers examined amniotic fluid taken from routine diagnostic amniocentesis on pregnant women.
From the article:
Sunday's report "is one in a line of studies showing very versatile stem cells can be obtained from a number of different products after live birth -- amniotic membrane, amniotic fluid, cord blood, placenta, even umbilical cord tissue
By contrast, amniotic fluid can be easily obtained during or right after any typical pregnancy -- and there are roughly 4.5 million births a year in the United States. The fluid can be withdrawn through a needle for a diagnostic procedure known as amniocentesis. The same fluid is routinely discarded when a woman's "water breaks."
SO they mention amniocentesis as well, and they point out (although they don't seem to understand the results) that the fluid is "discarded" when the "water breaks".
Meaning: If the woman's water breaks, they aren't getting any of the fluid. They can only harvest the fluid if they bring the woman in BEFORE the water breaks, and break the sac in a controlled way, and with the appropriate sanitization protocols.
Also, there's a lot of research that is yet to be done to find out if the same useful cells exist in the amniotic fluid at 40 weeks, the research was on fluid harvested earlier in the pregnancy.
Well, I wonder how this 2003 study relates to the information we just got -- is someone just finding out about it, or is this a follow-on?
Researchers at Wake Forest University and Harvard University reported the stem cells they drew from amniotic fluid donated by pregnant women hold much the same promise as embryonic stem cells.
They reported they were able to extract the stem cells without harm to mother or fetus and turn their discovery into several different tissue cell types, including brain, liver and bone.
SO they have essentially proven that these cells ARE pluri cells and can be made into several different things.
But that still won't eliminate the need for embryos, he said, citing the unique powers of that handful of cells that form at the earliest stages of life.
Yes, even if we cure death itself, we still need to kill babies, to get those special, magical cells with their "unique" power, which so far appears to be causing cancerous death in all that they survey.....
Good grief, you dispute your own point in the excerpt you posted.
amniotic fluid can be easily obtained during or right after any typical pregnancy
Can we just agree that this represents a breakthrough and "can't we all just get along?"
As you know, that hasn't been the underlying reason for the abortions, they were done for the abortion sake alone. The stem cells were the straw man.
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