Posted on 07/06/2010 9:27:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Blood drawn with a simple needle stick can be coaxed into producing stem cells that may have the ability to form any type of tissue in the body, three independent papers report in the July 2 Cell Stem Cell. The new technique will allow scientists to tap a large, readily available source of personalized stem cells.
Because taking blood is safe, fast and efficient compared to current stem cell harvesting methods, some of which include biopsies and pretreatments with drugs, researchers hope that blood-derived stem cells could one day be used to study and treat diseases — though major safety hurdles remain.
The findings “represent a huge and important progression in the field,” stem cell biologist Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco, Calif., writes in a commentary appearing in the same issue of the journal.
Three research groups used similar methods to prod certain immune cells in human blood to become induced pluripotent stem cells. Because they are reprogrammed adult cells, these stem cells share many of the same regenerative abilities as true embryonic stem cells but may not have as much versatility in the kinds of mature cells they can become. But induced pluripotent cells are harvested from adults and so don’t face the same ethical mires posed by embryo-derived stem cells. And as techniques for manipulating induced pluripotent cells improve, some researchers think they may be just as useful.
The new studies accomplished the reprogramming feat by using viruses to deliver a four-gene cocktail that reverts the cells to a naïve state in which any developmental path is open. In theory at least, these induced pluripotent stem cells could go on to form neurons in the brain, muscle cells in the leg or beating heart cells.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Michael J. Fox is deeply saddened that he may not be able to use chopped up baby parts for medicine.
this can’t be good news for the ebryonic stem cell proponents.
This blood process along with THIS process
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092502099.html
appears to remove the need for any embryonic stem cells.
The ethical concerns of just a few years ago have apparently been leap-frogged, if there is such an expression, by the rapid advances in technique. It is a very exciting area.
Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC) are over-hyped and under-achieving really.
Most of the advances are in the realm of Adult Stem Cell (ASC)research.
ESC research is not even banned ( not even Bush banned it, he just banned GOVERNMENT FUNDING ). You can get funding from PRIVATE sources if you want to continue ESC research. The problem is — there’s not much to show for it.
If you let the free market reign (instead of ideology), we will see which one of these research directions provide the most promising results.
Thus far, ASC research wins by many miles.
Once it was discovered that intestinal tissues grew differently in the presence of various flora and fauna that idea was tossed in the old dumpster!
Adult Stem Cells (ASC), at whatever stage of development, had "grown up", more or less, in an environment where the exogenous factors influencing tissue development have played a part ~ most likely by microscopic flora and fauna passing on some of their own chemistry.
We are not, as it turns out, "individuals" ~ we are colonies!
Thanks SeekAndFind. I suspect that the Obama administration will issue an executive order banning adult stem cell research in order to mollify his leftist constituents.
May he and others fighting those battles get the help and relief needed and hopefully soon their cure will be found.
May he also find forgiveness and redemption. I don't know him, but I know of others like him, vulnerable and suffering, being taken advantage of and used to promote things they never would have signed onto when their bodies were healthy and their heads were clear.
The scum who use people like Michael J. Fox to advance their political agenda deserve to feel God's wrath.
The leftists don’t care. They are far more interested in destroying “excess” life than they are in curing diseases.
This is why there are already a number of human embryonic stem cell lines in my home state of Connecticut despite considerable success from SCNT and other more ethical methods.
ASC is entirely where it's at -- once pluripotency and supply was met, ESC is over, and the attempts by the Left to cruelly ride ESC as an abortifacient carte blanche is also over.
My husband is suffering with Parkinson’s, and would never accept any treatment from embyonic stem cells, no matter how effective.
So, pray for the scientists who are studying adult stem cells.
Yes, that is very good advice. I fear what obamacare and obamanomics will do to new and ongoing research.
It's shocking how much prayer is needed simply to get through a day in obamaland.
Citations & References :
Judith Staerk, et al. 2010. Reprogramming of Human Peripheral Blood Cells to Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells. Cell Stem Cell 7(July 2). DOI 10.1016/j.stem.2010.06.002
Tomohisa Seki, et al. 2010. Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Human Terminally Differentiated Circulating T Cells. Cell Stem Cell 7(July 2). DOI 10.1016/j.stem.2010.06.003
Yuin-Han Loh, et al. 2010. Reprogramming of T Cells from Human Peripheral Blood. Cell Stem Cell 7(July 2). DOI 10.1016/j.stem.2010.06.004
Shinya Yamanaka, 2010. Patient-Specific Pluripotent Stem Cells Become Even More Accessible. Cell Stem Cell 7(July 2). DOI 10.1016/j.stem.2010.06.009
Just plug the DOI # into the link.
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