Posted on 12/06/2007 12:41:50 PM PST by Quiet Man Jr.
A new way to trick skin cells into acting like embryos changes both everything and nothing at all. Being able to reprogram skin cells into multipurpose stem cells without harming embryos launches an exciting new line of research. It's important to remember, though, that we're at square one, uncertain at this early stage whether souped-up skin cells hold the same promise as their embryonic cousins do.
Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both the U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Embryonic stem cells were used extensively in the research that resulted in this “new” method. Even though the process itself does not require ESCs, it will result in the destruction of more embryos as it is developed.
“Even though the process itself does not require ESCs, it will result in the destruction of more embryos as it is developed.” Since there are embryonic stem cell lines available that do not require killing more embryos for them, how will this breakthrough depend upon killing more embryos to advance the methodology? You lost me ...
“Even though the process itself does not require ESCs, it will result in the destruction of more embryos as it is developed.” Since there are embryonic stem cell lines available that do not require killing more embryos for them, how will this breakthrough depend upon killing more embryos to advance the methodology? You lost me ...
I saw one of the scientists in an interview, and he said that the research that was done did not qualify for federal funding, because they were unable to use existing stem cell lines. I didn’t quite understand the whole discussion, but they were using multiple stem cell lines, to understand the behavior of embryonic stem cells. That is the basis for being able to verify that the deprogrammed cells actually behave like embryonic stem cells.
The interview also indicated that one group of the skin cells deprogrammed, were fetal skin cells. It didn’t seem from the interview like the source of the skin cells was highly important, but I am unclear on why fetal skin cells were used.
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