Researchers make stem cell breakthrough
March 1, 2009
Human embryonic stem cells. Image: Samantha Zeitlin, 2006 CIRM fellow
In a study to be released on March 1, 2009, Mount Sinai Hospital's Dr. Andras Nagy discovered a new method of creating stem cells that could lead to possible cures for devastating diseases including spinal cord injury, macular degeneration, diabetes and Parkinson's disease. The study, to be published by Nature online, accelerates stem cell technology and provides a road map for new clinical approaches to regenerative medicine.
"We hope that these stem cells will form the basis for treatment for many diseases and conditions that are currently considered incurable," said Dr. Nagy, Senior Investigator at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital, Investigator at the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, and Canada Research Chair in Stem Cells and Regeneration. "This new method of generating stem cells does not require embryos as starting points and could be used to generate cells from many adult tissues such as a patient's own skin cells."
Dr. Nagy discovered a new method to create pluripotent stem cells (cells that can develop into most other cell types) without disrupting healthy genes. Dr. Nagy's method uses a novel wrapping procedure to deliver specific genes to reprogram cells into stem cells. Previous approaches required the use of viruses to deliver the required genes, a method that carries the risk of damaging the DNA. Dr. Nagy's method does not require viruses, and so overcomes a major hurdle for the future of safe, personalized stem cell therapies in humans.
"This research is a huge step forward on the path to new stem cell-based therapies and indicates that researchers at the Lunenfeld are at the leading edge of regenerative medicine," said Dr. Jim Woodgett, Director of Research for the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital. Regenerative medicine refers to enabling the human body to repair, replace, restore and regenerate its own damaged or diseased cells, tissues and organs.
The research was funded by the Canadian Stem Cell Network and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (United States).
Dr. Nagy joined Mount Sinai Hospital as a Principal investigator in 1994. In 2005, he created Canada's first embryonic stem cell lines from donated embryos no longer required for reproduction by couples undergoing fertility treatment. That research played a pivotal role in Dr. Nagy's current discovery.
One of the critical components reported in Nagy's paper was developed in the laboratory of Dr. Keisuke Kaji from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Kaji's findings are also published in the March 1, 2009 issue of Nature. The two papers are highly complementary and further extend Nagy's findings.
"I was very excited when I found stem cell-like cells in my culture dishes. Nobody, including me, thought it was really possible," said Dr. Kaji. "It is a step towards the practical use of reprogrammed cells in medicine."
Source: Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute
32 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
If true, this effectively ends the debate over embryonic stem cell research by eliminating the need to harvest stem cells from human embryos. This is actually the latest of a long list of discoveries, including animal embryonic stem cells, demonstrating real progress toward cures NOT blocked by ethical restrictions on harvesting HUMAN embryos.
( See: http://www.physor...895.html )
This reminds us again of the importance of careful basic research, including animal studies, before rushing with "blind hope" into questionable experiments instead of working of basic research. It also reminds us of the danger of politicizing science. How much money has been wasted on hype about freezing embryos or umbilical cord blood on the assumption that these procedures were required for any successful stem cell therapy in the future? How many parents have worried that they failed to save the cord blood of their children? How many ill adults have anguished about never having a cure because of imagined failings by their parents or their politicians?
In fact, it is possible the push toward using adult stem cells has resulted in practical cures coming sooner, not later. Let science work without politics or hyper-capitalism, but within ethical boundaries.
No.
These are not totipotent stem-cells.
Past damage done to stemcell research by imoral, hypocritical bastards will not be forgotten. These blastocysts and morulas are left overs from fertility treatment, were still killed and will still continue to be killed at the same rate in the future for as long as fertility treatments exist regardless of whether you allow stemcell research on totipotent stem cells.
Allowing them to go to waste instead of being used has potentially doomed millions of people to die needlessly; real people, with real social lives and emotions and has not saved one single little clump of undifferentiated cells that these science illiterates where so desperate to protect.
So is there some reason that anyone should think you have any expertise at all? Why should anyone help you merely on your say so? That Elders note you say she wrote is only expressing regret and doesn't say a single thing about WHY or if there was any reason that came to her attention independent from you. In fact it looked like a fairly standard letter one might write to avoid confrontation with someone that you have never met and do not wish to.
So please show some sign that this is real and not just something in your head. If you can do that you might get somewhere.
Ethelred
We use to always test new techniques on animals. It was considered unethical to do otherwise. There NEVER has been ANY restrictions on research using animal embryonic stem cells to treat animal diseases or grow replacement organs for animals.
Will the President list the "demonstrated" cures derived from these animal experiments to justify now moving into human testing?
I doubt it... Most researchers have discovered that it is easier to take a skin or bone marrow cell and "trick" them into retrogressing into the equivalent of the patient's own embryonic stem cell rather than to fight the autoimmune response that results from injecting a stem cell derived from a "fresh" (and necessarily DNA unique) embryo.
For this reason, I believe the hype around the very limited embryonic stem cell FUNDING ban was primarily from two communities:
a) businesses trying to create new businesses (harvesting embryos, freezing cord blood, etc.... you see their ads everywhere embryonic stem cell research is reported), and
b) people who seem to dread the thought that fertilization (unique DNA sequence generation) could possibly define the beginning of a unique life.
It is very unfortunate that religious prejudices and excessive hype (and fear driven by greed) has become the focus of so much energy and time. I am happy to report that the REAL researchers in this field have moved on, discovering techniques that do not require the "harvesting" of embryos, reducing the whole debate to yet another piece of crass political theater.
I doubt it as well. Its not his job. His job is to decide how money that he controls is spent.
Yes, the Presidential Moron and His Minions of Ignorance were suppressing them for the last eight years. So real experts had little or no record at all at least where the Minions had any sway.
Unfortunately research on non-human animals does always match the results in humans. Animal tests are usually done on short lived animals and those shorter lives make them poor subjects for many things.
So far I don't think that has been managed with humans. What has been managed is to find a stem cell for a particular cell group, like skin or blood, and get them to form other different kinds of cell of the same group.
That was pointed out to you by someone else already.
Avoiding the autoimmune response is one of the reasons for using embryonic stem cells. They don't seem to trigger one.
See what I wrote above. Try responding to the people that replied to you. Otherwise you look like you don't give a damn what others think. Which leads to people not caring what you think.
You have a lot of anger there. I doubt that anyone rational would disagree with basic concept. However a unique life is created whenever a sexual species reproduces. Many die without ever hatching or being born. Twenty per cent of all human conceptions end in SPONTANEOUS abortion (not to be confused with clinical abortion).
The fact is that the majority of Americans believe in the mother having a choice. Clearly if they thought a cluster of barely differentiated cells constituted a human being they would think differently. The question for most is not whether an embryo or fetus is a human being but when. It's not at conception for most, nor at the eight to 16 cell step either, which what is used in embryonic cell research. I go for when the Cerebral Cortex gets going.
Seems like you have the religious prejudices down pat. Fear too. Won't comment on greed except that you seem to be projecting that on anyone that disagrees with you.
Which you are contributing to with a hidden agenda. Not well hidden. It sure looks like a religious agenda because it casts aspersions on all that think different.
Ethelred