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Good news for once

Red Robin

Well-known member
MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Scientist who ignited stem-cell war says it's over
With his new discovery controversy 'will be just a funny historical footnote'

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Posted: November 24, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com


James Thomson (Photo: N.Y. Times)
The scientist who helped ignite cultural and political controversy with the use of embryos in stem-cell research believes his new discovery – using ordinary adult skin cells – means the war is virtually over.

"A decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote," James A. Thomson told the New York Times in an interview.

Thomson's laboratory at the University of Wisconsin was one of two that announced Tuesday a new way to turn ordinary human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without using a human embryo.

The technique involves adding four genes to ordinary adult skin cells.

Stem cells are used to research treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's because of their ability to turn into any of the body's 220 cell types. Scientists hope it eventually will be possible to use the cells to grow replacement tissues for patients.

(Story continues below)

Thomson, 48, has a degree in biophysics from the University of Illinois and two doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania, one in veterinary medicine and one in molecular biology.

In 1998, his laboratory was one of two that became the first to remove stem cells from human embryos, which destroyed the embryos in the process.

Thomson told the Times he had ethical concerns about embryonic research from the beginning.

"If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough," he said. "I thought long and hard about whether I would do it."

Thomson said he decided to proceed because the work was important, and he was using embryos from fertility clinics that would have been destroyed anyway, because the couples no longer wanted them.

But he still regarded the use of human embryonic stem cells as "scary," adding, "It was not known how it would be received."

Thomson told the Times, however, he never anticipated the magnitude and passion of the stem-cell debate.

Now, though more work remains, he believes the path to a solution is clear, as it's "actually fairly straightforward to repeat what we have done."

"Isn't it great to start a field and then to end it," he said.

Meanwhile, critics of stem-cell research using human embryos have continued to point out that all of the clinical trials yielding success in the past several years have used adult stem cells.

As WND reported in January, Christian leaders from around the world hailed the announcement of research concluding stem cells could be derived from amniotic fluid.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson said at the time that the study "provides more evidence that there is no need to destroy human embryos in order to treat disease or otherwise benefit mankind. In fact, there are no clinical trials anywhere in the world where embryonic stem cells are being used in patients."

At least 70 conditions already are being treated with stem cells from bone marrow and cord blood, and similar prospects are likely for stem cells from amniotic fluid, he said.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sure. Let's just continue to flush the unwanted embryos down the drain or throw them out with the trash while we try to decide if this thing will create something similar to what's already there for research. :roll:

WASHINGTON: The discovery that it is possible to create equivalents to embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos has the potential to reshape - and perhaps defuse - the acrimonious political debate that has raged since human embryonic stem cells were discovered in 1998.

Even before the research was published on Tuesday, White House officials had said the studies vindicated the President's unwavering six-year opposition to funding for embryo stem-cell research and his longstanding position that scientific progress is possible without offending the morality of millions of Americans.

"The science has overtaken the politics," Karl Zinsmeister, the chief domestic policy adviser to George Bush, said on Tuesday. "If you set reasonable parameters and offer a lot of encouragement and public funding, science will solve this dilemma and you don't have to have a culture war about this."

Others involved in the stem-cell debate cautioned that the value of the new cells still needed to be proved.

No one yet knows whether conventional embryonic stem cells may ultimately prove more effective than the new cells against certain diseases, or whether the new cells will be safe for use in people.

For those reasons, several said, it would be wrong to halt efforts to loosen the President's controversial restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research, which prevent money going to research on cells from embryos destroyed after August 9, 2001.

"I don't think this changes the debate," said Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado and key participant in the House debate. "We still need to encourage all types of research, and we need to put ethical oversight in place."

Robert Lanza, the chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts, said: "While this is exciting basic research, it could still take years to get this to work in humans in a way that could be used clinically. I cannot overstate that this is early-stage research, and that we should not abandon other areas of stem-cell research."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/embryo-debate-continues-despite-skincell-discovery/2007/11/21/1195321867145.html
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
Advanced Cell Technology Awarded Federal Grant from National Institutes of Health to Accelerate Embryonic Stem Cell Research
NIH Grant Supports Collaboration to Develop Stem Cell Science and Novel Therapies
ALAMEDA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (OTCBB:ACTC – News), applying proprietary human embryonic stem (ES) cell technology to the emerging field of regenerative medicine, has been awarded a research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the amount of $204,439 in conjunction with a research project currently underway with one of its academic partners, The Burnham Institute of Medical Research (Burnham Institute).

“This grant is momentous in part because it reflects the changing political climate and the federal government’s move toward considerably greater support for research into embryonic stem cell science,” said William M. Caldwell, IV, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Cell. “Increases in federal funding can trigger very significant growth in our industry, and grants such as these help companies like Advanced Cell deliver stem cell-based therapies to the bedside.”
 
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