Stem cell transplant allows woman to walk again

[playafly187]

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20041127-121143-6745r

pretty interesting. wonder when the US will start doing stuff like this...

[KryoNexus]

not a big fan of stem cell research personally. it goes against most of my morals :-)

[T-shirt]

KryoNexus,
Why?
How is this different from blood transfusions, organ donation, or even antibiotics?
umbilical cord blood is usually thrown out, and otherwise is of no use to anybody, the fact that it can actually provide benifit to someone, without harming anyone, is a great stride forward for medicine.

[fstroupe]

"Stem Cell Research" has been blown so out of proportion by the ultra-right/ultra-left and the media, due to the portion of that research done on stem cells of fetuses.

Most people think that Stem Cell Research = taking cells from fetuses.

Actually, the part of that research is very small, and has shown very little promise, compared to umbilical cord fluid, and adult stem cells. A new idea that is steadily growing is taking spinal fluid for freezing from newborns, in case it is needed for them in the future.

This research is also taking place in the US...mostly in the US.

The extremists and the media have also done the same thing with clone research, medical pot, etc, etc.

[KryoNexus]

let me rephrase that. I am against embryotic stem cell research. Adult stem cell research is fine by me. Basically, I don't agree with ending one person's life so that another person can live longer. Granted, the article is about adult stem cells, and I should've been more precise in my wording. :-)

[silenze]

I agree that we shouldn't be experimenting in the creation of life, but the prolonging of life... I'm all for it.

[Kattikawn]

I heard about that yesterday on Howard Stern. I did some research into it and cloning a few years back for a speech class. Very interesting stuff. The embryonic research doesn't bother me really. If a ball of cells can be used towards healing someone and providing them a more fulfilling life, I'm fully in support. =)

[fstroupe]

I agree that we shouldn't be experimenting in the creation of life...

(totally not picking on silenze...but using this to make my point)

Purely another example of what I mean...the extremists and the media has created a belief that cloning is a serious issue.

We are experimenting in the creation of life every day...every large city has many creation research labs, all smaller cities have at least one...fertility MD's are all experimenting in the creation of life. The artificial fertilization methods, the fertility drugs, the "test tube babies" are all examples of experimenting in the creation of life.

Actually, I saw an ad on the news this morning (my cable was down, and I was forced to watch the network stuff for a while), about a future news broadcast about the "explosion" of multiple births, interesting because Julia Roberts just had twins. This "explosion" is not natural occuring, and I hope no one thinks it is, unless you think that taking fertility drugs, or multiple fertilized eggs surgically connected to a uterine wall is natural.

I laughed my ass off at the national cloning scare of a few years ago. The opponents and the press created a collective vision of sci-fi movie stuff: people cloning themselves so they could live forever. The opponents because it scared people, the press because it sold.

WHAT IS A CLONE? Clones happen in nature. Identical twins are clones. They not only look alike, their DNA is identical. Out of the many months of the cloning scare, I only heard that statement once...and the scientist that said it during an interview wasn't questioned about it...it's just not interesting. What is interesting is scaring people about the extremes.

Personally, I really don't worry about cloning, nor stem cell research, I do worry about the myths that have been created around each, because with all of them, you feel forced to take one extreme side or the other. Taking sides causes emotions, and emotions sell newspapers and bring up news broadcast ratings.

/end rant

[silenze]

Purely another example of what I mean...the extremists and the media has created a belief that cloning is a serious issue.

No, not an example of what you mean. I'm not picking on you either, but I can't be used as an example in that respect considering I do 100% of my thinking without external influence..

[jurtje]

Well this is pretty much my topic of all my classes since I study biochemistry. It's amazing how mice whose spinal cords are broken, can walk again after only injecting stem cells. I don't know if this actual article is true, especially since I haven't seen any decent scientific article in any magazine.
About adult stem cells: they can't be guided anymore to become any cell in the body like embrional ones. They have been predetermined to become some sort of muscle cell or liver cell or whatever, but can't do anything outside that area.
The beauty of embrional stem cells (including spinal cord) is that they can become any cell in your body, they have a huge potential.

We can make cells to produce dopamine to cure parkinson or braincells for somebody who had a seizure and so on, the options are incredible.

I remember that one the same day Bush was elected, a law was passed in California which allows research on stem cells. That was really good news for me. I was happy to see that not all of america was thinking alike,

Problem with cloning is the aging of cells. Cells have a memory of how many cycles they have split and when they're done they die, unless you have cancer. That's why the sheep dolly died prematurely. That's why for many more years cloning humans is not an option and there probably won't ever be a need for it, since it's so easy to create a new human being yourself! (with someone's help ofcourse ;-)

/end lecture