I've been asked to write something about Stemagen First to Create Cloned Human Embryos from Adult Cells. I don't feel qualified to write on the subject from a biological science perspective, however, so I asked Susan (wife, partner, Sr. Researcher, ...) who's very knowledgeable in these fields to respond from that perspective. Tomorrow or thereabouts I'll respond from a social perspective.
As with most headlines, the above was written to elicit a response. It did. In me it was one of curiosity. Probably in others it was outrage. This particular headline was from an article in the Washington Post written by Rick Weiss . I assumed from the headline that they had actually cloned embryos with recognizable 10 fingers, 10 toes, a head and all. What these scientists achieved is to create a group of cells that if healthy enough could be implanted with the hopes that an embryo would develop. Even if the cells were 100% healthy the chances of a successful implantation and child being born are slim.
What most people don't realize is that most women fail to implant under normal healthy circumstances. With the advent of home pregnancy tests, the scientific community has come to realize that most women spontaneously abort before the woman even realizes that they are pregnant. Most women can find out if they have are pregnant within days of having intercourse, only to find out later that the egg failed to implant properly and they had a miscarriage. For this reason pregnancies usually aren't announced until after some time has gone by.
The possibilities that would result from this cloning research are exciting. As Mr. Weiss states in his article “The closely held company hopes to make embryos that are clones, or genetic twins, of patients, then harvest stem cells from those embryos and grow them into replacement tissues. When transplanted into patients, the tissues would not be rejected because the immune system would see them as "self."” Having worked in the transplant field developing tests to determine if patients were rejecting or having an infection, this use would be incredible. It's not always easy to tell the differences and as one can guess the treatments are very different if the patient has an infection or is rejecting the transplant. Many of the biopsy procedures are invasive and often dangerous. The need to react is critical. The treatments need to be started as soon as possible. Often times when the symptoms have progressed to a state where the condition is obvious, the damage to the transplanted organ are too great and the organ is usually rejected.There are always two sides to every issue, sometimes many more. The end result of such research has the potential to aid humans. Let's take it one step at a time and read the articles that proclaim such feats in their entirety before pronouncing judgment on the research or researcher. That's just my opinion, I'm sure you have yours.
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» Mature Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells, Part 2 from BizMediaScience
Mature Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells (a social perspective) [Read More]
Tracked on: January 23, 2008 2:06 PM | Permalink to Trackback