So have scientists generated “genetically tailored stem cells” Or is this just more embryonic stem cell hype?
The latest embryonic stem cell (ESC) research “breakthrough” is the supposed creation of stem cell from a human egg. The Washington Post has a pretty good description of the experiment here so we’ll bypass further description.
The result would seem to be less than the touted “breakthrough,” however, as none of the blastocysts were usable — i.e., they carried 23 chromosomes from the stimulated egg, plus 46 chromosomes from an adult skin cell.
While the a researcher claimed…
This work for the first time demonstrates that the human egg has the ability to turn a specialized cell into a stem cell,
… another scientists remarked,
These are grotesquely abnormal cells, so they have no clinical applications. Even scientifically they are of questionable value.
As we have repeatedly pointed out, ESC research is rife with fraud and hype. Its prospects for success are so dismal, the taxpayer has become the investor of last resort. This is yet another chapter in that saga.
If you don’t know of the phony research of Dr. Suk who sucked in highly respected joint publishers like Dr. Baltimore, to pad his research respectability, then you you don’t know very much at all.
The government is virtually the funder of last resort, as philantropies don’t fund work that is based on fraudulent research, or with little potential prospect of success.
Will do! 🙂 Just like every other therapy that the FDA has taken years and decades to approve! Cheers.
Thanks for your note. Please wake us when you have a treatment/therapy that works.
Huh. I’m a fraud? I have devoted my career to treating and ultimately curing diabetes through cell therapy and you call me a fraud?
True, you didn’t call me personally a fraud but you say in your blog that embryonic stem cell research is rife with fraud. Exactly what research is that? Are you talking about the research in the US that is reviewed and funded by CIRM, the NIH and venture capital investors? It’s pretty hard to get shaky science past those guys. Any sign of unethical or baseless research and funding gets cut.
Embryonic stem cells are human cells not human beings. Have your ever scratched yourself? Go ahead, just reach your fingernails to your preferred body part and scratch. Now, if we were to collect all the cells your just scraped of your skin you would have many more than what comprise the blastocyst –the miniscule group of cells from which we take embryonic stem cells. This tiny group of cells is so small that we need to use the ones created from IVF treatments. It would be difficult if not impossible to take them from a natural pregnancy. It would be pretty creepy since we’d practically have to be there with a stopwatch at the moment the sperm attacks the egg.
Your post shows an almost willful ignorance of how medical research proceeds. Yes, the cloned stem cells are trisomic…so what? It’s called proof of principal. Now researchers will continue to refine their protocols to make better and more useful cells.
You say the prospects for success are dismal. I have funding that says otherwise, and no I do not work on the taxpayers’ money. I happen to see firsthand daily the progress we make in creating a stem-cell based therapy for diabetes; cells that are glucose responsive. Do you know someone with diabetes? I bet you do. Are you going to deny them joy of life because you don’t agree with an anonymous couple’s decision to donate 30 or so unused cells from IVF?
There are two types of stem cell research. Dr. Suk of Korea published a bunch of lies about his progress with embryonic stem cells. Other researchers worked with the cells of each patient to encourage them to become stem cells. These researchers succeeded.
If you make a new organ from stem cells of the Patient, the Patients immune system does not attack and kill the organ as an invader. If you were ever able to make a organ from an embryonic stem cells, the Patient’s body would attack and kill the implant.
But we don’t have to worry about that. There is no scientific progress with the the phony embryonic stem cell research . Other than this reported “progress”, Which is actually an admission of more failure.
Meanwhile many researchers are succeeding and several therapies including creation of heart valves for patient’s is now done. No sane philanthropy funds dead-end embryonic stem cell research, with this background information.
But there is a major contributor to the Democrats, who would like to make their industrial killing, appear less obnoxious. So they demand that the government, when in the hands of Democrats, fund the dead-end research of embryonic stem cells as a funder of last resort. In other words, to waste precious research funds merely for a political fig leaf cover for Planned Parenthood.
How horrifically selfish can a person be to not only kill a baby on purpose to harvest its living tissue and then culture it in an industrial manner for the end use of giving some adult a few extra days on this planet? Dr. Frankenstein would recoil in horror at the thought of “harvesting” a baby for his experiment. I resigned from AIChE when they touted the great engineering “achievements” of Chem. E’s who now make it possible to assembly-line culture ESCs (which are beyond “embryonic”). This form of mad science is most cold blooded and despicable. I say this to AIChE’s shame.