Stem Cell Research

[brewerpaul]

quote Vomitbunny>....God doesn't like technology

Apparently the Jewish God does Israel is on the cutting edge of stem cell research.

[brewerpaul]

This doesn't deal directly with the original post. But, In talking about fertility issues. I personally don't agree with the huge amount of effort some people put into becoming pregnant when there are millions of orphaned and discarded children that need families.

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Excellent point!

[Wombat]

This is one part of the whole debate which amazes me... the stem cell research opponents only seem to be against the medical research using these embryos from in-vitro fertilization (IVF), but don't seem to have many qualms about destroying these same embryos if they are not needed for producing a baby. If these embryos are "human beings", isn't it just as wrong to destroy them as it is to use them for medical research? I'm sure(although I have no statistics) that many anti-stem cell folks have availed themselves of the opportunity for in vitro fertilization without a second thought

OK, here's where i think the fear lies: say in the process of IVF you have to create 10 embryos in the hope that one or two will implant. The other eight die, and that's too bad, but we can't do any better.

Now imagine that there is something we can do with those eight, instead of destroying them... how long would it take before IFV clinics would start producing 100 embryos at a time instead of 10, so they'd have more material to sell?

This may be exaggeration, but that's where the fear is, i think.

g

This is certainly one of the concerns. It isn't very likely that ova would be harvested for the creation of embryos in vitro specifically for medical uses as this involves an invasive operation on a consenting woman. Well, this might well occur but not, I think, as a regular source of embryos. More likely is that cloning would be used to create additional embryos. Obviously, the hard liner would hold that these are human beings so this still involves the creation of humans specifically to be used for research and experimental purposes.

The other way in which material can be produced is to culture tissues from a single cell. If the cell is at all differentiated, the material cultured would be human tissue but not a new human being.

The difficulty with holding the hard line is that pretty much the whole of modern biology is not only non-essentialist. It is based on 'population' thinking which is anti-essentialist in nature. According to population thinking, properly understood, there is simply no question of our finding a non-arbitrary answer to the question of when a human being first comes into existence. To think otherwise would be to think that there must be a 'first' human being. I'm well aware that many people still hold essentialist views. What I don't see is how these views can be squared with modern biology since, in the post-Darwinian picture of life, the sharp boundaries essentialists require simply aren't there to be found. Perhaps hard-liners simply reject modern biology in spite of it's extraordinary success by all scientific standards.

[Wombat]

Triple posting: deleted.

[glauber]

This is certainly one of the concerns. It isn't very likely that ova would be harvested for the creation of embryos in vitro specifically for medical uses as this involves an invasive operation on a consenting woman. Well, this might well occur but not, I think, as a regular source of embryos. More likely is that cloning would be used to create additional embryos.

Assuming human cloning can be done (which hasn't been proved yet) and in a cost-efficient way.

I think the most probable other source or stem cells is culturing -- assuming those cells can be cultured in a cost-efficient way. I think it's been done in small quantities, but we're talking here about industrial production.

[Wombat]

Double posting: deleted

[Lorenzo]

Wombat, sounds like you are quite familiar with the territory. How does Nano Technology come into play with this? Maybe you can explain the technology a little, too, and how it relates.




Is your computer working okay?

[Wombat]

Wombat, sounds like you are quite familiar with the territory. How does Nano Technology come into play with this? Maybe you can explain the technology a little, too, and how it relates.

I seem to have cloned my last post a couple of times unintentionally.

There are two methods of cloning which I'll try to explain in simple lay terms, so my apologies to any biologists who think I've got it wrong or put it too simply. (Better still, correct me.)

At conception, properly speaking syngamy, when sperm and ovum fuse, a zygote is created, a single-cell organism with a human genetic code. It is a bit odd to say that at this stage we have a human being since it might not yet be determined whether twinning will occur. The zygote splits into a two cell organism, then a four-cell organism and so on. At this early stage a two-cell zygote can be artificially split leading to two individuals developing from the resulting pair of zygotes. You might call this method, induced twinning.

The other method is to take the nucleus from a cell of an existing human being and inject it into a one-cell zygote replacing the nucleus already there. In a sense, this involves stealing the genetic identity of the zygote chosen for the exercise.

There's a lot more to it than that but I'd better not go any further into it at this stage. I have classes to give tomorrow and a couple of large trees came down in a storm in the back yard this afternoon. Not a lot of damage but a lot of work with a chain saw I fear.

[vomitbunny]

Wow. People usually just grow hair on thier palms. Or go blind.

[Lorenzo]

News From Harvard Medical School

"..confusion surrounds the prefix nano. Strictly speaking, nano refers to billionths of a meter, and nanotechnology applies to methods of manipulating objects 100 nanometers or smaller in size. But few people speak strictly about nanotechnology-Toner even changed one of his talk titles to say "tiny" instead of "nano." For practical purposes, in biomedical engineering, the micro (millionth) scale blends with the nano scale. What is important is that nanotechnology enables intervention on the scale at which biological systems actually operate.

..A general goal of the above work is to understand the difference between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells in proliferation control. Embryonic stem cells, which unlike adult stem cells can regenerate any tissue in the body, can be maintained in culture almost indefinitely. They proliferate robustly, having no boundary between the G1 and S phases of the cell cycle as do adult stem cells. But the adult somatic stem cell has a profound G1-S blockade, Scadden said, and understanding the difference might make adult stem cells more useful in therapies. continued

[SirNick]

Although it is debateable as to the desire of certain gene pools to reproduce, it is a fact that we are programmed to accomplish that goal. Very tough to fight it.

Ain't that the truth! That's the same pesky issue with monagamy.

[Redwolf]

This doesn't deal directly with the original post. But, In talking about fertility issues. I personally don't agree with the huge amount of effort some people put into becoming pregnant when there are millions of orphaned and discarded children that need families.

You and I are definitely on the same page with this one. I've been against IVF since it first became feasible, and I've seen nothing in the intervening years to change my mind. On the one hand we have people aborting healthy babies, not to mention the many other children who don't have homes; on the other we have people going to extreme measures to "create" children of their "own blood." As an adoptee myself, it sickens me.

Redwolf

[Wombat]

You and I are definitely on the same page with this one. I've been against IVF since it first became feasible, and I've seen nothing in the intervening years to change my mind. On the one hand we have people aborting healthy babies, not to mention the many other children who don't have homes; on the other we have people going to extreme measures to "create" children of their "own blood." As an adoptee myself, it sickens me.

Redwolf

Having had a lot of contact with representative samples of all parties to this dispute, I have to admit that I find the IVF industry slick and entrepreneurial in ways that distress me. I think that much modern medicine has this fault, so I don't think they are alone in being culpable.

Although I have some sympathy for infertile couples, I do think that the attitudes IVF couples tend to present are quite bizarre. Let's put aside the issue of overpopulation although clearly the time has come when we have to rethink whether humans have a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy. Daily clicking of the hunger button isn't going to solve this problem.

You would think—well I would—that the right to reproduce is at best a liberty right. If two competent, consenting adults want a child and can have one, nobody has a right to prevent them. But people on the IVF program tend to assume that the right to reproduce is, or at least comes close to, a claim right. We have claim rights to education—the state is obliged to provide our children with schools to attend up to the minimum school leaving age. We have a right to marry the person of our choosing but it is a liberty right not a claim right—incest, gender and bigamy qualifactions aside, nobody can stop two consenting adults from marrying. But we don't have a claim right to marry whoever we choose, nor can we demand that the government furnish us with a wife or husband.

Some IVF couples not only expect to have access to the program, they also expect their treatment to be state subsidised. This isn't quite saying that the state has a duty to present each couple with a genetically related baby but it does amount to the view that it should do all in it's power to facilitate that, no matter how costly the procedure is.

IVF couples are often desparate before going on the program. The odds of any single implanted embryo coming to term are about one in eight. With single implantations, that would usually mean a great many years of hope followed by a series of cruel disappointments before the hoped-for child arrives. I for one would not have wanted to be thatwanted. The obsessiveness really worries me. The alternative—multiple simultaneous implantations—increases the odds of having triplets or quads enormously. Many IVF couples will be on the program for 20 years without bringing a child to term. The IVF industry promotes itself as aggressively as any industry.

I'm glad my role in this area is in research, teaching and consultancy and not in counselling.

[Redwolf]

You and I are definitely on the same page with this one. I've been against IVF since it first became feasible, and I've seen nothing in the intervening years to change my mind. On the one hand we have people aborting healthy babies, not to mention the many other children who don't have homes; on the other we have people going to extreme measures to "create" children of their "own blood." As an adoptee myself, it sickens me.

Redwolf

Having had a lot of contact with representative samples of all parties to this dispute, I have to admit that I find the IVF industry slick and entrepreneurial in ways that distress me. I think that much modern medicine has this fault, so I don't think they are alone in being culpable.

Although I have some sympathy for infertile couples, I do think that the attitudes IVF couples tend to present are quite bizarre. Let's put aside the issue of overpopulation although clearly the time has come when we have to rethink whether humans have a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy. Daily clicking of the hunger button isn't going to solve this problem.

You would think—well I would—that the right to reproduce is at best a liberty right. If two competent, consenting adults want a child and can have one, nobody has a right to prevent them. But people on the IVF program tend to assume that the right to reproduce is, or at least comes close to, a claim right. We have claim rights to education—the state is obliged to provide our children with schools to attend up to the minimum school leaving age. We have a right to marry the person of our choosing but it is a liberty right not a claim right—incest, gender and bigamy qualifactions aside, nobody can stop two consenting adults from marrying. But we don't have a claim right to marry whoever we choose, nor can we demand that the government furnish us with a wife or husband.

Some IVF couples not only expect to have access to the program, they also expect their treatment to be state subsidised. This isn't quite saying that the state has a duty to present each couple with a genetically related baby but it does amount to the view that it should do all in it's power to facilitate that, no matter how costly the procedure is.

IVF couples are often desparate before going on the program. The odds of any single implanted embryo coming to term are about one in eight. With single implantations, that would usually mean a great many years of hope followed by a series of cruel disappointments before the hoped-for child arrives. I for one would not have wanted to be thatwanted. The obsessiveness really worries me. The alternative—multiple simultaneous implantations—increases the odds of having triplets or quads enormously. Many IVF couples will be on the program for 20 years without bringing a child to term. The IVF industry promotes itself as aggressively as any industry.

I'm glad my role in this area is in research, teaching and consultancy and not in counselling.

I just find the whole idea of having to have a child "of one's own blood" sad and baffling. Reminds me of what a coworker of my husband said once. She was married (a marriage that has since dissolved, not surprisingly) and told us that, if she ever had children, she wanted them to carry her name, because her husband was "adopted" and thus couldn't pass to his children the "bloodline" attached to his name! Sounded more to me like a dog breeder than like someone who wanted children to love and cherish.

Redwolf

[vomitbunny]

Myself, I don't care whether I'm actually passing on half of my DNA to a future generation. I don't care if I'm actually raising my biological child. Big woop.
Now, if we could clone me a new body and transplant my brain or at least thoughts into it so I could go back to being, like, 21, now that would be something.
At least if we are going to do stem cell stuff, let's make it worthwhile.
Oh, I guess you could justify it if you could breed like 800 lb. linebackers, or nascar race drivers that never had to stop to pee or something like that, yeah, that would be worthwhile too. Or hockey players that don't have any teeth to begin with or something.