South Korean scientists clone stem cells in the first step towards engineered, tailored organ & tissues

[Gigantopithecus]

Read about it here.

To sum, the same South Korean scientists who (I think) were the first to clone human embryos and then extract stem cells have successfully transferred nuclear material from patients with a variety of illnesses into donated, unfertilized eggs in the first step towards being able to genetically engineer tissue and organ transplants into ill patients.

There are more than 80,000 Americans waiting on organ transplant lists right now. They will likely die, go blind, or continue to be very ill if they do not get a transplant from a compatible donor. Of course, if their own tissues are used to grow replacement organs, there are no compatability issues.

/rant on
These are exactly the types of biotech breakthroughs that should be happening in the United States.

These are exactly the types of technological breakthroughs that propelled the astonishing economic growth and increased health & longevity of Americans in the previous century.

Now, they are happening somewhere else. They are happening because well-paid jobs for the highly trained are overseas. They are not happening here, and we all know why.

I hope those of you who cling to your outdated notions of morality get plenty of fulfillment from your beliefs. This country's economy continues to depend more and more on menial service and labor jobs, and less and less on higher paying, middle- and upper-middle class technical and professional jobs. While you fight to keep evolution out of schools, and put 'Intelligent Design' or whatever guise you're giving Creationism back into them, and fight to prevent the future of biotechnology because it affronts your narrow interpretations of ~6,000 year old books, the rest of the world is leaving us in the metaphorical medieval dust.

You're denying thousands of sick people the hope that one day science will help them. You're denying the American Dream of prosperity through hard work and innovation to millions, the ability to become more than what you're born into. Cling to your beliefs, because sooner than later they're all you're going to have.
/rant off

 

[Genx87]

afaik there isnt anything stopping the private industry in this country from working with stem cells. Federal money however is a different story.

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
...They are happening because well-paid jobs for the highly trained are overseas...

But forcing kids to pass tests before graduating is mean!

I'd say its more a result of lack of well trained people to fill those jobs here. Our education system is a joke.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

:thumbsup:

 

[NJDevil]

Originally posted by: Genx87
afaik there isnt anything stopping the private industry in this country from working with stem cells. Federal money however is a different story.

Federal money is a large part of research in the nation. When we limit federal funding for research, we lose a lot of potential innovation here that ends up being "discovered" abroad.

There was an article in my school paper regarding their drops in research grants, I'll try to find it.

I guess people take for granted the technological edge the US has, and are too short-sighted to recognize the trend away from American technical superiority. While we still have the most innovative industries, other nations, especially those in South East Asia are gaining rather quickly, and instead of throwing less money into research for medical and computer/communications technology, we should be throwing more.

Edit: http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/421599c103b07?in_archive=1

That's the link above. I was mistaken, the funds aren't cut in nominal terms, but they are growing at much less the rate of inflation, which is a cut in real monetary terms. The point remains. ..

 

[Gigantopithecus]

NSF FY 2005 Budget cuts.

Where do the cuts come from? Why, pure R&D and education, of course. Granted, funding for gear went way up. Too bad a lot of that gear is no longer made here!

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
Read about it here.

To sum, the same South Korean scientists who (I think) were the first to clone human embryos and then extract stem cells have successfully transferred nuclear material from patients with a variety of illnesses into donated, unfertilized eggs in the first step towards being able to genetically engineer tissue and organ transplants into ill patients.

There are more than 80,000 Americans waiting on organ transplant lists right now. They will likely die, go blind, or continue to be very ill if they do not get a transplant from a compatible donor. Of course, if their own tissues are used to grow replacement organs, there are no compatability issues.

/rant on
These are exactly the types of biotech breakthroughs that should be happening in the United States.

These are exactly the types of technological breakthroughs that propelled the astonishing economic growth and increased health & longevity of Americans in the previous century.

Now, they are happening somewhere else. They are happening because well-paid jobs for the highly trained are overseas. They are not happening here, and we all know why.

I hope those of you who cling to your outdated notions of morality get plenty of fulfillment from your beliefs.

This country's economy continues to depend more and more on menial service and labor jobs, and less and less on higher paying, middle- and upper-middle class technical and professional jobs.

While you fight to keep evolution out of schools, and put 'Intelligent Design' or whatever guise you're giving Creationism back into them, and fight to prevent the future of biotechnology because it affronts your narrow interpretations of ~6,000 year old books, the rest of the world is leaving us in the metaphorical medieval dust.

You're denying thousands of sick people the hope that one day science will help them.

You're denying the American Dream of prosperity through hard work and innovation to millions, the ability to become more than what you're born into.

You're making me cry man :thumbsup:

 

[Deadtrees]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
Read about it here.

To sum, the same South Korean scientists who (I think) were the first to clone human embryos and then extract stem cells have successfully transferred nuclear material from patients with a variety of illnesses into donated, unfertilized eggs in the first step towards being able to genetically engineer tissue and organ transplants into ill patients.

There are more than 80,000 Americans waiting on organ transplant lists right now. They will likely die, go blind, or continue to be very ill if they do not get a transplant from a compatible donor. Of course, if their own tissues are used to grow replacement organs, there are no compatability issues.

/rant on
These are exactly the types of biotech breakthroughs that should be happening in the United States.

These are exactly the types of technological breakthroughs that propelled the astonishing economic growth and increased health & longevity of Americans in the previous century.

Now, they are happening somewhere else. They are happening because well-paid jobs for the highly trained are overseas. They are not happening here, and we all know why.

I hope those of you who cling to your outdated notions of morality get plenty of fulfillment from your beliefs. This country's economy continues to depend more and more on menial service and labor jobs, and less and less on higher paying, middle- and upper-middle class technical and professional jobs. While you fight to keep evolution out of schools, and put 'Intelligent Design' or whatever guise you're giving Creationism back into them, and fight to prevent the future of biotechnology because it affronts your narrow interpretations of ~6,000 year old books, the rest of the world is leaving us in the metaphorical medieval dust.

You're denying thousands of sick people the hope that one day science will help them. You're denying the American Dream of prosperity through hard work and innovation to millions, the ability to become more than what you're born into. Cling to your beliefs, because sooner than later they're all you're going to have.
/rant off

No. Hwang, Woo-Suk who is the core man on this project has never been paid nor his working environment was any better than American's.
This guy worked from the ground without support. As I am Korean, his achivement is just amazing knowing how he lacked money/resources/support/etc.(S.Korea's science department is simply ghetto when compared to America's). U.S government offered him some millions of dollars(if not billions) for him to change his nationallity, but he declined it as well. It isn't the power of money, working environment or anything that made this break-through to happen, it is this man and his hard work.

 

[dannybin1742]

These are exactly the types of biotech breakthroughs that should be happening in the United States.

These are exactly the types of technological breakthroughs that propelled the astonishing economic growth and increased health & longevity of Americans in the previous century.

Now, they are happening somewhere else. They are happening because well-paid jobs for the highly trained are overseas. They are not happening here, and we all know why.

I hope those of you who cling to your outdated notions of morality get plenty of fulfillment from your beliefs. This country's economy continues to depend more and more on menial service and labor jobs, and less and less on higher paying, middle- and upper-middle class technical and professional jobs. While you fight to keep evolution out of schools, and put 'Intelligent Design' or whatever guise you're giving Creationism back into them, and fight to prevent the future of biotechnology because it affronts your narrow interpretations of ~6,000 year old books, the rest of the world is leaving us in the metaphorical medieval dust.

You're denying thousands of sick people the hope that one day science will help them. You're denying the American Dream of prosperity through hard work and innovation to millions, the ability to become more than what you're born into. Cling to your beliefs, because sooner than later they're all you're going to have.
/rant off

as a biochemist, i totally agree

afaik there isnt anything stopping the private industry in this country from working with stem cells. Federal money however is a different story.

basic research of this type should not be privatized, the worst thing you can do is patent the hell out of this, all humans can benefit from this

NIH rant: for those of you who don't know almost half of nih's funding is for use by people who classify themselves as small businesses (SBR GRANT), so when bush says, we increased the nih funding by 50%, he increased nothing to the academic community, the worst part is that anyone who owns a small business can take X thousands or millions of dollars through a grant application, discover somthing and patent it, and be bought out by big business even though it was funded by tax payer money. THIS NEEDS TO STOP!!! NIH IS A GOVERNMENT ORGANISATION who is supposed to be funding academic research. curent grant approval rates have fallen as low as 4% (at the end of the 90s it was upwards of 25% of all grant got approved funding). we are also seeing cuts in some areas this year for NIH grants, but that depends on what you work on

NSF is also seeing large cuts

end rant

 

[Gigantopithecus]

This is heartening to know, and I appreciate the information.

That said, the lead researcher on this project does not exist in a vacuum. He is the product of one of the world's finest primary and secondary educational systems, not one where kids are encouraged to play sports instead of study, where students are coddled because it's not right to fail them when they have not succeeded, not allowed to study blasphemy like Darwinism, etcetera . He conducts his research in an atmosphere of awe and admiration, not fear, suspicion and condemnation. Without Federal Funding, our academic researchers simply do not have the resources to continue doing groundbreaking high-tech research that might or might not pay off before the next board meeting (corporations also have to worry about PR).

I applaud and admire the work being done in this area overseas. Most Americans do not. And my point that the jobs one lands working in these fields pay well still stands.

 

[Emultra]

The government takes money from citizens. It then bans that money from being used for beneficial scientific research and treatment.

Therefore, it greatly inhibits the private sector (which should be the only sector) from doing that.

This is a tremendous human tradegy in our time. It does not make it any better knowing that it is completely unnecessary and caused by the actions of men and women who are willing to use the force of the government to suppress anyone who still wishes to claim his or hers freedom.


Prohibition must be outlawed.

Otherwise, we can all heil Hillary in hell.

 

[Deadtrees]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
This is heartening to know, and I appreciate the information.

That said, the lead researcher on this project does not exist in a vacuum. He is the product of one of the world's finest primary and secondary educational systems, not one where kids are encouraged to play sports instead of study, where students are coddled because it's not right to fail them when they have not succeeded, not allowed to study blasphemy like Darwinism, etcetera . He conducts his research in an atmosphere of awe and admiration, not fear, suspicion and condemnation. Without Federal Funding, our academic researchers simply do not have the resources to continue doing groundbreaking high-tech research that might or might not pay off before the next board meeting (corporations also have to worry about PR).

I applaud and admire the work being done in this area overseas. Most Americans do not. And my point that the jobs one lands working in these fields pay well still stands.

No, he isn't a product of Korea's education system. Korea's science (this kind of)department is simply a disaster. It's an issue many people are worried about. Those scientist can't even get a decent job nor good pay not to mention the horrible lab enviroment. He didn't even have federal funding nor private funding until recently. He had very limited resources.
I know that good education system along with federal funding is important to get ground breaking achivement but it wasn't the case with this guy. In Korea, this guy has become a legend as he just popped out of nowhere when everybody thought science department in Korea is dead.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Where did he get his education & training? (Maybe the US - we ain't dead yet.) Your statement that many people are worried about the state of science education in Korea is in itself very telling - it's getting worse here and it seems that no one besides the scientists are concerned.
Even more to one of my points, the fact that he's now a legend, as you say, is astonishing. I bet if you pulled a random American off the street today and asked them to name a single living, active American scientist in any field, they probably couldn't name one. Except maybe Dr. Atkins, haha.

 

[Deadtrees]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
Where did he get his education & training? (Maybe the US - we ain't dead yet.) Your statement that many people are worried about the state of science education in Korea is in itself very telling - it's getting worse here and it seems that no one besides the scientists are concerned.
Even more to one of my points, the fact that he's now a legend, as you say, is astonishing. I bet if you pulled a random American off the street today and asked them to name a single living, active American scientist in any field, they probably couldn't name one. Except maybe Dr. Atkins, haha.

He got his education/training in Korea and that's why it's amazing. He made it all the way here from nothing.
California itself spent 30 times/Havard university spent 10 times more than whole Korea's stem cell funding resource (I'm comparing whole Korean's funding to America's one university and a state and the money Cali/Havard spent is way more strightly directed to the research itself whereas Korea's funding is loosly directed to it). He even had hard time internationally-paienting his works because he didn't have enough money to do so and that amount was just $400,000. Even after his first break through, goverment funding that he received for his work was just $1.5 million.

Koreans are, of course, trying to resolve this ridiculous situation as well as saving science field. We always make comparison to U.S to show how the situation in Korea is retarded. The pay/lab environment/finicial support/ American scientists get is thought to be heaven.

EDIT: What America should worry is its policy on this matter. As you know, Bush is against it and that Woo Suk Hwang was thinking about (That was in Nov.2004) leaving the joint lab in America to China.

 

[Deadtrees]

You might wanna check out,
http://news.thescizone.com/archives/000140print.html

Also, he commented that the funding was $240,000.(Today's interview)