stem cells 101

[dudeguy]

what is it again? i hadnt bothered reading the articles upto now, but i noticed that the guy with the new jaw had some used to make the bone.

are stem cells only harvested from fertilised embryos?


if so they should definitely be banned, in my view. as far as im concerned terminating a fertilised egg is equivalent to a murder. i dont think the right to life begins at birth. just think that could have been you.



RECAP:

What I wanted to be told about was this:

Whether embryos which if successfully implanted could have become babies were used in the Stem Cell research. IE use IVF to create a human embryo, and instead of implanting it, use it for medical research.

If thats the case, I think it should be banned.

 

[CycloWizard]

There are two types of stem cells: adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells can be pulled from tissues in the person requiring treatment. Embryonic stem cells are taken from human embryos. In the jaw article you mention, they used adult stem cells.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: dudeguy
what is it again? i hadnt bothered reading the articles upto now, but i noticed that the guy with the new jaw had some used to make the bone.

are stem cells only harvested from fertilised embryos?


if so they should definitely be banned, in my view. as far as im concerned terminating a fertilised egg is equivalent to a murder. i dont think the right to life begins at birth. just think that could have been you.

No they are not all from fertilized embryos... therapeutic cloning (not reproductive cloning) is done by injecting cells into an UNFERTILIZED EGG and they shocking them into thinking that the egg was fertilized. Then when the cells develop into a blastocyst, they extract the stem cells. Baby killing is not involved. BTW, I am referring to the German jaw case.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: dudeguy
what is it again? i hadnt bothered reading the articles upto now, but i noticed that the guy with the new jaw had some used to make the bone.

are stem cells only harvested from fertilised embryos?


if so they should definitely be banned, in my view. as far as im concerned terminating a fertilised egg is equivalent to a murder. i dont think the right to life begins at birth. just think that could have been you.

Oh btw, embryonic stem cells can also be taken through amniosenthesis (spelling may be off, sorry) or through the placenta AFTER birth.

 

[CycloWizard]

The embryonic stem cells were derived from the inner cell masses of donated human blastocysts. A blastocyst is a hollow ball of about 140 cells that develops several days after fertilization. The embryos from which the blastocysts developed were produced in a laboratory dish for clinical purposes, prepared to assist couples having difficulty achieving pregnancy. They were left over after successful clinical procedures to treat infertility, and in cooperation with the UW-Madison Medical School's department of obstetrics and gynecology, were donated specifically for this project with the informed, written consent of the patients.

Source: http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/3327.html


Embryonic stem cells are taken almost exclusively from embryos warehoused from in vitro fertilization. Typically, five or six embryos are made, then three or four implanted, since several will likely not properly adhere to the woman's uterus. The leftovers are frozen.

 

[dudeguy]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
<blockquote>quote:
<hr>The embryonic stem cells were derived from the inner cell masses of donated human blastocysts. A blastocyst is a hollow ball of about 140 cells that develops several days after fertilization. The embryos from which the blastocysts developed were produced in a laboratory dish for clinical purposes, prepared to assist couples having difficulty achieving pregnancy. They were left over after successful clinical procedures to treat infertility, and in cooperation with the UW-Madison Medical School's department of obstetrics and gynecology, were donated specifically for this project with the informed, written consent of the patients.<hr></blockquote>
Source: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/3327.html

"&gt;[url]http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/3327.html
[/url]
</a>

Embryonic stem cells are taken almost exclusively from embryos warehoused from in vitro fertilization. Typically, five or six embryos are made, then three or four implanted, since several will likely not properly adhere to the woman's uterus. The leftovers are frozen.

that should be illegal.

 

[CycloWizard]

Bush has refused to put federal funds towards the research, but this is really an ethics issue. It's just like abortion: people create ways to hold that the human life wrapped up in an embryo or fetus is not a 'person' because it has not yet been born, so it can be disposed of willy nilly. And yes, this is what the Supreme Court used to justify abortion: you're only a citizen with rights if you've been *born or naturalized.* The ultimate case of taking a statement verbatim and completely out of context and distorting it to fit your own ends.

Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age , and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: dudeguy
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>CycloWizard</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr>The embryonic stem cells were derived from the inner cell masses of donated human blastocysts. A blastocyst is a hollow ball of about 140 cells that develops several days after fertilization. The embryos from which the blastocysts developed were produced in a laboratory dish for clinical purposes, prepared to assist couples having difficulty achieving pregnancy. They were left over after successful clinical procedures to treat infertility, and in cooperation with the UW-Madison Medical School's department of obstetrics and gynecology, were donated specifically for this project with the informed, written consent of the patients.<hr></blockquote>
Source: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/3327.html

"&gt;[url]http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/3327.html
[/url]
</a>
"><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://;http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/3327.html
">;[url]http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/3327.html
[/url]
</a>
</a>

Embryonic stem cells are taken almost exclusively from embryos warehoused from in vitro fertilization. Typically, five or six embryos are made, then three or four implanted, since several will likely not properly adhere to the woman's uterus. The leftovers are frozen.<hr></blockquote>

that should be illegal.

I agree that taking a woman's eggs without permission should be illegal, it should NOT be extended into damning the entire procedure itself. These embryos can be made without fertilizing a woman's egg as I described above. They never advance past the blastocyst stage.

 

[CycloWizard]

A blastocyst is a fertilized egg ~5 days of gestation.
The argument I was making is not that taking a woman's embryo or eggs without her knowing should be illegal. I'm sure that women can donate their 'unwanted' embryos from in vitro fertilization to research. The issue is whether or not this research is morally or ethically justifiable, which I submit it is not.

[edit: fixed link]

 

[Darkhawk28]

What I'm saying is that they can take an unfertilized egg, insert it with cells and shock it into THINKING that it has been fertilized and creating cell division and thus creating said blastocyst. It's called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.

I'm not debating whether or not the procedure you're presenting hasn't been used in the past or is still being used now. I'm trying to point out that there other ways that SHOULD be found ethically moral and viable and worthy of discovery.

 

[CycloWizard]

That doesn't add up. I'm guessing you're thinking about the in vitro fertilization process in which the egg is implanted with sperm to guarantee fertilization. Otherwise, the blastocyst would be quite a few chromosomes short of a full set.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
That doesn't add up. I'm guessing you're thinking about the in vitro fertilization process in which the egg is implanted with sperm to guarantee fertilization. Otherwise, the blastocyst would be quite a few chromosomes short of a full set.

Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer

The only thing that this procedure gets hindered with is the cloning debate. There are too types of cloning though, therapeutic and reproductive. I'm against the reproductive form of cloning (creating babies) and for the therapeutic type (e.g. creating a jaw bone for that German patient in England).

 

[CycloWizard]

Fair enough, I hadn't actually heard of that. So basically, you're bypassing the formality of fertilization. How does that affect the argument? Is it not still human tissue and, therefore, human life?

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Fair enough, I hadn't actually heard of that. So basically, you're bypassing the formality of fertilization. How does that affect the argument? Is it not still human tissue and, therefore, human life?

They are live cells that are injected where the egg nucleus was, but it'd be like the equivalent of getting your mouth swabbed for a DNA test. Plus, it's not limited to aborted children. It's actually quite a remarkable procedure.

Trust me, I don't like the use of aborted babies for research, so I'm glad I found out about this.

Basically it's making a fake embryo... not a real, human one.

 

[CycloWizard]

None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.

It's not really an embryo but just a group of cells that have been manipulated (like an embryo would be) into producing stem cells. It's not even human life.

Now if your argument is, we should kill cells then you need to realize that cells are constantly dying and reproducing themselves all the time. Let's say if you're being tested for strep throat by a doctor, the doctor will swab the back of your throat to get a culture. Once his test is done, those cells will die. Do we debate the ethics of doing that? No, of course not.


Ok, don't get me wrong. This technique CAN be used to make viable, real embryos to produce reproductive cloning. I am TOTALLY against this. The time we start making CLONED HUMANS is the day this world is really in trouble. So, governmental intervention and regulation would definitely be needed.

 

[Vadatajs]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.

Scrape the inside of your cheek with your fingernail and then wipe it on your shirt.

You've just perfomed the equivalent "destruction of human life" that stem cell research involves.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: Vadatajs
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>CycloWizard</b></i>
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.<hr></blockquote>

Scrape the inside of your cheek with your fingernail and then wipe it on your shirt.

You've just perfomed the equivalent "destruction of human life" that stem cell research involves.

Exactly!

 

[Zephyr106]

Originally posted by: Darkhawk28
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>CycloWizard</b></i>
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.<hr></blockquote>


It's not really an embryo but just a group of cells that have been manipulated (like an embryo would be) into producing stem cells. It's not even human life.

Now if your argument is, we should kill cells then you need to realize that cells are constantly dying and reproducing themselves all the time. Let's say if you're being tested for strep throat by a doctor, the doctor will swab the back of your throat to get a culture. Once his test is done, those cells will die. Do we debate the ethics of doing that? No, of course not.


Ok, don't get me wrong. This technique CAN be used to make viable, real embryos to produce reproductive cloning. I am TOTALLY against this. The time we start making CLONED HUMANS is the day this world is really in trouble. So, governmental intervention and regulation would definitely be needed.

Identical twins are genetic clones of each other. In some cultures twins used to be killed because they were thought of as evil.

Zephyr

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: Zephyr106
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Darkhawk28</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>CycloWizard</b></i>
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.<hr></blockquote>


It's not really an embryo but just a group of cells that have been manipulated (like an embryo would be) into producing stem cells. It's not even human life.

Now if your argument is, we should kill cells then you need to realize that cells are constantly dying and reproducing themselves all the time. Let's say if you're being tested for strep throat by a doctor, the doctor will swab the back of your throat to get a culture. Once his test is done, those cells will die. Do we debate the ethics of doing that? No, of course not.


Ok, don't get me wrong. This technique CAN be used to make viable, real embryos to produce reproductive cloning. I am TOTALLY against this. The time we start making CLONED HUMANS is the day this world is really in trouble. So, governmental intervention and regulation would definitely be needed.<hr></blockquote>

Identical twins are genetic clones of each other. In some cultures twins used to be killed because they were thought of as evil.

Zephyr

So what's your point?

 

[Zephyr106]

Originally posted by: Darkhawk28
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Zephyr106</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Darkhawk28</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>CycloWizard</b></i>
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.<hr></blockquote>


It's not really an embryo but just a group of cells that have been manipulated (like an embryo would be) into producing stem cells. It's not even human life.

Now if your argument is, we should kill cells then you need to realize that cells are constantly dying and reproducing themselves all the time. Let's say if you're being tested for strep throat by a doctor, the doctor will swab the back of your throat to get a culture. Once his test is done, those cells will die. Do we debate the ethics of doing that? No, of course not.


Ok, don't get me wrong. This technique CAN be used to make viable, real embryos to produce reproductive cloning. I am TOTALLY against this. The time we start making CLONED HUMANS is the day this world is really in trouble. So, governmental intervention and regulation would definitely be needed.<hr></blockquote>

Identical twins are genetic clones of each other. In some cultures twins used to be killed because they were thought of as evil.

Zephyr<hr></blockquote>


So what's your point?

Clone humans which will create trouble for the world are no different than the identical twins walking around spreading Satan's message.

Zephyr

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: Zephyr106
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Darkhawk28</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Zephyr106</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Darkhawk28</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>CycloWizard</b></i>
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.<hr></blockquote>


It's not really an embryo but just a group of cells that have been manipulated (like an embryo would be) into producing stem cells. It's not even human life.

Now if your argument is, we should kill cells then you need to realize that cells are constantly dying and reproducing themselves all the time. Let's say if you're being tested for strep throat by a doctor, the doctor will swab the back of your throat to get a culture. Once his test is done, those cells will die. Do we debate the ethics of doing that? No, of course not.


Ok, don't get me wrong. This technique CAN be used to make viable, real embryos to produce reproductive cloning. I am TOTALLY against this. The time we start making CLONED HUMANS is the day this world is really in trouble. So, governmental intervention and regulation would definitely be needed.<hr></blockquote>

Identical twins are genetic clones of each other. In some cultures twins used to be killed because they were thought of as evil.

Zephyr<hr></blockquote>


So what's your point?
<hr></blockquote>

Clone humans which will create trouble for the world are no different than the identical twins walking around spreading Satan's message.

Zephyr

Hmmmm..... are you saying that human cloning is ok? Do you actually believe that clones are the same as identical twins?

 

[Zephyr106]

A human clone is an identical twin..... just not born at the same time as the original.

I'm not sure if I support cloning for babies.

Zephyr

 

[Darkhawk28]

My objection isn't a religious issue, but I do think logistically it would be a nightmare. Fear and paranoia would bring society down to its proverbial knees.

I think until our society matures to the point when clones COULD be considered "normal" like an identical twin is considered, we need to steer clear of reproductive cloning and limit ourselves to therapeutic cloning.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Vadatajs
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>CycloWizard</b></i>
None of the embryos are aborted. Further, the embryo is still human, by definition. It has human DNA, therefore it will grow into human tissue and is therefore human life. This isn't really biologically questionable.<hr></blockquote>

Scrape the inside of your cheek with your fingernail and then wipe it on your shirt.

You've just perfomed the equivalent "destruction of human life" that stem cell research involves.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. If it were, then various states and the federal government wouldn't hold debates on the ethics of the situation.

The Council on Bioethics, appointed by President Bush as part of his stem cell research funding decision last August, issued its cloning report on July 11, 2002. The 18-member panel was unanimous in its opposition to reproductive cloning, but split on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) research (or therapeutic cloning). The panel mustered 10 votes in favor of a four-year moratorium on such research. Seven members of the panel recommended allowing SCNT research to go forward and one member abstained from making any recommendation.

Source: [l]http://www.aamc.org/advocacy/library/research/res0003.htm[/l]
There are too many issues involved to discuss them all here, unfortunately, and obviously the jury is still out, even on this 'non-fertilization' procedure.