Stem Cells & Stem Cell research

[C i n d e r M o t h]

No replies is fine. I didn't expect any anyway. :]

[Elden Andel]

Personally, if we can find a way to clone them safely, or take them safely just be for birth, I'm fine with the idea. And don't dispare, just give it a minute, this question has been asked numerious times.

[watshername123]

I strongly believe that we should be putting more effort and funding into stem cell research. I think that we can make so many amazing medical advances with this research. I agree that that a large amount of people are ignorant about this topic, which leads to a lot of fear and negativity towards it.

[Drow_Elven_Warrior]

I find that the biggest problem most people have with stem cell research it that they only think of the fetal stem cell research. Adult stem cells are easier to get because they are found in bone marrow, it might be more painful but it doesn't require the killing of a fetus which is another topic for another forum. Adult stem cells are also applied more successfully than fetal stem cells. Embryonic vs. Adult Stem Cell Research.

[Vryko Lakas]

Drow_Elven_Warrior

I find that the biggest problem most people have with stem cell research it that they only think of the fetal stem cell research. Adult stem cells are easier to get because they are found in bone marrow, it might be more painful but it doesn't require the killing of a fetus which is another topic for another forum.

You will never get embryonic stem cells from a fetus. By the time the embryo reaches the fetal stage it is bereft of viable, pluripotent embryonic stem cells. The only stem cells you could get from a fetus are fetal and adult stem cells.

Quote:

Adult stem cells are also applied more successfully than fetal stem cells. Embryonic vs. Adult Stem Cell Research.

Could that be partially due to the fact that embryonic stem cells have been completely underfunded and had even more hoops to jump through for use in studies than adult stem cells due to backwards social policies hamstringing the science? Just asking here.
Oh, and it turns out that...

Quote:

In the fall of 2001, President Bush decided to allow federal funding of ESCR in a very limited way. Only those stem cell lines harvested from living embryos prior to his decision are eligible for tax-dollar funding. Here is a list of known qualified lines, reflecting location and number of lines existing.

... the stem cell lines he permitted were all mostly useless due to contamination and artefacts of earlier harvesting techniques, and there were far fewer lines available than he said. If those retarded restrictions on federal funding were not in place we probably could have developed more useful lines and funded more research to develop treatments. This also highlights the extreme short-sightedness of such restrictive policies by cutting off chances for research to continue with the advance of scientific knowledge giving us new techniques and information about the field. To artificially restrict stem cell research against embryonic lines and focus only on adult lines is to artificially cut off avenues of scientific advance. How will we know about the advantages/disadvantages of adult versus embryonic stem cells if we can only study the adult type?

<sarcasm>Thanks for your politically biased screed, though. It was totally not a complete waste of time. </sarcasm>

[Vryko Lakas]

I mean, Jeebus H. Crispix!
"Look, nothing has come of embryonic stem cells yet, obviously because they're worthless and not because we nearly decapitated the entire field of study in the world's largest and most technically advanced country where countless universities could study them! There's no way all these arcane restrictions on their study could possibly retard any significant advances!"
How ******** stupid is that?

[CherokeeAlex]

Drow_Elven_Warrior

I find that the biggest problem most people have with stem cell research it that they only think of the fetal stem cell research. Adult stem cells are easier to get because they are found in bone marrow, it might be more painful but it doesn't require the killing of a fetus which is another topic for another forum. Adult stem cells are also applied more successfully than fetal stem cells. Embryonic vs. Adult Stem Cell Research.

I was just going to mention this. The biggest hurdle with embryonic stem cells is that they have a tendency to result in teratomas because of their totipotency, and giving people a nasty cancer is usually not conducive to making them feel better. While I think more research into ES cells would be great, especially to see if we can deal with the teratoma issue, at the moment I think adult stem cells hold more promise.