Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats 330
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on Forbes as well as other sources, 'Scientists have used [embryonic] stem cells and a soup of nerve-friendly chemicals to not just bridge a damaged spinal cord but actually regrow the circuitry needed to move a muscle, helping partially paralyzed rats walk.'"
Re:If only... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, not always, there's a girl living near me who has a big RAT in her apartment. Reason: She (the girl, the rat no longer) works at a laboratory, knew that they were going to kill the rat and decided to take it home instead so that it wouldn't happen, and also because "it's so cute". The only problem is the chewed cables and bed sheets...
If this goes commercial... (Score:2, Interesting)
rats or mice (Score:4, Interesting)
Embryonic? (Score:2, Interesting)
which ones did they use to help the rats walk.
stem cells are legal to use.
embroynic stem cells can be used but require private funding.
article doesn't distinguish wich ones are used on the rodents
Re:If only... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fear is that someone could introduce a parasite, virus, or bacterial infection into one of the mouse colonies, which would be devistating to our research (http://www.jax.org/research/research_areas.html [jax.org]), and our mouse business (http://jaxmice.jax.org/index.html [jax.org]). I don't handle the lab mice, or even come in close proximity of the mice on a regular basis since I'm a software engineer and this restriction still applies to me.
Actually (Score:5, Interesting)
many don't realize the numbers of restrictions and amounts of red tape that come with government funding. So while the motive for limiting federal participation in stem cells may be political/religous/etc in basis it does also follow the theme of letting private industry take the risks and reap the rewards.
making people well is big business but along with that comes great cost and time. Innovations come from those who are not bound by restrictions and having the government looking over one's shoulder.
look at it this way, with private entities doing the work, competeing with each other, we will may end up with different cures for the same problems allowing a broader range of people to benefit. we also have multiple avenues to not being impacted in the future by the government agencies as the work was performed in the free market.
Re:Reconnecting Nerves is like hand soldering (Score:5, Interesting)
A better link for that video would be appreciated, btw - the above requires IE and MS Media Player.
Re:This is what we're talking about (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This is what we're talking about (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:rats or mice (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is what we're talking about (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is the thing about governments: it serves the people. More than that, it represents the people (ideally), and it makes laws in a way that reflect the constituency.
If the US was a representative democracy with a majority composition of pagan Inuit hunter/gatherers, there would probably be no laws on the books protecting the elderly and disabled, and government-sponsored science would be culling their organs because, let's face it, they've stopped contributing to society.
But, no, the US is a representative democracy with a majority composition of Judeao-Christian manufacturers and industrialists, so we not only have laws protecting the very old, but also the very young, as well.
It's religious, it's cultural, it's who we are. Most of us, anyway. When it ceases to be "most of us," or when the majority voice gets lazy (or the minority voice gets sufficiently energized and organized), things may change. Who knows, maybe in a few decades, when you're ready for your rocking chair, society will have hardened to the point where we once again cast the useless among us out onto the ice floes.
Dress warm, D00d.
Re:For those (Score:3, Interesting)
My boss wouldn't let me throw eggs (from battery hens) at them. Spoilsport.
University of Louisville method (Score:5, Interesting)
I've met these folks. They are getting great results with procedure that is easy to duplicate AND the method uses the patient's own cells. Not only does that avoid the pesky ethics issues, there's no tissue rejection issues.
Re:This is what we're talking about (Score:3, Interesting)
But at least when talking about laws and actions in the real world, I'd like to only include moral reasons that actually have a real world basis. Claiming that stem cells have tiny little souls is as useful in a moral debate as claiming that rocks have then and geology is evil. If someone thinks that killing a stem cell is wrong, then they've as much sent up a giant firework that blows up and displays the words "I have no idea what morality is all about, I just follow rules a bit too literally without understanding what they are for!"
Er, well, I guess that's a bit long winded for a firework.
Re:This is what we're talking about (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I have realized that abortion for the forseeable future will remain legal, so I agree with you. Let's use what we've got.
Re:For those (Score:5, Interesting)
Lab animals being set free often end up like that. They've been in labs for their entire lifespan (which is required, because all the variables need to be known and controllable), and they don't know how to fend for them selves. All those mice being set free usually just curl up somewhere and die. They don't really know how to look for food (they just nibble everything), and they don't know to run from predators.
Animal rights activists don't usually know anything about animals/nature. Animal rights acivists got egg collecting (from a rare species of bird, that lays it's eggs in fields) banned here last year. What they didn't know was, that when the colletors collected the first batch (which usually freezes to death) they put a flag near the nests so the farmer wouldn't drive over it. So all those years it was the egg collecting sustaining their existance (farmers don't go around putting flags near nests just for the heck of it, they've go 'better' things to do.
What we are talking about is Cells! (Score:3, Interesting)
The religious rightists are killing real people with this "moral code" that blocks desperately needed medical research for cures for terrible diseases. It is not a secular moral code of any sort, it is simply a purely religious belief that a soul is created in the human egg cell when a human sperm cell enters it.
These cells are created and expired all the time in fertility clinics, the religious rightists would prefer that these cells be thrown in the trash rather be used to help cure disease.
There is no basis for the rightists assignation of human being status to these cells other than their particular religious belief in the timing of soul creation. Restricting federal funding based on this religious belief is the establishment of religion, anyone who has sworn to uphold the US Constitution should be dismissed for enforcing this religious belief in the United States.
The "innocent people" in the moral equation are the ones with diseases who are being denied cures due to the beliefs of the religious fundamentalists.
Re:Actually (Score:3, Interesting)
See, the problem with that is private entities are quite often not interested in finding cures. More than anything, they try to come up with long term treatments that will bring in recurring profits from each and every user over the lifetime of their patent. Privatization is not the answer to everything. I'd almost rather entrust research to entities whose only motivation is prestige. Treatments are good. Cures are better... and not just for the people, but also for the prestige.
-matthew
Re:This is what we're talking about (Score:2, Interesting)
Stealing is socially unfeasible. Its morality is incidental. Enforcing codes of ownership is a primary function of government, that's why they do it, not becuase of abstract moral codes. I personally don't want government to exist to force my morals on the population, because I don't really care about the 'population'. I want a government to protect me, protect my friends, and protect my right to own stuff. Despite the high-minded mis-ideals of fools, this is what most people want (which is why they form governments). When your stuff is stolen, you'll right right to the police. What will you tell them? Someone did something immoral? Yeah right, you'll want you stuff back, and then want revenge (read: jailtime) on the perpetrator.
Back to the unfeasibility. For example: No one would buy land if there was no enforcement of ownership (and by extension, enforcement of life). It's just easier to buy guns, kill the previous owners, and move in. Regulation of ownership is precicely what allows modern life to exist. If no government existed, people would form "home associations" to protect large groupings of property (honestly, who wants to stand watch 24/7 to ensure their house doesn't get invaded?). Perhaps these people would rotate responsibilities for protection of the larger group (such as, manning the machine gun turret perimeter around the neighborhood?), so the rest could spend their time doing other things. Some people would not want to do "protection duty" at all, some would prefer to do protection all the time. Hey! I have an idea! Let's pay a small fraction of the group to protect us all the time, and we can spend our time doing other things! Right, there you go. That's the government. And just to ensure there are no competing "security groups", there can be only one. So, in a nutshell, government must have a monopoly on violence. If you notice, nowhere did I mention anything about morality. Thats because, as I stated before, government regulates ownership, not morality.
Re:If only... (Score:2, Interesting)
If I took research animals home the penalties would be pretty stiff. But the problem here is the reverse. Any animal that leaves the lab could enter the food chain and cause problems down the line. With the number of mutant mice and mice treated with viruses out there I think it's a pretty wise precaution.
title (Score:2, Interesting)
My god! stem cells are worse than we thought!
Stem cells cure(verb) paralyzed(adj) rats
Oh, nevermind...
Re:For those (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Also works as a gender change medicine! (Score:3, Interesting)
However, it's not common to use the word to distinguish between species. I think the original poster's point was joking that if you could turn a mouse into a rat (as the original headline error implied), you could probably change a woman into a man. (of vice versa.)
The thing is, gene-splicing sex changes are probably not that far down the road. Figure out just the right hormone and chemical signals to send to stem cells (adult or embrionic) and you could probably grow an entire uterus for an adult male. It's probably too late, in an adult, to turn the testicles into ovaries, but it might someday be possible to simply replace them with new ovaries grown from the patient's own DNA.