Researchers find safer way to make stem cells

[IDemo]

Source: Reuters

updated 29 minutes ago

LONDON - Researchers said on Sunday they had found a safer way to transform ordinary skin cells into powerful stem cells in a move that could eventually remove the need to use human embryos.

It is the first time that scientists have turned skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells — which look and act like embryonic stem cells — without having to use viruses in the process.

The new method also allows for genes that are inserted to trigger cell reprogramming to be removed afterwards.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, producing all the body's tissues and organs.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29453915/

[Igel]

1. Good.

For all kinds of reasons.

[Warpy]

2. Anything to shut the medically ignorant and morally reprehensible

right wing preachers up!

I hope it works out.

[fascisthunter]

8. it won't... they need something to blind people into supporting them politically

wedge issues

[HopeHoops]

3. No from the headline, I was thinking "Safer than blowing yourself up in a meth lab" - it wasn't that

[Warren Stupidity]

4. There is nothing 'unsafe' about embryonic stem cells.

Pouring research money into bullshit to satisfy religious bigots is stupid. That money could be spent on research to USE stem cells to HELP people instead.

[thereismore]

6. Yes there is. When pluripotent stem cells are made using lentiviruses,

the viral DNA inserts itself randomly into human DNA, which, in some cases (almost always) creates carcinogenic stem cells, and you don't want to use those. So educate yourself. This IS a safer (for patients) technology. You don't want to cure paralysis while at the same time give the patient cancer.

[ananda]

5. Is this source reputable?

I want to know who the scientists are,
what lab they work in, and how they
are funded.

The discovery does sound good, though.

[earthboundmisfit]

7. However they do it, I hope they hurry with something that can be used to treat ALS

(Lou Gehrig's Disease) - my little brother's in his 7th year and still hanging on.

[Hope And Change]

9. K & R!

[Bozita]

10. Here's the Guardian UK's take: "Scientists' stem cell breakthrough ends ethical dilemma"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/01/stem-cells-breakthrough

Scientists' stem cell breakthrough ends ethical dilemma
Experts in Britain and Canada find way to make stem cells without destroying embryos
Digg it (6)
Ian Sample, Science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 1 March 2009 18.22 GMT
Article history

Scientists have found a way to make an almost limitless supply of stem cells that could safely be used in patients while avoiding the ethical dilemma of destroying embryos.

In a breakthrough that could have huge implications, British and Canadian scientists have found a way of reprogramming skin cells taken from adults, effectively winding the clock back on the cells until they were in an embryonic form.

The work has been hailed as a major step forward by scientists and welcomed by pro-life organisations, who called on researchers to halt other experiments which use stem cells collected from embryos made at IVF clinics.

Sir Ian Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the Sheep and heads the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University where the work was done, said: "This is a significant step in the right direction. The team has made great progress and combining this work with that of other scientists working on stem cell differentiation, there is hope that the promise of regenerative medicine could soon be met."

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