Process could allow for research without destroying human life.
By inserting genes into the skin cell of a mouse, scientists have been able to create embryonic stem cells. "The technique, if adaptable to human cells, is much easier to apply than nuclear transfer, would not involve the expensive and controversial use of human eggs, and should avoid all or almost all of the ethical criticism directed at the use of embryonic stem cells," reports The New York Times.
Scientists are elated by the new technique: "From the point of view of moving biomedicine and regenerative medicine faster, this is about as big a deal as you could imagine," said Irving Weissman, a leading stem cell biologist at Stanford University, who was not involved in the new research.
And so are pro-life Christians:
It "raises no serious moral problem, because it creates embryoniclike stem cells without creating, harming or destroying human lives at any stage," said Richard Doerflinger, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' spokesman on stem cell issues. In themselves, embryonic stem cells "have no moral status," and the bishops' objections to embryonic stem cell research rest solely on the fact that human embryos must be harmed or destroyed to obtain them, Mr. Doerflinger said.
Posted by Rob Moll on June 7, 2007 9:48AM
Comments
And yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that this exciting development (as well as other promising advances using adult stem cells) will do little to derail the embryonic stem cell train. For you see, ESCs are not just a matter of science for the true believers who support this unethical life-destroying research at every opportunity, but an article of faith, a moral imperative.
Posted by: Stan Guthrie at June 7, 2007
I doubt that this will make the nightly MSM broadcasts or stop the left from pursuing their pro-death agenda.
Posted by: Don at June 7, 2007
By taking an adult skin cell, introduce a small number of genes which direct the "committed" adult skin cell to revert all the way back to an embryonic stem, might make it easier to clone a human by this technology than from embryonic stem cell technology.
Embryonic stem cell technology is based on introducing a somatic cell nucleus into a potentially hostile environment of an egg from a different person, who is not a clone of the individual from which the somatic cell nucleus was obtained. There is no reason a cell can't be reprogrammed to return to precisely the state it was in which it was a primitive embryonic stem cell or the original stem cell, the fertilized egg itself.
This new technology stem cell would have the same genetic material and the same capabilities as the embryonic stem cell technology. The cells are created by introducing a handful of genes to reprogram the DNA of an adult cell so that the cell reverts back to the state of a newly fertilized egg. It would genetically be a clone of the original fertilized egg.
So what do the religious zealots do now?
Posted by: Patriot at June 11, 2007
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