Stem Cells II
Harvesting stem cells without harming the embryo may be a technique that circumvents the so-called ethical problems with using discarded IVF embryos to enhance life-saving research.
Now, we can unfreeze the embryos, get the stem cells, re-freeze them, and then throw them in the incinerator.
The sentence you just read is full of snark. Don’t take that to mean that I am not cheered by the possibility that stem-cell research may be able to continue without offending the sensibilities of the pro-war anti-stem cell crowd about the destruction of “innocent life”. If it works out, I really will be glad of it.
From the article:
Now scientists have found that it is possible to create human stem cells using one or two cells from an early embryo, without doing any damage to the embryo. In theory, the technique could be used to create both a baby and a set of immortal stem cells unique to that baby that might be used decades later to cure the same person of ailments such as Parkinson’s or heart disease.
However, it is much more likely that it will be used as a research technique to advance stem-cell science.
[...]
British scientists, while admiring the technical skill of the experiments, doubted that they would revolutionise stem-cell research.
Professor Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep, said: “Cell lines have been obtained, but it is rather misleading to suggest that efficiency was equivalent to that with entire embryos. “The authors imply that stem-cell derivation was as efficient as it would have been if the entire embryo been cultured. It is not clear that that was the case.
“The establishment of two lines from the equivalent of thirty-five high-quality fresh embryos would be a disappointingly low efficiency.”
But John Harris, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester, said: “The science is wonderfully interesting and important and will convince those who already accept pre-implantation genetic diagnosis that the use of these cells is ethical.”
Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the National Institute for Medical Research, said that the success rate was low, and that while it might be useful for couples undergoing PGD to have a stem-cell line matched to a child for future therapeutic use, it was very unlikely to be taken up by anyone else.
“I am also unconvinced by the ethical arguments. Spare IVF embryos used to derive stem-cell lines would have been destroyed anyway.”
H/T One Good Move
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also via 1gm, this article which boils down the case for “personhood” over biological identification as a relevant moral status, wrt to stem cell and abortion debate. Very well written, simple, and concise.
