New stem cell lines have finally been approved.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35257_New_Embryonic_Stem_Cell_Lines_Approved
Not if I have anything to say about it.
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A New American Dark Age: Vote Palin/Satan 2012!
It's about fucking time. If Bush hadn't been so concerned about Snowflake Babies we would have cured Alzheimer's by now.
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on December 03, 2009, 08:26:40 AM
It's about fucking time. If Bush hadn't been so concerned about Snowflake Babies we would have cured Alzheimer's by now.
Seriously????
I thought it was kind of an unstoppable degenerative process that would happen sooner or later to anyone, except not much people live to 120.
But
But there's possibility of curing Alzheimer's via Stem Cell research?? Cause I fucking HATE that disease. Sure, cancer's bad, and we're working really hard on it. But Alzheimer's is probably the single hesitation I have about wanting to live really really long.
I gotta ask my dad about this (neuropsychologist, works with demented people a lot) because fuck if some fundie religious idea is gonna stunt that research.
Also I gotta read up on what Stem Cell research actually does and why people think it's bad. It's about experimenting with a fertilized egg cell right? Like after it has divided a couple of times, you have an embryonic clump of cells that haven't really decided yet what kind of cell they're going to be and as long as they keep being generic cells, they don't "age" or something?
Can someone fill this in with some more specifics?
Cause if that's it, myeah, I do kind of wonder, it forces one to ask tough questions on whether humans have a soul and when this soul starts to appear, right? I mean, aborting a foetus is one thing, because it is (usually) an informed (and really tough) decision. But I can understand some people would have issues with using something that could potentially become a living human being, using it as a resource. It's different cause abortion says "we don't want this particular one", versus "we need to harvest embryonic matter".
I think I would personally be okay with it, but I could kind of understand why some people would feel wrong about it.
UNLESS I am completely misinformed and whatever I just wrote above here is based on rumours, and somebody please fill me in with the correct story?
Quote from: Triple Zero on December 03, 2009, 10:13:39 AM
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on December 03, 2009, 08:26:40 AM
It's about fucking time. If Bush hadn't been so concerned about Snowflake Babies we would have cured Alzheimer's by now.
Seriously????
I thought it was kind of an unstoppable degenerative process that would happen sooner or later to anyone, except not much people live to 120.
But
But there's possibility of curing Alzheimer's via Stem Cell research?? Cause I fucking HATE that disease. Sure, cancer's bad, and we're working really hard on it. But Alzheimer's is probably the single hesitation I have about wanting to live really really long.
I gotta ask my dad about this (neuropsychologist, works with demented people a lot) because fuck if some fundie religious idea is gonna stunt that research.
Also I gotta read up on what Stem Cell research actually does and why people think it's bad. It's about experimenting with a fertilized egg cell right? Like after it has divided a couple of times, you have an embryonic clump of cells that haven't really decided yet what kind of cell they're going to be and as long as they keep being generic cells, they don't "age" or something?
Can someone fill this in with some more specifics?
Cause if that's it, myeah, I do kind of wonder, it forces one to ask tough questions on whether humans have a soul and when this soul starts to appear, right? I mean, aborting a foetus is one thing, because it is (usually) an informed (and really tough) decision. But I can understand some people would have issues with using something that could potentially become a living human being, using it as a resource. It's different cause abortion says "we don't want this particular one", versus "we need to harvest embryonic matter".
I think I would personally be okay with it, but I could kind of understand why some people would feel wrong about it.
UNLESS I am completely misinformed and whatever I just wrote above here is based on rumours, and somebody please fill me in with the correct story?
Memory and cognitive degeneration happen to everyone with age, but that's not the same as Alzheimer's.
In basic terms, stem cells have the ability to "become" any cell in the body, and aren't rejected by the immune system. If, for example, you have lymphoma and you get all your bone marrow blasted out of you by radiation, if you shoot some stem cells in there, and they "become" bone marrow cells (yes, it's more complicated than that, and no, I won't go into it).
In this way, scientists hope (among other things) to develop ways to regenerate diseased or malformed tissue. Imagine someone with liver damage getting an injection of stem cells, which repair and rejuvinate the liver. No need for a transplant. Or, healing a severed spinal cord. One of the implications seems to be that someday, there is the possibility that we can halt or even reverse the aging process. And yes, there is some speculation that it might help Alzheimer's patients.
It is considered "bad" by the fundies because the easiest way to get stem cells is from a blatocyst, i.e. a fertilized egg about 8 cells big. The underlying fundamentalist belief system declares that since a fertilized egg can develop into a human, when we collect the stem cells, we are "aborting" a human life.
So yeah, you've pretty much got it right on the head.
As I understand it, the ban has meant countries like the UK and France have greater expertise than the US in stem cell research at the moment.
Who could've thought that advancing fundamentalist positions and attacking science would cause the USA to lag behind countries with much smaller budgets and population?
Quote from: LMNO on December 03, 2009, 01:22:38 PM
In basic terms, stem cells have the ability to "become" any cell in the body, and aren't rejected by the immune system. If, for example, you have lymphoma and you get all your bone marrow blasted out of you by radiation, if you shoot some stem cells in there, and they "become" bone marrow cells (yes, it's more complicated than that, and no, I won't go into it).
Can I expand upon this? In essence, stem cells are undifferentiated, meaning they have all the background housekeeping genes running but none of the genes that cause specialized function. All cells are like that originally, in the embryo of every organism. Transcription factor cascades from the mother originally start the differentiation process, and the gradients lay down a grid on the body, which is further subdivided by more transcription factor gradients. The factors interact with the genome in such a way that they epigenetically turn on genes so that offspring cells will express those genes even without the presence of the transcription factors. If you put a stem cell next to a cell that is already expressing some sort of differentiation, the stem cell will take on the character of that differentiated cell due to the transcription and growth factors predominant. The stem cell isn't rejected by the organism because it lacks membrane tags which label it as "native" or "foreign", since only differentiated cells have these genes turned on.
Like everything I say, I may have screwed some part of this up, so don't take it as gospel. Just like everything else in science.
^ What he said.
Quote from: Cain on December 03, 2009, 03:42:59 PM
As I understand it, the ban has meant countries like the UK and France have greater expertise than the US in stem cell research at the moment.
Who could've thought that advancing fundamentalist positions and attacking science would cause the USA to lag behind countries with much smaller budgets and population?
From what I gather, while other countries have been busily working on stem cells, the USA did the following:
G H W Bush - Restrictions (actually, might have been Reagan as well)
Clinton - Lift restrictions
G W Bush - Replace restrictions
B Obama - Re-lift restrictions
It's hard to do consistant research when your timetable is based on election cycles :argh!:
Quote from: LMNO on December 03, 2009, 04:27:50 PM
^ What he said.
Indeed. Also worth noting is that early-embryonic cells produce telomerase, which regenerates the cell's telomeres (the "caps" on the end of a DNA strand that prevent it from fraying when it divides). This effectively stops the cellular clock, enabling them to divide as many times as they wish (similar to what cancer does). When coupled with stem cells' pluripotency*, this means that you can produce any type of tissue you want and keep culturing the original cells indefinitely. So long as they're kept in a stem cell state, they don't really age.
*Pluripotency = ability to become any one of the three germ layers (endoderm, mesoderm, ectoderm)
Quote from: Cain on December 03, 2009, 03:42:59 PM
As I understand it, the ban has meant countries like the UK and France have greater expertise than the US in stem cell research at the moment.
Who could've thought that advancing fundamentalist positions and attacking science would cause the USA to lag behind countries with much smaller budgets and population?
How much you wanna bet that most people will be willing to use any of the treatments developed from the research?
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on December 03, 2009, 06:07:28 PM
Quote from: Cain on December 03, 2009, 03:42:59 PM
As I understand it, the ban has meant countries like the UK and France have greater expertise than the US in stem cell research at the moment.
Who could've thought that advancing fundamentalist positions and attacking science would cause the USA to lag behind countries with much smaller budgets and population?
How much you wanna bet that most people will be willing to use any of the treatments developed from the research?
To their credit, a lot of the fundies understand this point, which is why they don't want it started in the first place. It's one of those, "if there's a tool, it will eventually be used" cases. It's easier to stop the technology from being created than to stop people using it once it's there.
I mean, if we were able to make a prototype of a weapon that could instantly liquify your organs and turn them into gasoline, it wouldn't be too long before our moral arguments were tossed out the window of our homeless-powered SUVs.
Quote from: LMNO on December 03, 2009, 06:14:13 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on December 03, 2009, 06:07:28 PM
Quote from: Cain on December 03, 2009, 03:42:59 PM
As I understand it, the ban has meant countries like the UK and France have greater expertise than the US in stem cell research at the moment.
Who could've thought that advancing fundamentalist positions and attacking science would cause the USA to lag behind countries with much smaller budgets and population?
How much you wanna bet that most people will be willing to use any of the treatments developed from the research?
To their credit, a lot of the fundies understand this point, which is why they don't want it started in the first place. It's one of those, "if there's a tool, it will eventually be used" cases. It's easier to stop the technology from being created than to stop people using it once it's there.
I mean, if we were able to make a prototype of a weapon that could instantly liquify your organs and turn them into gasoline, it wouldn't be too long before our moral arguments were tossed out the window of our homeless-powered SUVs.
Kind of like Alfred Nobel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel), the poor bastard. He envisioned dynamite as a way to revolutionize public service works... dams, things like that. Apparently he was quite surprised when the monkeys started using it to kill each other.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on December 03, 2009, 12:10:51 PM
Memory and cognitive degeneration happen to everyone with age, but that's not the same as Alzheimer's.
Right. Slipped my mind eh :)
So I wonder, can't they then figure out how to "un-cascade" regular cells then? Although that would be a lot more efford if the all-purpose cells are already available.
The only logical conclusion I could draw is that we should raise and harvest Christians for their stem cells.
Quote from: Sir Remington III on December 03, 2009, 06:02:27 PM
Quote from: LMNO on December 03, 2009, 04:27:50 PM
^ What he said.
Indeed. Also worth noting is that early-embryonic cells produce telomerase, which regenerates the cell's telomeres (the "caps" on the end of a DNA strand that prevent it from fraying when it divides). This effectively stops the cellular clock, enabling them to divide as many times as they wish (similar to what cancer does). When coupled with stem cells' pluripotency*, this means that you can produce any type of tissue you want and keep culturing the original cells indefinitely. So long as they're kept in a stem cell state, they don't really age.
*Pluripotency = ability to become any one of the three germ layers (endoderm, mesoderm, ectoderm)
Yes, thanks for the continued elaboration.
I can't actually see stem cells curing Alzheimer's, replacing brain cells as they die would eventually leave too much damage behind, neurons aren't cookie cutter cells, each one is unique, replacing it with a different one won't restore the damage.
On the other hand, I could see it greatly improving the quality of life, one of the early things to go is the ability to form new memories, and that could conceivably be fixed (at least for a while) with new cells.
I'm not calling the dark ages as over until we get universal access to education.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on December 03, 2009, 10:56:17 PM
I can't actually see stem cells curing Alzheimer's, replacing brain cells as they die would eventually leave too much damage behind, neurons aren't cookie cutter cells, each one is unique, replacing it with a different one won't restore the damage.
On the other hand, I could see it greatly improving the quality of life, one of the early things to go is the ability to form new memories, and that could conceivably be fixed (at least for a while) with new cells.
I don't think stem cells could restore memory; however, if you could do something immediately after the first diagnosis, perhaps you could prevent any further degredation.
Quote from: LMNO on December 04, 2009, 01:49:23 PM
Quote from: Requia ☣ on December 03, 2009, 10:56:17 PM
I can't actually see stem cells curing Alzheimer's, replacing brain cells as they die would eventually leave too much damage behind, neurons aren't cookie cutter cells, each one is unique, replacing it with a different one won't restore the damage.
On the other hand, I could see it greatly improving the quality of life, one of the early things to go is the ability to form new memories, and that could conceivably be fixed (at least for a while) with new cells.
I don't think stem cells could restore memory; however, if you could do something immediately after the first diagnosis, perhaps you could prevent any further degredation.
I don't see it, but I have fairly basic knowledge of what's going on in the brain at that point, so I could easily be wrong. And of course, fundamental knowledge leads to recipe knowledge in strange ways.
Something so often forgotten in the attacks on 'useless' science is just how many black swans are found in those experiments.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on December 04, 2009, 04:43:14 PM
Something so often forgotten in the attacks on 'useless' science is just how many black swans are found in those experiments.
TITCM. There is no such thing as 'useless" science. Ok, it's useless if you are doing an experiment for the millionth time and still get the same result. That's kinda useless. But other than that...
What do you mean by a ''black swan''?
Quote from: Requia ☣ on December 04, 2009, 04:43:14 PM
Something so often forgotten in the attacks on 'useless' science is just how many black swans are found in those experiments.
A black swan is something you didn't know to look for. IE, finding black swans in Australia, thus invalidating the theory that all swans are white.
The best example in science I can give is and experiment that was done on the effect of low current on bacteria. It killed them all, which had never happened in earlier iterations. Turned out they had changed the metal of the electrode, and the new chemical that was produced was toxic. This ended up leading to better Chemotherapy treatments for cancer, even though cancer cures weren't on the agenda.
Oh. That's neat.
Another (perhaps better or more accurate) term for that kind of thing is "serendipity", btw.
Stem cells can also be harvested from amniotic fluid, although I think they're not quite as versatile (haven't really dug into the subject yet):
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/06/offstage-ethical-stem-cell-work-advances/?feat=home_headlines
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&um=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=non-embryonic+stem+cells
Quote from: Telarus on December 06, 2009, 05:47:09 AM
Stem cells can also be harvested from amniotic fluid, although I think they're not quite as versatile (haven't really dug into the subject yet):
Also cord blood, although is that the same thing? I don't know.
tangent note re: alzheimer's
I used to work in alzheimer's drug research. The neurologist I worked under said that my generation wouldn't have to worry about Alzheimer's ... as long as you get an early diagnosis.
There are already pretty good drugs for Alzheimer's. Better ones come out every few years. They can really slow down the disease's progression. The problem is that most elderly people don't like letting on that their mind is starting to go, so they don't tell anyone they're having memory problems until the loved ones are forced to intervene and get a diagnosis. By this time, the disease has progressed and the drugs won't be as useful.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on December 05, 2009, 02:58:59 AM
A black swan is something you didn't know to look for. IE, finding black swans in Australia, thus invalidating the theory that all swans are white.
The best example in science I can give is and experiment that was done on the effect of low current on bacteria. It killed them all, which had never happened in earlier iterations. Turned out they had changed the metal of the electrode, and the new chemical that was produced was toxic. This ended up leading to better Chemotherapy treatments for cancer, even though cancer cures weren't on the agenda.
Simpler: Viagra was developed as a blood pressure medicine. That fact that it gave men erections was completely unexpected, and had a major unforseen impact on our society.
Quote from: LMNO on December 07, 2009, 05:04:48 PM
Simpler: Viagra was developed as a blood pressure medicine. That fact that it gave men erections was completely unexpected, and had a major unforseen impact on our society.
Yep. More hairy old people having sloppy sex.
Quote from: Cramulus on December 07, 2009, 02:57:15 PM
tangent note re: alzheimer's
I used to work in alzheimer's drug research. The neurologist I worked under said that my generation wouldn't have to worry about Alzheimer's ... as long as you get an early diagnosis.
There are already pretty good drugs for Alzheimer's. Better ones come out every few years. They can really slow down the disease's progression.
sweet!
Everyone wondering about stem cells curing Alzheimer's are thinking of Parkinson's, just fyi.
Quote from: Haeresis Zarathustra on December 11, 2009, 06:12:42 AM
Everyone wondering about stem cells curing Alzheimer's are thinking of Parkinson's, just fyi.
You are now humming the tune of "ITS THE FIIIINAAAAL COUNTDOWOWOWWOWOWOWWWNNN" in your mind, just FYI
NOT YOU, HIM
can't you read? you must be one them dudes that even need to breathe manually
Holy shit man, get out of my brain!