Ellen Goodman Stem-cell breakthrough no thanks to the president Ellen Goodman is a nationally syndicated columnist.
I have a friend who dedicated her first book to her husband “without whom this would never have been possible.” Years later, when the husband was gone, she used to fantasize about tweaking her dedication: “To my husband without whom this book would have been done five years earlier.” I thought of her as the Bush administration claimed credit for a bona fide breakthrough in biology. Two groups of scientists in Wisconsin and Japan have found a way to reprogram ordinary skin cells so they behave like embryonic stem cells. So it may become unnecessary to use embryos in this cutting-edge research. When the good news was announced, the White House had the gall — an Oval Office alternative for chutzpah — to claim the victory as theirs. “This is very much in accord with the president’s vision from the get-go,” said policy adviser Karl Zinsmeister. Without the slightest hint of irony, he suggested that their stalwart opposition actually fueled the scientists’ success. Next thing you know the president will nominate himself for the Nobel Prize in medicine. Let us pause and review Stem Cells 101. What scientists are trying to do is take an ordinary cell from the human body and persuade it to become, say, a heart muscle cell, or a brain cell, or a liver cell, to fix whatever ails us. The researchers did not study embryonic stem cells because they wanted to run a recycling center for leftovers from in vitro fertilization clinics. Nor did they have a passion for wedge issues. But the embryo could do what they were still unable to do: cause ordinary body cells to act like stem cells. This breakthrough was not the president’s “vision from the get-go” or any other go. First of all, the Bush administration bet on the wrong horse — adult stem cells. Second, the researchers couldn’t have gotten to step two without step one. They needed human embryos to learn how to do this without human embryos. They’ll still need embryos for some time, as both a benchmark and a way to judge whether stem cells from skin are effective and safe. Not only did the “vision” impede the science, the administration also slowed it by starving funding and scaring off researchers. So James Thomson, the biologist whose work forms the bookends of this research, offers this, um, dedication: “My feeling is that the political controversy set the field back four or five years.” Now he and other scientists are muting that political controversy. Pro-life Republicans have every reason to breathe a sigh of relief. The idea that a leftover frozen embryo had greater moral status than your aunt with diabetes didn’t wash with the general public. It was a losing battle for conservatives who are used to directing the culture wars. It even split pro-life politicians. Sen. Orrin Hatch ended up arguing with the absolutists: “People who are pro-life are also pro-life for existing life.” Democrats, on the other hand, may breathe a sigh of regret. The stem cell controversy gave pro-choicers an iconic image of their enemy: someone who put the embryo uber alles . It gave progressives a poster girl in Nancy Reagan — and a poster boy in Michael J. Fox. Stem cells were to the left what partialbirth abortion was to the right, a way to frame a touchy issue and look like the reasonable center. The issues that range around the stem cell debate will still be with us and with politicians. There remain more than 400,000 frozen embryos languishing in IVF clinics. As for the relative worth of an embryo and an “existing life“? There are likely to be ballot measures next year to give a fertilized egg the legal status of a human being. Indeed, the sleeper issue of this campaign may be the one found in a YouTube video called “Libertyville Abortion Demonstration.” There, prolife protesters at an abortion clinic are asked what punishment should be meted out to a woman who has an abortion if it becomes illegal. Their answers: “I don’t know.” “I’ve never really thought about it.” Candidates won’t get away so easily. Nevertheless, this is a moment when anyone who prefers a cure to a battle cry should celebrate. There is still a long way from reprogramming a skin cell to treating a disease. But we’ve come to think of scientists as people racing ahead of us, leaving behind huge moral potholes. This time, science may resolve the quandaries it created. So this success is dedicated to the scientists who freed themselves from the clutches of politics. But not to the president, without whom, well, this too would have been done years earlier.
The good news is that two groups of scientists have found a means of turning normal human skin cells into the medicinal gold mine of stem cells. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the new method will finally prove to be as effective as the more elaborate embryo manipulation method that has been getting all the attention, not all of it positive. What we don’t yet know is whether the scientists have, by removing the touchy questions of cloning and embryos from the equation, wrestled this matter back into their realm, away from the politicians, the pundits and the push polls. If they have, wonderful. If they haven’t, then stem cell research will remain a difficult question that politicians shouldn’t be allowed to duck. — The Buffalo News
SKoreans clone cats that glow in the dark: officials Wed Dec 12,
SEOUL (AFP) - South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday.
In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.
A team of scientists led by Kong Il-keun, a cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, produced three cats possessing altered fluorescence protein (RFP) genes, the Ministry of Science and Technology said.
"It marked the first time in the world that cats with RFP genes have been cloned," the ministry said in a statement.
"The ability to produce cloned cats with the manipulated genes is significant as it could be used for developing treatments for genetic diseases and for reproducing model (cloned) animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," it added.
The cats were born in January and February. One was stillborn while two others grew to become adult Turkish Angoras, weighing 3.0 kilogrammes (6.6 pounds) and 3.5 kilogrammes.
"This technology can be applied to clone animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," the leading scientist, Kong, told AFP.
"It will also help develop stemcell treatments," he said, noting that cats have some 250 kinds of genetic diseases that affect humans, too.
The technology can also help clone endangered animals like tigers, leopards and wildcats, Kong said.
South Korea's bio-engineering industry suffered a setback after a much-touted achievement by cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk turned out to have been faked.
The government banned Hwang from research using human eggs after his claims that he created the first human stem cells through cloning were ruled last year to be bogus.
Hwang is standing trial on charges of fraud and embezzlement.
Umm....well....at least you won't trip over them at night? And what is the new cat's half-life?
Maybe we can change this gene in people who are found guilty and sent to jail for crimes, that way if they decide to escape at night, we can track them down easier?
Cloning cats that glow in the dark?!? Now what the hell does that have to do with humanity and medical breakthroughs? Well, unless you want to be genetically compromised so we can glow in the dark as well. RIDICULOUS!!!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I wonder if the cloned domesticated cats still have the gene telling them that humans rule and that they are domesticated, or will it get lost in the process??? Would they evolve cloned, into wild cats???
evolution science religion
we are still standing in the dark fumbling....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
In his Dec. 28 letter, Hal D. Zendle is either totally unaware of, or has elected to ignore, the breakthrough in stem cell research. Two groups of scientists — one at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the other at Kyoto University in Japan — have found a way to reprogram ordinary skin cells so they behave like embryonic stem cells. The president’s refusal to finance embryonic stem cell research has been removed from the political area by this scientific breakthrough. Mr. Zendle should take notice. RAYMOND S. KUKFA Niskayuna
Europe set for debate rerun on ‘Frankenfoods’ By Andrew Bounds in Brussels, Jeremy Grant in Washington and Clive Cookson in London Published: January 11 2008
Europe is set for a rerun of the heated debate over genetically modified “Frankenfoods”, after regulators declared on Friday that meat and milk from cloned pigs and cows and their offspring were safe to eat.
The finding comes as GM foods are about to reignite trade friction between the US and European Union, with a deadline set to expire on Friday night by which the EU must comply with a World Trade Organisation ruling to allow imports of GM seeds.
While it could be years before meat and milk from cloned animals are on dinner plates in the EU, the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) issued a “draft opinion” that such livestock and their products were as healthy and nutritious as their natural-born kin. “Healthy clones and healthy offspring do not show any significant differences from their conventional counterparts,” it said.
Efsa has invited views on its opinion before drawing up a definitive conclusion in May. Its deliberations come as the Food & Drug Agency in the US is expected to reach a final decision on the issue, possibly next week.
The developments would boost a handful of US biotechnology companies that have been working on cloning animals, mainly cattle, for the past four years. They say cloning would help farmers by increasing the availability of elite breeding stock.
Europe is already sharply divided over GM food, dubbed “Frankenfood” by opponents, with just one product – a pest-resistant maize – approved for cultivation. Austria and Hungary have banned even that and France is set to follow suit.
In the US, consumer acceptance of plant biotechnology in foods is high. Acceptance of biotechnologically altered animal produce is much lower, although a survey last year by the International Food Information Council showed that 61 per cent would purchase products derived from genetically engineered animals if they were FDA-approved.
In a sign of possible unprecedented congressional involvement in the process, Democratic senator Barbara Mikulski has called on the FDA to delay its final decision about cloning, pending further scientific tests. “We do not know enough about the long-term effects of introducing cloned animals, or their offspring, into our food supply. What’s the rush?” she asked.
Following Friday’s scientific report from Efsa, the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies expects to deliver its report on Wednesday about the ethical and practical effects of approving food from cloned animals.
The gulf between attitudes across the Atlantic on GM crops has already led to a trade spat with Washington, which won a WTO ruling in 2004 that the EU was illegally blocking GM produce.
European farmers said they were not seeking to use cloning but feared a loss of competitiveness if the US went ahead and imports were allowed. “It is essential to inform the consumers and citizens about the state of play already and not wait until this new technology is on the shelves,” said Pekka Pesonen, secretary-general of Copa-Cogeca, which represents them.
Friends of the Earth said the Efsa ruling was “unsatisfactory” because there was a shortage of scientific evidence.
I could go on about the scary risks regarding the eating genetically altered dna animal in the food chain. There are already problems with the meat that we eat that has been altered with hormones and antibiotics. Not to mention eating cows that have been fed cows which causes mad cow disease.
So now we will add animals with altered dna's to be ingested into our bodies. I wonder if we will be told BEFORE they hit the food chain and who or what country will be the first to be the guinea pigs! Looks like I'll be turning into a vegetarian soon!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Lab-grown rat’s heart starts beating WASHINGTON — Researchers seeking new treatments for heart disease managed to grow a rat heart in the lab and start it beating. “While it still sounds like science fiction, we’ve hopefully opened a new door in the notion that we can build these tissues and one day provide options for patients with end-stage disease,” said Dr. Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota. “We’re not there yet, but at least now we have another tool in our tool belt.” Taylor led the team whose research appeared in Sunday’s online edition of the journal Nature Medicine. Scientists have worked for years for ways to grow body parts. Many efforts have focused on heart valves as an alternative to the plastic or animal valves that wear out after being implanted in humans.
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