Home

On:

Stem cells are seen as the future of medicine, but the current administration’s opposition to creating them from human embryos has caused scientists to get creative. Now Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep over ten years ago, says that animal embryos can perform the same function.

Wilmut thinks the solution is to inject human DNA into animal egg cells. A nucleus from a diseased person’s cell would be placed into an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed.
read more

On:

This administration has been adamantly against stem cell research based on embryos, so scientists have been trying to figure out how to create these valuable medical tools, which can be turned into almost any kind of replacement organ, in another way. Now they think they can be made from our own skin.

Embryonic stem cells are unique because they can develop into virtually any kind of tissue type. To create them, an individual?s DNA would be placed into a human egg, resulting in a blastocyst that houses a supply of stem cells. But until recently, to access these cells, researchers would have had to destroy a viable embryo.
read more

On:

Indian scientist P. B. Desai suggested in a speech last weekthat it should be possible to remove genes from embyros thatcould be used to create harvestable organs for adults inneed of organ transplants.

The organs would be grown in “bodies,” that would mimic thematuring effect of a normal human body, but would lack abrain or head. These bodies would have the capacity to keeporgans functioning, but would have no thought processes.

Down the road, it is believed that stem cells removed fromadults will be used to create organs for the donor that willbe readily accepted by the donor body because they are, ineffect, from the same person.
read more

On:

California has adopted a new law permitting scientific research on embryonic stem cells, despite rejection of the use of federal funds for the same type of research by President Bush. The Senate is still considering legislation that would ban this type of research completely. Along with recent legislation regarding the use of medical marijuana, the new law brings up the question of what will happen when state and federal laws clash. The last time this happened in a major way, we fought the Civil War.
read more