When someone tells you someone is against Stem Cell Research. You may want to clarify what they are talking about. The controversial Stem Cells come from embryos. Which means you either had to get them from the umbilical cord or harvest babies yet to be born for them. Hence the ethical dilemma.
Pluripotent stem cells are these near magical cells that are capable of becoming any kind of tissue. Until last november it was thought you could only get these from the above method.
Then comes Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan who in looking for the reason why embryonic stem cells worked identified 24 genes that make the difference. So they plopped combinations of the 24 into the DNA of adult skin cells (using mice). Through this they found that four genes will turn adult cells into stem cells.
They did it again using human adult skin cells using the same four genes. It worked.
This makes the nightmare ethics of harvesting the unborn moot. Along with quite a few arguments.
(Planned Parenthood might be in angst over the loss of a revenue stream...)
1 comment:
Well, I don't know about the revenue stream---they seem pretty set there. What they are losing is an argument for a bright side to abortion. This very poor attempt to try to make abortion look like a positive step for human diginity didn't hold up very well.
Post a Comment