From Reuters:
General Electric Co is teaming up with U.S. biotech company Geron Corp to use stem cells to develop products that could give drug developers an
early warning of whether new medicines are toxic.
The venture is the largest U.S. conglomerate’s most direct attempt to make a commercial products from human embryonic stem cells.
GE and Geron aim to use an existing batch of stem cells to develop sample human cells that drug companies could use to test the toxicity of new drugs early in the development process, before they are ready for animal testing or human clinical trials.
"This could replace, to a large extent, animal trials," Fiedler said in a telephone interview. "Once you have human cells and you can get them in a standardized way, like you get right now your lab rats in a standardized way, you can actually do those experiments on those cells."
Just recently I wrote about Bioethicist Leon Kass who said that it is dangerous to use human life as a natural resource. Leon Kass considers himself to be agnostic, so his opinion on this is based on science and not religion.
If they want to use stem cells I have no problems with that. If they want to use embryonic stem cells, I have serious problems with that. Human life should never be sacrificed for any reason. It doesn’t matter stage of development that human life is in.
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