Tag Archives: Stem Cell
GE brings good things to…..life?
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."
Aborted Fetus and Human Guinea Pigs
There is no way to introduce this one:
British scientists have been given permission to treat stroke patients with injections of cells from an aborted baby, it emerged last night.
In a world first, stem cells from a 12-week-old foetus will be injected into patients’ brains.
Experts believe the cells will regenerate areas damaged by strokes and restore movement and mental skills.
In the two-year trial, starting next year, four groups of three patients will be given stem cells developed by the biotech company ReNeuron in Surrey.
The ‘blank cells’ can turn into any type of human tissue. The ones needed for the trial havebeen grown in culture after they were taken from a foetus’s brain.
ReNeuron could use cells from an adult, but says foetal cells are more adaptable.
The firm says it can produce all the cells it will ever need from one foetus.
In tests on rats, stem cells restored the movement of animals left disabled by strokes.
Scientists hope one injection could provide a long-lasting improvement to humans.
The first group will receive two million cells, with the final guinea pigs getting 20million.
Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment On Reproductive Ethics…….’This is about one life being sacrificed for hypothetical benefits.’
The National Institute of Health has this on their information page:
A potential advantage of using stem cells from an adult is that the patient’s own cells could be expanded in culture and then reintroduced into the patient. The use of the patient’s own adult stem cells would mean that the cells would not be rejected by the immune system. This represents a significant advantage as immune rejection is a difficult problem that can only be circumvented with immunosuppressive drugs.
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