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For only the second time, the U.S. government has approved a test in people of a treatment using embryonic stem cells - this time for a rare disease that causes serious vision loss.
Advanced Cell Technology, a biotechnology company based in Santa Monica., Calif., said the research should begin early next year, following the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Just last month another biotech company, Geron Corp., said it had begun preliminary testing in people for treating spinal cord injuries by injecting cells derived from embryonic stem cells.
Scientists hope to use stem cells to create a variety of tissues for transplant. But human embryos have to be destroyed to harvest those cells, which has made their use controversial.
ACT's experiment will focus on Stargardt disease, which affects only about 30,000 Americans. But the company hopes the same approach will work for similar and more common eye disorders like age-related macular degeneration, which affects millions.
Stargardt is an inherited disorder that attacks central vision used for tasks like reading and recognizing faces. Some patients go totally blind, even losing peripheral vision, while others are severely impaired and can only perceive light or see their hands moving in front of their faces.
The disease typically starts in adolescence. The key problem is that impaired scavenger cells fail to remove toxic byproducts from the eye, allowing them to build up and kill other cells. There is no proven treatment.
In the new study, 12 patients will be treated with healthy scavenger cells, created in a laboratory from human embryonic stem cells. This early phase of the research is primarily to test the safety of various doses, injecting only one eye of each patient.
"We're also hoping to see some improvement in visual acuity, but that's a bonus," said Dr. Robert Lanza, ACT's chief scientific officer.
The research will be performed at medical centers in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Oregon, ACT said.
Stephen Rose, chief research officer of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, said his group is "very, very glad" that ACT has permission to begin the study.|||I thought they could generate stem cells with cloning now, avoiding use of embryos altogether?|||Quote:
I thought they could generate stem cells with cloning now, avoiding use of embryos altogether?
I thought that was only adult cells.|||Quote:
I thought that was only adult cells.
It could be, I only vaguely remember. Shame, it would have solved a lot of the ethical issues.|||There are no actual ethical issues, unless you count the radically illogical ones. And if you do, you might as well say something like "We should stop using oil and other fossil fuels because they can also be made from growing humans, feeding them, and then slowly burning them in a pressure cooker, and that is bad."|||Quote:
It could be, I only vaguely remember. Shame, it would have solved a lot of the ethical issues.
Yes, it would have.
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There are no actual ethical issues, unless you count the radically illogical ones. And if you do, you might as well say something like "We should stop using oil and other fossil fuels because they can also be made from growing humans, feeding them, and then slowly burning them in a pressure cooker, and that is bad."
No. That's just being dramatic.|||Quote:
There are no actual ethical issues, unless you count the radically illogical ones.
I agree up until this point. Viewing stem cell research as unethical because the zygote has a "chance of life" is about as logical as viewing masturbation as unethical because sperm represents a "chance of life." Granted, they do in some ways, but only if they're allowed to go through the entire process. So the argument literally becomes "we shouldn't be playing god," which has no rational basis.
What people don't seem to/want to understand is that no abortion takes place. The zygotes are created at in-vitro fertilization clinics, and several are made at a time. Some of these go on to be implanted into women, while the rest are typically discarded after a period. The embryonic cells used in past research came from those zygotes already destined to be discarded. These zygotes never had an actual potential to develop into a life. That was a rhetorical device thought up by culture war champions.|||Quote:
I agree up until this point. Viewing stem cell research as unethical because the zygote has a "chance of life" is about as logical as viewing masturbation as unethical because sperm represents a "chance of life." Granted, they do in some ways, but only if they're allowed to go through the entire process. So the argument literally becomes "we shouldn't be playing god," which has no rational basis.
Technically, you're full of malarkey. A newborn baby has no chance of survival on its own either unless it goes through the 'entire process', so as preposterous as it sounds you can use that same argument to claim it's not human yet. Neither a sperm cell or an unfertilized egg has a chance of ever becoming a human being on its own without achieving fertilization, while a zygote clearly does.
This is an argument neither side will ever win. Your rationale, as sound as it may seem to you, will break down in the face of emotion, and this is an emotional issue whether you want it to be or not.|||Quote:
Technically, you're full of malarkey. A newborn baby has no chance of survival on its own either unless it goes through the 'entire process', so as preposterous as it sounds you can use that same argument to claim it's not human yet.
My argument is that those zygotes never have a chance of becoming a life. A newborn baby is already a life. I'm afraid I don't see your point.
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Neither a sperm cell or an unfertilized egg has a chance of ever becoming a human being on its own without achieving fertilization, while a zygote clearly does.
A fertilized zygote that will be discarded has no potential for life.
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This is an argument neither side will ever win.
It's already happening. The ethical issues were deemed small if existent in comparison to the potential for medical treatments. My guess is that it will be a while before someone has the ability to make a good attempt to stop it, and by that time the benefits will be too good to ignore. People may be given to moral alarmism, but they also like being healthy and comfortable for as long as possible.|||Quote:
My argument is that those zygotes never have a chance of becoming a life. A newborn baby is already a life. I'm afraid I don't see your point.
My mistake, I freely concede. But more nitpicking as far as prolifers are concerned. A zygote is alive; not self-sustaining (either is a newborn, it just so happens) but definitely life.
I'm merely playing devil's advocate here, not expressing my own personal beliefs. And I'm dragging the subject off-topic. As a scientist, I eagerly await further advances in stem-cell research and hope for less confusion from those opposing it...though there is a moral disquiet about the whole issue that I find it difficult to shake off entirely.
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