A Peculiar Blog

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Remember “Dolphin Safe” Tuna? Well, if this is to be believed, it looks like Science is close to a sort-of “Embryo Safe” Stem Cell. After all of the Pro Vs Con arguments that have flown around for years, this looks like there is potential to solve the issue By changing adult stem cells into something similar to, but not quite-exactly, an embryonic stem cell without having to kill an embryo to do it.

The problem with this seemingly good thing is that at the very least it’s going to come dangerously close to touching another hot button topic… Human Cloning. If they can do this without getting too close to cloning, and without destroying human embryos, then this might just be the answer that science has needed for a long time now. Otherwise they might just as well quit now and save a lot of headache.

(Yeah, like that’s going to happen.)

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Stem Cells Generated From Adult Cells                              |

|   from the all-growed-up dept.                                     |

|   posted by Zonk on Friday August 25, @14:57 (Biotech)             |

|   http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/25/1815242      |

+——————————————————————–+
DrJay writes “Scientist report that introducing only four genes to adult

cells is sufficient to convert them to something that looks and acts

remarkably like an embryonic stem cell. Although some of the details need

to be worked out, if this technique is generally applicable, it may allow

the production of an essentially unlimited supply of stem cells. There is

a [0]subscription-only report, and Ars Technica’s science journal

[1]describes the results in some detail for those without subscriptions.”

Discuss this story at:

    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=06/08/25/1815242

Links:

    0. http://www.cell.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0092867406009767

    1. http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2006/8/25/5112

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!