Corner semi-bashing

If one could create a perfectly functional alternative to embryonic stem cells that involved no actual embryos--using somatic cells, or rug lint, or cocaine, or anything--I think it might then be worth it to just end the fighting about embryonic stem cells and just used the space-age stuff. And, from The Corner, I see they're heralding new findings:

The coming week’s issue of the scientific journal Nature, made available online today, includes several extraordinary new studies on an alternative avenue to embryonic-like stem cells that does not require the destruction of embryos. In the most important paper, scientists at MIT have chemically reprogrammed regular adult cells (like skin cells) in mice to function and appear like embryonic stem cells.

Of course, I found this at The Corner, so, as with all of their output, it should be treated skeptically. And, also of course, more research will be required before each side can declare victory and go home. But while I'm all about science for science's sake, I'd still be oddly annoyed if it turned out that this particular field of laboratory work would never have come to be--that all these resources could've been saved--if it wasn't for the fact that a bunch of extremely religious people got it in their heads that we shouldn't fund any research involving the use of actual embryos. Embryos which sit unused in abundance in freezers all around the country. 

Comments

[DEW]

Pluripotent stem cells can eventually specialize in any bodily tissue, but they cannot themselves develop into a human being

[JimPortlandOR]

I'm surely not anything more than a layperson watching from the sidelines on the stem cell thing, but it would appear that skin cells from a mature person would be harder to cultivate and reproduce in vitro without larger amounts of transcription errors because they have already lost some portion of the sequence endings (telomeres) which get shorter after each generation of DNA replication. Thus, this will be a long, hard road.

Although the US is a leader, the other nations in the world with potential for leadership aren't restricted, so progress on the embyonic stem cell side will still be made (and those scientists certainly are well qualified) such that we surely run a high risk of being outpaced by others. I don't find that a bad thing, given the predatory nature of US pharma companies when things get to the commercialization phase. Competition in this case is a good thing.