Scientists Create Sperm And Eggs From Stem Cells..No Men Or Women Needed

October 28th, 2009 | by KurtTheInfidel

Human eggs and sperm have been grown in the laboratory in research which could change the face of parenthood.

It paves the way for a cure for infertility and could help those left sterile by cancer treatment to have children who are biologically their own.

But it raises a number of moral and ethical concerns. These include the possibility of children being born through entirely artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of making babies.

Opponents argue that it is wrong to meddle with the building blocks of life and warn that the advances taking place to tackle infertility risk distorting and damaging relations between family members.

The U.S. government-funded research also offers the prospect of a ‘miracle pill’ which staves off the menopause, allowing women to wait longer to have a child.

It centres on stem cells, widely seen as a repair kit for the body.

via Scientists Create Sperm And Eggs From Stem Cells..No Men Or Women Needed | Infidels Paradise.

Adult Eyes Cells Can Be Transformed Into Pluripotent Stem Cells Without Introducing Foreign Genetic Material

Article Date: 23 Oct 2009 - 5:00 PDT



Scientists have overcome a key barrier to the clinical use of stem cells with a technique which transforms regular body cells into artificial stem cells without the need for introducing foreign genetic materials, which could be potentially harmful. The research, published in Stem Cells, suggests that cells taken from a patient's eye can be "reprogrammed" to replace or restore cells lost to degenerative diseases.



The research, led by Professor Iqbal Ahmad and co-authors from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, is the first proof in principle that somatic, or body cells, can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) simply through the influence of the microenvironment in which the sampled cells are cultured. Until now genetic materials were introduced into somatic cells to re-programme them to become pluripotent, enabling them to generate cells of all three embryonic lineages.

"Our findings provide evidence for an emerging view that somatic cells may be reprogrammed safely and simply by defined chemicals and other factors, which may facilitate their clinical use," said Ahmad. "The next step is to know how robust the reprogramming is and what existed within the microenvironment to cause it."

The team sampled progenitor eye cells, which regenerate the eye's cornea, from laboratory rats. By reprogramming them to resemble stem cells they acquired the properties necessary to replace or restore neurons, cardiomyocytes, and hepatocytes, cell types which are degenerated in Parkinson's disease, heart disease, and liver disease.

This reprogramming technique may allow 'autologous cell transplantation', where the donor of the cells is also the recipient. This is preferable to using cells from another person which may cause the patient's immune system to reject the transplanted cells.

Also, because this technique involves the use of iPSCs derived from adult eye cells and not embryonic stem cells (ES) it side steps many of the ethical dilemmas which have embroiled stem cell research.

"This research shows that it is possible to take cells from a patient's eye without affecting vision and reprogram them for use in autologous cell therapy to replace or rescue degenerating cells," concluded Ahmad, "this would allow us to circumvent ethical issues and the problems caused by the immune system rejecting foreign cells."

via Adult Eyes Cells Can Be Transformed Into Pluripotent Stem Cells Without Introducing Foreign Genetic Material.

California Awards Grants for Research Projects in NON-EMBRYONIC Stem Cells

By ANDREW POLLACK

Published: October 28, 2009

LOS ANGELES — In a tacit acknowledgment that the promise of human embryonic stem cells is still far in the future, California’s stem cell research program on Wednesday awarded grants intended to develop therapies using mainly other, less controversial cells.

"mainly other, less controversial cells"

Really? It's like that, is it?  Ok, baby steps it is then...alright...take a deep breath...it's ok...you can say it...don't be afraid...say it with me...

A - D - U - L - T  stem cells...

good! Now all together...

ADULT STEM CELLS!

There, was that so hard?

The $230 million in grants awarded Wednesday to California universities and companies represent a big step toward moving stem cells from basic research toward application in treating diseases like cancer and AIDS. Grant recipients are supposed to have a therapy ready for initial human testing in four years.

But only 4 of the 14 projects involve embryonic stem cells. The others will use so-called adult stem cells or conventional drugs intended to kill cancer stem cells, which are thought to give rise to tumors.

The grants thus represent a departure from the program’s original mission.

via California Awards Grants for Research Projects in Nonembryonic Stem Cells - NYTimes.com.

The USA is so far behind the rest of the world it scares me.  The lungs are the greediest of all of the organs in the body for stem cells.  ALI, COPD, etc have been treated around the world with adult stem cells for a long time now.  There was even a clinical trial in Dresden on 86 human patients   -

"Acute Lung Injury After Allogeneic Transplantation - Diagnosis and Early Treatment"

Enrollment:	86
Study Start Date:	December 2001
Primary Completion Date:	August 2005 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)

...and the US is just barely putting a toe in the water with mouse studies? It's time to CATCH UP!

-DG

Stem Cell Therapy May Offer Hope For Acute Lung Injury

ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2009) — Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have shown that adult stem cells from bone marrow can prevent acute lung injury in a mouse model of the disease.

Their results are reported online in the October issue of the journal Stem Cells.

Acute lung injury (ALI) is responsible for an estimated 74,500 deaths in the U.S. each year. ALI can be caused by any major inflammation or injury to the lungs and is a major cause of death in patients in hospital ICUs. There is no effective drug treatment...

Except for adult stem cell treatments outside the US which you can find here - http://repairstemcells.org/Treatment/Treatment-Request.aspx?d=Lungs

via Stem Cell Therapy May Offer Hope For Acute Lung Injury.

New 'Schizophrenia Gene' Prompts Researchers To Test Potential Drug Target

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2009) — Johns Hopkins scientists report having used a commercially available drug to successfully "rescue" animal brain cells that they had intentionally damaged by manipulating a newly discovered gene that links susceptibility genes for schizophrenia and autism.

The rescue, described as "surprisingly complete" by the researchers, was accomplished with rapamycin, a drug known to act on a protein called mTOR whose role involves the production of other proteins. The idea to test this drug's effectiveness at rescuing impaired nerve cells occurred to the team as a result of having discovered a new gene that appears to act in concert with two previously identified schizophrenia susceptibility genes, one of which is involved in the activation of the protein mTOR. This piecing together of multiple genes adds support for the idea that susceptibility to schizophrenia and autism may have common genetic fingerprints, according to the researchers.



The newfound gene, dubbed KIAA1212, serves as a bridge linking two schizophrenia genes: DISC1 and AKT. Suspecting KIAA1212 as one of many potential binding partners interacting with DISC1, whose name is an acronym for "Disrupted-in-Schizophrenia," the researchers genetically shut down the production of DISC1 proteins in newly born neurons in the hippocampus region of an adult mouse brain. The hippocampus contains a niche where native stem cells give rise to fully developed new neurons. The idea was to deliberately cause these cells to malfunction and then watch what happened.



via New 'Schizophrenia Gene' Prompts Researchers To Test Potential Drug Target.