“Reprogrammed” stem cells avoid embryo destruction: may rewrite ethical debate

November 20, 2007 | David P. Hamilton | Comments | |

blastocyst1.jpgScientists have reported a breakthrough method for producing stem cells without the need to destroy embryos, an advance that may short-circuit the ethical debate over the morality of work that could eventually lead to new regenerative treatments for diseased or damaged organs.

We explain how researchers have “reprogrammed” ordinary human cells into stem cells, and the potential ramifications of the work — not to mention its still-significant shortcomings — in this piece over at VentureBeat Life Sciences.

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About the Author, David P. Hamilton

David Hamilton has been writing for VentureBeat LifeScience since April 2007. He formerly spent 14 years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in its San Francisco and Tokyo bureaus. Prior to that, he spent several years as a reporter at Science Magazine and as a reporter/researcher for the New Republic, both in Washington.

  • While stem cells are quite in vogue at present, notable sleeper medical advances of considerable importance are being done with genetically modified viruses, doing gene repairs for specific diseases.

    Gene therapies have their limits, but if well engineered pathways are thought through and properly screened and tested, the results can be faster than stem cells in effecting "repairs" of existing tissues / functional pathways.

    Granted Stem cells will have their niches, but viruses genetically modified are practical host tools of the concepts espoused by many nanotechnologists, without any pie in the sky dreaming, just guts of gene engineering with a viral host for transmitting the genetic repairs to damaged tissues for limited scope of problems.

    An example of a successful gene repair by modified viruses is the use of a genetically modified AAV virus to perform what appears to be a reversal of parkinsons symptoms permanently.

    read about it here
    http://mark-nano.blogspot.com/2007/06/dr-michae...