The arguments for embryonic stem cell research are long gone. There are so many nails in that coffin that it should never rise again. There is no longer a bleating chorus of eugenicists claiming that opposition means denying cures to disease, or that fertilized embryos are not "persons", feel no pain, so it's OK to kill them for their contents.
Stem cells have been made from all sorts of adult human tissue. Advances in the creation of adult stem cells include making the process simpler and more efficient. The need for embryonic stem cells no longer exists (yet the research continues under government funding).
Now National Geographic reports that adult stem cells have been made from fat tissue that has been removed by liposuction: waste. (Recycling of such waste should get support from Greenies, one would think.) Every person has reservoirs of fat, even the six-pack body models that work for TV advertising.
According to Joseph Wu, senior author of the study, the fat cell conversion process is twice as fast and 20 times as efficient as the process for skin cell conversion. The fat cell conversion process involves using programmed viral introgression into the fat cells to reprogram the fat into "induced Pluripotent Stem Cells", (iPS).
The fat cell iPS process has the speed advantage that might be life saving in the future, allowing rapid growth of high volumes of new, compatible tissue for repair of failing organs.
Science is great!
2 comments:
ok....we are getting somewhere...
Yes we are.
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