I just came across this; some interesting developments....
"Stem Cell Discoveries Make Headlines
By Patrick Cox of The Penny Sleuth
February 22, 2008
When it comes to the sciences, the mainstream media almost never get it right. First, most of the editors who make the real decisions in the news business are scientifically illiterate. The reporters who cover the sciences aren?t much better, though there are exceptions. I have known science reporters who couldn?t perform high school-level algebra ? even when they were in high school. Most couldn?t calculate a simple percentage if their lives depended on it. I?m not kidding.
When these folk start telling me what to make of new research, my first reaction is to look around for something to throw. Nevertheless, even Time magazine got its end-of-the-year wrap-up right when it listed stem cell research as the No. 1 scientific story of 2007. In fact, it probably understated the importance of recent stem cell research.
Stem cell therapies hold amazing promise. There?s little doubt that they will eventually provide treatments for cancers, spinal cord injuries, Lou Gehrig?s Disease, Parkinson?s, cancer, brain tumors, diabetes, various kinds of blindness, Alzheimer?s, heart disease and more. Their uncanny ability to transform themselves into exactly the right cell could even do away with the need for many organ transplants.
Two stem cell breakthroughs hit the news in the waning days of 2007. Both could win their discoverers Nobel Prizes. More importantly, they have redrawn the road map for the commercialization of stem cell technologies. For those of us wondering if the big health and longevity products will come too late for our financial and medical benefit, this is great news.
The first of these breakthroughs was the creation of cloned embryos from the skin cells of adult monkeys. The impact of this accomplishment, at the Oregon Health & Science University, is, frankly, monumental. Eventually, a cell swabbed from the inside of a patient?s mouth could yield perfectly compatible stem cells without the serious complications caused by immunosuppressant drugs. Dr. Robert Lanza, noted stem cell pioneer and authority, compared importance of this accomplishment to what breaking the sound barrier meant for aeronautics.
The manner in which this breakthrough came about, by the way, illustrates the nature of the accelerating technological transformation. Scientists realized that the lights needed for the high-power microscopes used in the cloning process were harming sensitive primate cells. They solved the problem with a seemingly unrelated breakthrough ? a polarized light microscope invented at the Marine Biological Laboratory using discoveries by Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, Inc. of Woburn, Mass.
This is a perfect example of the ?technological multiplier effect? that is driving the increasingly rapid increase in scientific knowledge. Increasingly, discoveries in one area produce unexpected benefits in other areas.
The second stem cell breakthrough was probably even more important. Two teams, one at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the other at Kyoto University in Japan, used a virus to add genes to human skin cells, creating pluripotent stem cells capable of transmuting into any adult cell type. This technology is not ready for human use yet, but it opens doors wide for further developments. Writer and M.D. Charles Krauthammer, who suffers from a spinal cord injury himself, described the breakthrough as one of the greatest since the discovery of DNA.
Just as those headlines were dying down, a third group, at the Harvard Medical School and Children?s Hospital Boston published the results of its successful efforts to turn human skin cells taken from a volunteer into stem cells using a slightly different technique. It must have been frustrating for the Harvard team, missing out by only months on the public recognition that went to the first two teams. That, however, is the nature of this new and rapidly changing field. The Harvard team did prove that the first results were not flukes.
The political impact of this ability to create stem cells directly from adult skin cells, without the intervening step of creating embryos, is huge. I?ll keep my eye on this lucrative opportunity as the headlines continue to flow."
Hey, y'all, kinda looks like things are movin' right along...!
"Stem Cell Discoveries Make Headlines
By Patrick Cox of The Penny Sleuth
February 22, 2008
When it comes to the sciences, the mainstream media almost never get it right. First, most of the editors who make the real decisions in the news business are scientifically illiterate. The reporters who cover the sciences aren?t much better, though there are exceptions. I have known science reporters who couldn?t perform high school-level algebra ? even when they were in high school. Most couldn?t calculate a simple percentage if their lives depended on it. I?m not kidding.
When these folk start telling me what to make of new research, my first reaction is to look around for something to throw. Nevertheless, even Time magazine got its end-of-the-year wrap-up right when it listed stem cell research as the No. 1 scientific story of 2007. In fact, it probably understated the importance of recent stem cell research.
Stem cell therapies hold amazing promise. There?s little doubt that they will eventually provide treatments for cancers, spinal cord injuries, Lou Gehrig?s Disease, Parkinson?s, cancer, brain tumors, diabetes, various kinds of blindness, Alzheimer?s, heart disease and more. Their uncanny ability to transform themselves into exactly the right cell could even do away with the need for many organ transplants.
Two stem cell breakthroughs hit the news in the waning days of 2007. Both could win their discoverers Nobel Prizes. More importantly, they have redrawn the road map for the commercialization of stem cell technologies. For those of us wondering if the big health and longevity products will come too late for our financial and medical benefit, this is great news.
The first of these breakthroughs was the creation of cloned embryos from the skin cells of adult monkeys. The impact of this accomplishment, at the Oregon Health & Science University, is, frankly, monumental. Eventually, a cell swabbed from the inside of a patient?s mouth could yield perfectly compatible stem cells without the serious complications caused by immunosuppressant drugs. Dr. Robert Lanza, noted stem cell pioneer and authority, compared importance of this accomplishment to what breaking the sound barrier meant for aeronautics.
The manner in which this breakthrough came about, by the way, illustrates the nature of the accelerating technological transformation. Scientists realized that the lights needed for the high-power microscopes used in the cloning process were harming sensitive primate cells. They solved the problem with a seemingly unrelated breakthrough ? a polarized light microscope invented at the Marine Biological Laboratory using discoveries by Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, Inc. of Woburn, Mass.
This is a perfect example of the ?technological multiplier effect? that is driving the increasingly rapid increase in scientific knowledge. Increasingly, discoveries in one area produce unexpected benefits in other areas.
The second stem cell breakthrough was probably even more important. Two teams, one at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the other at Kyoto University in Japan, used a virus to add genes to human skin cells, creating pluripotent stem cells capable of transmuting into any adult cell type. This technology is not ready for human use yet, but it opens doors wide for further developments. Writer and M.D. Charles Krauthammer, who suffers from a spinal cord injury himself, described the breakthrough as one of the greatest since the discovery of DNA.
Just as those headlines were dying down, a third group, at the Harvard Medical School and Children?s Hospital Boston published the results of its successful efforts to turn human skin cells taken from a volunteer into stem cells using a slightly different technique. It must have been frustrating for the Harvard team, missing out by only months on the public recognition that went to the first two teams. That, however, is the nature of this new and rapidly changing field. The Harvard team did prove that the first results were not flukes.
The political impact of this ability to create stem cells directly from adult skin cells, without the intervening step of creating embryos, is huge. I?ll keep my eye on this lucrative opportunity as the headlines continue to flow."
Hey, y'all, kinda looks like things are movin' right along...!