Scientists Harvest Stem Cells Without Destroying Embryo

R

RickyH

Valued Senior Member
"WEDNESDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) -- In what could prove to be a medical milestone, researchers have succeeded in generating new lines of human embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo.

The breakthrough may enable scientists to circumvent the ban on federal funding of stem cell research, paving the way for gains in treating or curing diseases such as diabetes, spinal injury and Alzheimer's disease."

I clipped this article from http://health.msn.com/healthnews/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100143549&GT1=8404

If you want to read more into to it, go there.
 
I'd like to hear Spurious's input on this one.

I heard about it on the way home from work on PRI. Basically, they extract a single cell from an embroyo and then place it in a culture with a bunch of stem cells and the stem cells provide the proper medium to encourage the cell to grow as a stem cell.

The paper is in Nature. I don't have the exact citation. I'm sure Spurious is on it though.
 
invert_nexus said:
I'd like to hear Spurious's input on this one.

I heard about it on the way home from work on PRI. Basically, they extract a single cell from an embroyo and then place it in a culture with a bunch of stem cells and the stem cells provide the proper medium to encourage the cell to grow as a stem cell.

The paper is in Nature. I don't have the exact citation. I'm sure Spurious is on it though.
Click to expand...

the article said it boosted their funding, but not enough quite yet. So I wonder if they will even be able to continue their research. But if they are able to, this is something i'll spend alot of time looking into.
 
invert_nexus said:
No idea. You can bet your ass that several groups are getting on it right now though.
Click to expand...


I wouldn't doubt it. I just wish i had first hand knowledge of this...
 
invert_nexus said:
The paper is in Nature. I don't have the exact citation.
Click to expand...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature05142.html
Nature advance online publication 23 August 2006 | doi:10.1038/nature05142;


Human embryonic stem cell lines derived from single blastomeres
Irina Klimanskaya1,2, Young Chung1,2, Sandy Becker1, Shi-Jiang Lu1 and Robert Lanza1

The derivation of human embryonic stem (hES) cells currently requires the destruction of ex utero embryos. A previous study in mice indicates that it might be possible to generate embryonic stem (ES) cells using a single-cell biopsy similar to that used in preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which does not interfere with the embryo's developmental potential. By growing the single blastomere overnight, the resulting cells could be used for both genetic testing and stem cell derivation without affecting the clinical outcome of the procedure. Here we report a series of ten separate experiments demonstrating that hES cells can be derived from single blastomeres. Nineteen ES-cell-like outgrowths and two stable hES cell lines were obtained. The latter hES cell lines maintained undifferentiated proliferation for more than eight months, and showed normal karyotype and expression of markers of pluripotency, including Oct-4, SSEA-3, SSEA-4, TRA-1-60, TRA-1-81, nanog and alkaline phosphatase. These cells retained the potential to form derivatives of all three embryonic germ layers both in vitro and in teratomas. The ability to create new stem cell lines and therapies without destroying embryos would address the ethical concerns of many, and allow the generation of matched tissue for children and siblings born from transferred PGD embryos.
 
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