Home Menu

Site Navigation


Notices

Serious Debates & News Debate and discussion about political, moral, philosophical, celebrity and news topics.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 15-05-2013, 04:57 PM #1
Shaun's Avatar
Shaun Shaun is offline
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 106,482

Favourites (more):
CBB2025: Donna Preston
BB2024: Ali


Shaun Shaun is offline
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Shaun's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 106,482

Favourites (more):
CBB2025: Donna Preston
BB2024: Ali


Default Coming soon: human cloning?

Quote:
Human cloning has been used to produce early embryos, marking a "significant step" for medicine, say US scientists.

The cloned embryos were used as a source of stem cells, which can make new heart muscle, bone, brain tissue or any other type of cell in the body.

The study, published in the journal Cell, used methods like those that produced Dolly the sheep in the UK.

However, researchers say other sources of stem cells may be easier, cheaper and less controversial.

Stem cells are one of the great hopes for medicine. Being able to create new tissue might be able to heal the damage caused by a heart attack or repair a severed spinal cord.

There are already trials taking place using stem cells taken from donated embryos to restore people's sight.

However, these donated cells do not match the patient so they would be rejected by the body. Cloning bypasses this problem.

The technique used - somatic cell nuclear transfer - has been well-known since Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned, in 1996.

Skin cells were taken from an adult and the genetic information was placed inside a donor egg which had been stripped of its own DNA. Electricity was used to encourage the egg to develop into an embryo.

However, researchers have struggled to reproduce the feat in people. The egg does start dividing, but never goes past the 6-12 cell stage.

A South Korean scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, did claim to have created stem cells from cloned human embryos, but was found to have faked the evidence.

Now a team at the Oregon Health and Science University have developed the embryo to the blastocyst stage - around 150 cells - which is enough to provide a source of embryonic stem cells.

Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov said: "A thorough examination of the stem cells derived through this technique demonstrated their ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells.

"While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."

Chris Mason, a professor of regenerative medicine at University College London, said this looked like "the real deal".

"They've done the same as the Wright brothers really. They've looked around at where are all the best bits of how to do this from different groups all over the place and basically amalgamated it.

"The Wright brothers took off and this has actually managed to make embryonic stem cells."

Embryonic stem cell research has repeatedly raised ethical concerns and human eggs are a scarce resource. This has led researchers to an alternative route to stem cells.

The technique takes the same sample of skin cells but converts them using proteins to "induced pluripotent" stem cells.

However, there are still questions about the quality of stem cells produced using this method compared with embryonic stem cells.

Prof Mason said the field was leaning towards induced pluripotent stem cells: "It has got a lot of momentum behind it, a lot of funding and a lot of powerful people now."

Dr Lyle Armstrong at Newcastle University said that the study "without doubt" marked an advance for the field.

But he warned: "Ultimately, the costs of somatic cell nuclear transfer-based methods for making stem cells could be prohibitive."

Dr David King, from the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, warned that: "Scientists have finally delivered the baby that would-be human cloners have been waiting for: a method for reliably creating cloned human embryos.

"This makes it imperative that we create an international legal ban on human cloning before any more research like this takes place. It is irresponsible in the extreme to have published this research."
-hopes this sticks to regenerative medicine rather than a "clone your dead son!" Black Mirroresque fantasy-
__________________
Spoiler:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Saph View Post
You're giving me a million reasons about a million reasons

Shaun is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-05-2013, 05:07 PM #2
Marc's Avatar
Marc Marc is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 81,305

Favourites:
BBUSA17: John


Marc Marc is offline
Senior Member
Marc's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 81,305

Favourites:
BBUSA17: John


Default

Clone beyonce twenty times
Marc is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-05-2013, 05:15 PM #3
arista's Avatar
arista arista is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 184,017
arista arista is offline
Senior Member
arista's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 184,017
Default

Yes baby Arista soon
arista is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-05-2013, 05:24 PM #4
Marsh. Marsh. is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 79,976


Marsh. Marsh. is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 79,976


Default

Makes me think of The Island with Ewan McGregor.
Marsh. is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-05-2013, 05:46 PM #5
arista's Avatar
arista arista is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 184,017
arista arista is offline
Senior Member
arista's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 184,017
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by 08marsh View Post
Makes me think of The Island with Ewan McGregor.

Yes a Great Film
arista is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-05-2013, 05:47 PM #6
Marc's Avatar
Marc Marc is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 81,305

Favourites:
BBUSA17: John


Marc Marc is offline
Senior Member
Marc's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 81,305

Favourites:
BBUSA17: John


Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by arista View Post
Yes baby Arista soon
You don't need to resort to scientific breakthroughs arista, Lee is more than willing to bare your child
Marc is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-05-2013, 05:59 PM #7
arista's Avatar
arista arista is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 184,017
arista arista is offline
Senior Member
arista's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 184,017
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc View Post
You don't need to resort to scientific breakthroughs arista, Lee is more than willing to bare your child
She has not said that
arista is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Old 15-05-2013, 06:09 PM #8
Tom4784 Tom4784 is offline
Banned
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 45,095
Tom4784 Tom4784 is offline
Banned
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 45,095
Default

I've seen Never Let Me Go, I know how this ends.
Tom4784 is offline   Reply With QuoteReply With Quote
Reply

Bookmark/share this topic

Tags
cloning, coming, human


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 08:31 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Pro) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2025 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
 

About Us ThisisBigBrother.com

"Big Brother and UK Television Forum. Est. 2001"

 

© 2023
no new posts