(October 20, 2010 at 1:18 pm)theophilus Wrote:(October 19, 2010 at 1:17 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: So the best way towards medical breakthroughs is being side tracked and potentially completely derailed to soothe the sentiments of religious nutters!It is beginning to look as if the best way towards medical breakthroughs is the use of adult stem cells.
Makes my blood boil.
Spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
Quick crash course in stem cells:
There are human embryonic stem cells (hESC) found in the blastula. For this bit we will look into the pluripotent, not totipotent cells.
There are adult stem cells that are of limited multipotency to unipotency, making them highly specific and for the most part useless.
Then there are induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) which are somatic cells regressed into a (pluripotent embryonic stem cell)-like cell using viruses and an incomplete batch of chemicals.
The problem with iPS is that we need to verify and complete the transition to an actual hESC analogue - however that is difficult if you don't have the hESC's to compare to.
hESC's are a step into perfecting iPS, a step that can be verified and manipulated to develop protocols and procedures for manipulation.
So no, adult stem cells (ASC)'s are not at all a way to go.
iPS are (because they're tailored for an individuals genome). But you cannot verify an iPS is identical in parameters to an hESC without an hESC to compare against.
