Cancer

Probably an urban legend.

But keep in mind that a lot of cancers are curable (and a lot of others aren't, unfortunately) - it's just that the cure isn't a magic potion, it's chemotherapy or radiation or surgery or some sort of combination thereof.

I'd never say its impossible, but it seems to me that a cure for cancer would be a pretty lucrative commodity in its own right.

Stem cell research may one day prove to be a cure for all cancers (and most everything else), but the government is doing all it can to prevent it because they're afraid of cloning. Cryo-Cell Intl, traded as ccel, stores ambilical cords for a fee in anticipation of this technology.

Cancer is not one disease. It involves a whole spectrum of many ailments. In the time that I have been around, many cancers that once were a death sentence, are now either curable or controllable.

I agree with Occom Bill. I do believe that the use of stem cells will enable scientists to made great strides in dealing with cancer. I sincerely hope that our next president will understand the importance of gving the scientific world free reign with stem cells.

Squeaks, we do have a cure for cancer but the reason it isn't out yet is because it is still in development and testing.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/article/0,12543,537964,00.html

Individual- Sounds promising, but it won't be the panacea for systemic non-soft-tissue cancers. I am very gratified to hear about this, but am convinced that stem cells are ultimately the way to go.

Interesting link Individual… Thanks.

Cancer is only one thing that embryonic stem cells may be able to repair. I've heard them referred to as the "very building block of life" because they have the potential to become any type of cell in the body depending on what chemical signals they get when they mature. In this study, they have actually repaired spinal cords in mice. http://tonytalkstech.com/2003/09/stem_cells_repair_spinal_damage.php
Drives me crazy that the government is asking science to ignore the miracle of embryonic stem cells in favor of less flexible adult stem cells.
So; how many lots of ccel would you like?
PS- If you don't like the source I provided; a simple search will provide dozens of examples.

Which type of cancer? Childhood leukemia ?

Re: human embryonic stem cells

This is something I'm studying at the moment, and I fuylly support further research in this area, but even for an atheistic moral relativist like me there is still some cause for misgivings. The potential for abuse is very significant, and in an open-source scientific world, if you will, anybody with the expertise and the funds will be able to take up cloning.

There is a slippery-slope argument to be made that I don't personally think should be overriding on this issue, but I do think it has some merit. Goes like this: when the debate was about cloning from embryonic nuclear transfer, many from the scientific community assured critics that this research would never extend to cultivating embryos in vitro. Now, that is exactly what Advanced Cell Technologies is doing. Now, I've no problem with what they are doing -- their embryos never proceed to tissue differentiation -- but now the assurance is that embryos will not be allowed to develop for organ harvest. And frankly, the thought of this makes me squeamish. Currently, most of the laws in the EU and the USA prohibit gov't funding for embryonic stem cell research, but there are no broad restrictions on cloning by independent parties.

Like I said, I support developing the technology, but the worst-case scenarios are possible enough to be unsettling. It's not an issue to be taken lightly.



(As a bit of not-so-trivial trivia, Orrin Hatch has on odd stance on the cloning issue. He has no problem with it, as he believes that any genetically human organism that does not result from the fertilization of an egg by a sperm in the uterus is not a human being -- which means, technically, that he does not believe that people conceived via in vitro fertilization are human. This is the level of thinking of the folks making decisions about this and other issues...)

Orrin Hatch sounds like an idiot. As for cloning; if we've learned anything; it is that you can not stop science. Embracing technology while regulating it would be more likely to slow the inevitable development of cloning. Just say no... isn't going to cut it. I believe it was a 1986 article in OMNI magazine that convinced me this was inevitable. They claimed that mice could be cloned routinely and that in the future only the Church and State would be able to prevent it as it just isn't that difficult. If memory serves, the article said the first splicing was done in a microwave in the break-room and that in the future a reasonably competent scientist would be able to accomplish it in his home, with minimal equipment. Is that true?

Depends on what you mean by minimal. Dunno about a microwave... The timetable keeps getting pushed back for humans, but there are no fundamental reasons why we shouldn't see success in the near future.

As for splicing -- well, gene insertion in some organisms has gotten to be old hat, though for obvious reasons performing them in humans is verboten. Hell, folks are doing it to make pets: http://www.fiberfish.com/GlowFish.htm

The biggest mainstream concern, as far as I can tell, is that people are going to try using cloning for reproduction. At this point, that's technically infeasible. The miscarriage rate is very high even when embryonic development proceeds, and there are still effects like large offspring syndrome that haven't been fully worked out. It's very difficult to transfer a nucleus in exactly the right state for development to proceed without abnormalities. The process will likely be improved immensely, but it looks like it will be years before the question of it even being practically viable to bring a cloned fetus to term will even be relevant.

I fully agree that it's going to happen regardless of legislation, and frankly a lot of the governmental posturing is in response to public opinion, which in turn reflects a generally poor misunderstanding of what "cloning" actually means. Hell, the more I read about it the more unclear I get, too.

(As to Orrin Hatch -- the University of Utah is a big player in the cloning game, so he may have been trying to come up with a stance that would appease both the substantial religious population in his state and an institution that is a major economic entity there.)

Here's a pretty good list of readings from the webpage of a course I'm taking, if you're interested. You may not be able to access some of it because of copyright restrictions, though...

http://worms.zoology.wisc.edu/classes/470readlist.html

Thanks for the links!

Let me know what's there. I'm supposed to have read them.

Interesting, Patio.

We have not banned it here - but are supposed to use established "lines" - is that the right name?

No new cell lines, you mean? Then you have banned somatic nuclear transfer...

(Unless I'm being stupid. I'm a physiology guy; very new to this stuff.)

Ok - what is somatic nuclear transfer?

Or should I go look up some of your links?