Cloning Phoney

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From today’s LIFE NEWS:
Universities Will Investigate Hwang’s Stem Cell Research for Falsehood
****http://www.lifenews.com/hwang.jpgSeuol South Korea(LifeNews.com) – Seoul National University and the University of Pittsburgh say they will launch investigations into embryonic stem cell research and cloning efforts of Hwang Woo-suk to make sure none of the results in his studies were fabricated. The probes follow complaints that Hwang’s team submitted the wrong photos to the medical journal Science to accompany an article on the research results. SNU convened a meeting of senior officials at Hwang’s request and agreed to conduct an inquiry. Hwang is a veterinary professor at the college. “We have decided to re-examine the research because Dr. Hwang himself wants it,” Roe Jung-hye, chief of research policy office of the university, told reporters after the meeting, according to a Korean Herald news report. Roe said Hwang asked for the probe after the allegations came forward that he fabricated some of his research. Those questions came to light as Hwang was forced to apologize for lying about two of his female junior researchers donating their eggs for his experiments. South Korean scientists pressured Hwang to allow the inquiry. His original research claimed to have produced 11 different stem cells tailored to individual patients but critics say the photos just showed similar stem cells repeatedly. On Thursday, 30 SNU professors demanded that officials conduct an investigation. Hwang’s team admitted the photos were duplicate in the Science article, but said the research was authentic.

Meanwhile, the University of Pittsburgh is also investigating the team’s research because of the involvement of Gerald Schatten, who resigned from Hwang’s team when the egg donation cover-up came to light.
Hwang is expected to be discharged this week from the SNU hospital after admitting himself saying he suffered from severe stress and stomach ulcer.
 
Just more proof that cloning and embryonic stem cell research aren’t really about cures, its about who gets there first and who gets the Nobel Prize! Meanwhile, another scientists are quietly making huge progress with adult stem cells.

R. Taylor
www.MaryMeetsDolly.com
A Catholic’s Guide to Genetics, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
 
From Life News today:

Scientists at the University of Louisville say they have made a discovery of a certain kind of adult stem cell they say could drastically change the debate about embryonic stem cell research.
The researchers have reportedly found stem cells from adult mice to change into brain, nerve, heart muscle and pancreatic cells. The ability to take on the characteristics of other cells is the primary selling point for using embryonic stem cells, which can only be obtained by destroying unborn children in their earliest days.

The discovery could greatly expand the dozens of therapies and treatments already available from adult stem cells and the researcher say it could end the entire stem cell research debate.

“We have found a counterpart for embryonic stem cells in adult bone marrow. This could negate the ethical concerns,” said Mariusz Ratajczak, leader of the research team and director of the stem cell biology program at the university’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center.

Ratajczak told the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper that the next step is replicating the experiment with similar cells from humans.

He calls the new cells VSEL cells or “very small embryonic like” stem cells.

His team announced the findings at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology in Atlanta. His team will present a paper today showing how the embryonic-like adult stem cells repaired damaged heart tissue in mice having strokes.

“It’s huge,” Ryan Reca, one of the researchers, told the Courier-Journal. “It’s an amazing discovery.”

If the VSEL stem cells in human act like the special ones they found in mice and other scientists can duplicate the process, the discovery goes from “very important” to “incredibly important,” Dr. Stephen Emerson, chief of hematology/oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, where Ratajczak once worked, told the Louisville paper.

The research team says the VSEL cells also help overcome the problem embryonic stem cells have of patient’s immune systems rejecting the cells. A patient’s own VSEL cells could be used instead.
 
Even his partner is saying the research was falsified:
Hwang Partner: Embryonic Stem Cell Research Paper Was Falsified
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 15, 2005

**Seoul, South Korea(LifeNews.com) – **A leading member of South Korean human cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk’s research team says the embryonic stem cell research paper his team submitted to the journal Science was fabricated.

The paper highlighted Hwang’s team’s claim that they had successfully cloned patient-specific embryonic stem cells that would avoid a key problem associated with them – that they will be rejected by patient’s immune systems.

Full Story
Click to expand...
PF
 
What this is really about is big money since ESCR (embryonic stem cell research) has proven unfruitful in cures. Here is my article to my local student newspaper on the subject:
So many diseases, but so few cures? In her article, “Advancement stems from Research,” Amanda LaBonar touted the ‘potential’ cures of embryonic stem cell research that has been hindered by a lack of funding and support. That may have been true years ago, but new evidence as of now has refuted both her points.
Code: 
        First, ESCR has been hugely funded mainly through private donations.  Support from such people as Nancy Reagan, Mary Tyler Moore, Michael J Fox, and the late Christopher Reeves has brought much money to the efforts to find cures through ESCR.  Fox’s foundation has raised fifty million dollars so far as well as the Starr Foundation in New York contributing the same amount.  Most recently, California voters passed Prop 71 that allows for 3 billion dollars to aid in the research efforts.  Money or support is not what is lacking in progress of the research.

        What is lacking is success.  It appears that the ‘holy grail’ of cures found in ESCR does not hold water.  As of yet, there have been no successful cures derived from ESCs.  In fact, it may hold more potential for disaster.  In a study on mice with Parkinson-like symptoms, ESCs caused brain tumors in twenty percent of the mice and that was using a lower than recommended amount of stem cells.  An article in the March 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found that embryonic stem cells from stem cell lines have severe chromosomal abnormalities, some that appear cancerous.  If that is not enough to dissuade you, then noted ESCR pioneer John Gearhart’s words should.  In *Washington Fax* in 2002, he remarked that ESCs will probably never derive any useful therapies.

        Yet Gearhart said there is hope found in the non-controversial adult stem cells derived from individuals, umbilical cords, and placenta tissue.  As of to date, these cells have repaired damaged tissue in patients from heart attacks, assisted leukemia patients in the way of bone marrow transplants, have assisted paralyzed patients regain mobility, and there are many more success stories. Another advantage is that stem cells derived from the patient have less risk of being rejected by the patient’s immune system than ESCs.  Finally, it is much less expensive to obtain these stem cells and harvest them than ESCs.  Adult stem cells have been found in every major organ and appear sufficient to provide any type of desirable cell line.  ESCs would require paying women thousands of dollars to obtain eggs for one stem cell line.

        Big biotechnology seems to be driving the push for ESCR.  Several scientists pushing for ESCR are also CEO’s and board members of major pharmaceutical companies such as Thomas Okarma of Geron Corp and Harvad scientist Douglas Melton of Curis Inc.  They stand to make a lot of money from developing stem cell lines and obtaining patents.  Researchers are given financial incentives at universities to do ESCR.  First, they fleece America with high drug costs, and now they want taxpayer dollars for their costly ESRC.  Big bio is like big tobacco and will manipulate science for their financial gain.

        I echo LaBonar’s hopes of finding cures, but let us invest in proven, cost-efficient, ethical research that is achieving results today and not on something that may be little more than a pipe dream.
 
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