Nobel Awarded for Adult Stem Cell Innovations

[Crude]

Hey guys. Some good world news today.

Nobel Prize Awarded to Briton, Japanese for Stem Cell Work

Some choice quotes:

Two scientists from different generations won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for the groundbreaking discovery that cells in the body can be reprogrammed to become completely different kinds, potentially opening the door to growing customized tissues for treatments.

Basically, their work paved the way to making the equivalent of embryonic stem cells without the ethical questions the embryonic cells pose.

Great news, eh?

But here’s an aspect you should keep in mind.

Yamanaka deserves extra credit for overcoming fierce objections to the creation of embryos for research, reviving the field, said Julian Savulescu, director of Oxford University’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.

“Yamanaka has taken people’s ethical concerns seriously about embryo research and modified the trajectory of research into a path that is acceptable for all,” Savulescu said. “He deserves not only a Nobel Prize for Medicine, but a Nobel Prize for Ethics.”

The next time someone complains that people who were opposed to embryonic stem cell research - aka, killing the unborn and harvesting their bodies for precious, precious biological resources - were ‘getting in the way of science’, point this out to them. What actually resulted was that their objections to the means, but not the end, of the research promoted additional avenues of research, including one that’s well on its way to completely obviating fetal stem cell uses.

 

[Crescentinus]

 

[Julia_Mae]

About darned time!!

 

[ringil]

This is good news!

Many researchers with no inherent ethical problems with embryonic stem cell research are moving in the direction of adult cells.

I believe these are all-around good developments.

I understand that Michael J. Fox who was previously all about embryonic stem cell is putting much less emphasis on them.

 

[katcecelia]

Awesome! For those who have listened its not surprising adult stem cells can do it… I’ve actually heard they are more effective…Rewards come from working within God’s plan

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Awesome! For those who have listened its not surprising adult stem cells can do it… I’ve actually heard they are more effective…Rewards come from working within God’s plan

Embryonic stem cells have not produced -any- long term, viable results in terms of health advancement. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, have done wonders. This is why the Pope recently finished a book on the subject.

We love adult stem cell research because it’s using God’s gifts to further mankind. We had embryonic stem cells because it’s murdering children to do nothing.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Dr. Yamanaka’s group used cells grown from the kidney of an electively aborted healthy child in the Netherlands

Why are Catholics Praising the Nobel Prize Stem Cell Technology?

 

[Tenofovir]

A Japanese friend of mine says that instead of focusing on the success of this achievement, the Japanese media speaks of fraud.

ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201210130054

 

[Dale_M]

A Japanese friend of mine says that instead of focusing on the success of this achievement, the Japanese media speaks of fraud.

ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201210130054

I am not in Japan, so I can’t say whether your friend’s perceptions are accurate or not, but the example he uses doesn’t support his claim.

That same news source has given extensive coverage to the Nobel prize winner.

Nobel winner gives hope to boy for cure from rare disease
ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/people/AJ201210090075

Nobel laureate Yamanaka: I’ll supply premium iPS cells to other researchers
ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201210120054

After failure as a surgeon, Yamanaka rises to stem cell glory
ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201210090063
**
Radical approach, good luck opened door for Yamanaka**
ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201210090084

UPDATE: Stem cell pioneer Yamanaka shares Nobel with Briton Gurdon
ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/people/AJ201210080100

In contrast, the allegation of fraud made against Hisashi Moriguchi, who is a different researcher altogether, has only one story.

 

[Tenofovir]

My friend was speaking of Japanese language stories in the media and what is capturing peoples’ attention and not what the English services report for foreigners. He’s Japanese and he mostly reads / watches Japanese native tongue stories and only sent the English link for illustration. I hope you get the difference.

 

[Tenofovir]

Why are Catholics Praising the Nobel Prize Stem Cell Technology?

This particular research involved using cloned cells from an embryonic kidney of a child who would have been aborted anyway in 1972. The child wasn’t killed to harvest its kidneys. Consider it the same as using a liver, cornea or a heart or some other organ of a murder victim who was not murdered for the organ harvesting. Yamanaka did his research because using embryos is morally wrong and his work is not only worthwhile because it advances our knowledge without killing more children, but gives more proof, especially mainstream proof, that more can be done without having to resort to murder of embryos.
Plus it seems as the man himself has moral qualms about this issue or at least he sees a way of working around it, instead of like the majority of Western scientists, pushing for legalisation of infanticide and insensibly bulldozing to moral objections of Christian and other people who find infanticide for research or treatment wrong.

 

[_Abyssinia]

This particular research involved using cloned cells from an embryonic kidney of a child who would have been aborted anyway in 1972. The child wasn’t killed to harvest its kidneys. Consider it the same as using a liver, cornea or a heart or some other organ of a murder victim who was not murdered for the organ harvesting. Yamanaka did his research because using embryos is morally wrong and his work is not only worthwhile because it advances our knowledge without killing more children, but gives more proof, especially mainstream proof, that more can be done without having to resort to murder of embryos.
Plus it seems as the man himself has moral qualms about this issue or at least he sees a way of working around it, instead of like the majority of Western scientists, pushing for legalisation of infanticide and insensibly bulldozing to moral objections of Christian and other people who find infanticide for research or treatment wrong.

I do not see how this research is okayed by Catholic teaching. The research was done by using cells from an aborted baby. I bet many scientists have furhter adult stem cell research with out using cells from an aborted baby, it is supposed to be adult stem cell research after all

 

[Tenofovir]

I do not see how this research is okayed by Catholic teaching. The research was done by using cells from an aborted baby.

As said the baby was killed already and some organisation bought the kidney and cloned those cells. Was it bad to kill the child - YES. But the child was not killed for the purpose of gathering those cells and the tissue would have gone to waste. It’s akin to my example of finding a murder victim whose liver you can still salvage and using that in a sick person. Take the example of cadaveric transplants for example. Some of these cadavers come from murder victims. Should such not be used? The fetal kidney cells are not individual embryos mind you. This was not the case of taking an embryo and cloning it in such a way that each cell is capable of developing into a new baby naturally. This problem lingers with embryos generated for IVF purposes. There we have individuals who are frozen in perpetuity until someone incinerates them as bio-hazardous waste or they’re experimented on. That is appaling, I agree as those are individual human beings.

I bet many scientists have furhter adult stem cell researcg with out using cells from an aborted baby, it is supposed to be adult stem cell research after all

I think the success and prestige of this research is likely to lead fewer scientists down this worrisome path you described and more towards using stem cells which are not sourced from infanticide victims. Besides scientists already push for that. This research while not 100% morally good, leads us in a positive direction.

 

[_Abyssinia]

As said the baby was killed already and some organisation bought the kidney and cloned those cells. Was it bad to kill the child - YES. But the child was not killed for the purpose of gathering those cells and the tissue would have gone to waste. It’s akin to my example of finding a murder victim whose liver you can still salvage and using that in a sick person. Take the example of cadaveric transplants for example. Some of these cadavers come from murder victims. Should such not be used? The fetal kidney cells are not individual embryos mind you. This was not the case of taking an embryo and cloning it in such a way that each cell is capable of developing into a new baby naturally. This problem lingers with embryos generated for IVF purposes. There we have individuals who are frozen in perpetuity until someone incinerates them as bio-hazardous waste or they’re experimented on. That is appaling, I agree as those are individual human beings.

Where does Catholic teaching say it is acceptable to use cells from a baby that was aborted but not for the reason for gathering cells?

I think the success and prestige of this research is likely to lead fewer scientists down this worrisome path you described and more towards using stem cells which are not sourced from infanticide victims. Besides scientists already push for that. This research while not 100% morally good, leads us in a positive direction.

 

[_Abyssinia]

As said the baby was killed already and some organisation bought the kidney and cloned those cells. Was it bad to kill the child - YES. But the child was not killed for the purpose of gathering those cells and the tissue would have gone to waste. It’s akin to my example of finding a murder victim whose liver you can still salvage and using that in a sick person. Take the example of cadaveric transplants for example. Some of these cadavers come from murder victims. Should such not be used? The fetal kidney cells are not individual embryos mind you. This was not the case of taking an embryo and cloning it in such a way that each cell is capable of developing into a new baby naturally. This problem lingers with embryos generated for IVF purposes. There we have individuals who are frozen in perpetuity until someone incinerates them as bio-hazardous waste or they’re experimented on. That is appaling, I agree as those are individual human beings.

Where does Catholic teaching say it is acceptable to use cells from a baby that was aborted but not for the reason for gathering cells?

I think the success and prestige of this research is likely to lead fewer scientists down this worrisome path you described and more towards using stem cells which are not sourced from infanticide victims. Besides scientists already push for that. This research while not 100% morally good, leads us in a positive direction.

 

[Tenofovir]

Where does Catholic teaching say it is acceptable to use cells from a baby that was aborted but not for the reason for gathering cells?

Unless the cells are individual embryos or capable of being individual embryos the situation is the same as using a cadaveric transplant from a murder victim. Are you saying a Catholic may not be a recipient of a heart or any other organ from a murder victim?

The way I understand is that these immortalized cells which are cloned from the fetal kidney are not individual embryos, but stem cells further down the differentiation pathway. They are not capable of becoming new embryos the way when we give someone a bone marrow transplantation and we wipe out their bone marrow with radiation and chemotherapy we are not killing millions of people because the bone marrow stem cells are not capable of becoming embryos. Of course, If I am wrong and these cells are equivalent to embryos, i.e. left alone in the right environment each would yield a new baby, then this research murdered several million children, and I agree that is wrong, even 1 would be wrong.

Note also that this is a step in the right direction. The same as when the Pope said that a gay prostitute who puts on condom is at least stepping in the right direction although his actions are still morally bad.