Ethical Stem Cell Breakthrough! "Like Turning Lead Into Gold"
A huge advancement in stem cell research--and a stake in the heart of human cloning--was announced today. Two different scientific teams have "reprogrammed" skin and other adult cells and reverted them back to a pluripotent stem cell state. (The altered cells are being called "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells" or iPS.) One of the researchers was James Thomson--the Wisconsin scientist who first derived human stem cell lines. As he wrote in SCIENCE (no link available):
The human iPS cells described here meet the defining criteria we originally proposed for human ES cells, with the significant exception that the iPS cells are not derived from embryos. (My emphasis.)This is a huge development. As would-be human cloner Robert Lanza, of Advanced Cell Technology put it in Wired, employing a fine and apt metaphor, "It's the holy grail. It's like turning lead into gold." And it is the reason why, as we discussed last week here at SHS, that Ian Wilmut has exited the human cloning business.
This puts a stake through the heart of therapeutic cloning. The justification for cloning human embryos, we were told, was to obtain "tailored" pluripotent stem cells from individual patients with specific diseases and disabilities. Well, that is precisely what reprogramming can do--with no need to exploit women for their eggs, no need for creating and destroying embryos, and no need to ban implantation. Now, cloning could still help with learning how to genetically engineer the human race, fetal farming, and birthing cloned babies--but these will never be supported by the American people. The ability to outlaw all human cloning now improves, and even if Big Biotech is able to prevent that--the money will dry up. After all, why spend billions of dollars and all those man and woman hours of talented researchers over perhaps a decade when we have turned lead into gold? And it is ethical!
As I wrote this morning in the NRO, President Bush deserves great credit for this breakthrough.
I believe that many of these exciting "alternative" methods would not have been achieved but for President Bush's stalwart stand promoting ethical stem-cell research. Indeed, had the president followed the crowd instead of leading it, most research efforts would have been devoted to trying to perfect ESCR and human-cloning research--which, despite copious funding, have not worked out yet as scientists originally hoped.We are entering a new era that would have been unthinkable just a year or two ago. The media will try to hedge and underplay the breakthrough. "The scientists" will say we need to do all of the research. But ethics have prevailed. I believe the drive to clone has been struck a mortal blow--as well, perhaps, as the need for ESCR using human embryos.
So thank you for your courageous leadership, Mr. President. Because of your willingness to absorb the brickbats of the Science Establishment, the Media Elite, and weak-kneed Republican and Democratic politicians alike--we now have the very real potential of developing thriving and robust stem-cell medicine and scientific research sectors that will bridge, rather than exacerbate, our moral differences over the importance and meaning of human life.
A great day for science and ethics!
Labels: Stem Cell Breakthrough
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:40 AM
48 Comments
48 Comments:
Well said! Who's the dumbo now? President Bush, or the stupid Liberals who rushed to jump on the 'progressive' bandwaggon without a thought either for the ethical implications or the potential alternatives. Let this be a lesson to them. Scientific progress can and must be ethically pursued. Otherwise we'll end up back in the land of barbaric Nazi medical experiments justified 'in the name of scientific progress'.
Think a little before you sign your petitions, Liberals!
Simon Young
World Transhumanist Society
worldtranshumanistsociety.com
thetranshumanist.blogspot.com
Do I detect sarcasm, Simon Young?
As insurmountably idiotic as Bush is... he got it right this time.... probably for the first time? And probably for the wrong reasons? hehe =) Anyways... GREAT F"$%$#%# NEWS INDEED! =) Time to get those Cures rolling! Wonderfull reporting Wesley, as usual :)
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I think that Direct Programming ( your new buzzword Wesley) is a wonderful achievement and it does underscore the importance of pursuing both adult and embryonic stem cell research.
Wesley you once said "A pluripotent cell is not a synonym for embryonic."
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2006/03/washington-post-calls-adult-stem-cell.html
but then you also said...
For readers who may not know: Liefethics.org is discussing early research in which a mouse's cell was reverted back to an embryonic, pluripotent state. The term "convert it into an embryonic form, and then make the cell mature," seems clearly to me to refer to making a cloned embryo, maturing it to the blastocyst stage, and then deriving ES cells, e.g., therapeutic cloning.
August 16, 2006
and
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Nature is reporting that scientists may be close to creating a protein "elixer" that would regress adult cells to an embryonic pluripotent state.
Can you please clarify the factual difference between pluripotent and embryonic stem cells so that your readers may understand why you feel this new discovery is so beneficial to pro-lifers?
I fail to see the difference between the ES cells and pluripotent cells other than the location, which to me says in essence that you are now supporting all forms of stem cell research as "the scientists" have been promoting all along. Welcome!
"The iPS cells were indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells in terms of their appearance and behavior in cell culture, they found. They also express genetic markers that are used by scientists to identify embryonic stem cells."
So your definition of when life begins is determined by the location of these cells in any random enucleated egg? and if these cells are not in a hollow egg in the Petri dish they are not human?
That is what your favor for Direct Reprogramming logically implies.
Dark Swan: No, a human life is an organism. A cell line is not an organism. It is just a cell line.
I can't believe that is such a hard concept. A stem cell is not different morally than any other cell. A liver sell is not a human being. A stem cell is not a human being. An embryo is a nascent, developing human being.
Biology 101 folks.
Dark: Not MY buzzword. It is what the scientists are calling it. Sigh.
The world has shifted. Get used to it.
reposted of previous response as it is pertenant to the discussion:
Embryonic (aka pluripotent) stem cells have been derived from only a skin cell.
the skin cell contains all 46 chromosomes, so it is not akin to sperm, which obviously only has 23 chromosomes.
The skin cell and resulting pluripotent cells contain all of the DNA info, the egg has nothing to do with it other than as a vehicle if you were seeking implantation (which no one is).
What egg the ES cells are located in does not matter to the resulting organism.
Today you are happy to report the regeneration of ES Cells without using an enucleated egg.
In your book if the ES cells are inserted into any random enucleated egg it is suddenly a person in a dish. Taking a pipette and removing the ES cells then those cells no longer constitute a person. But if you then insert the cells from the pipette back into another enucleated egg you suddenly have the same personhood again. Remove the cells from the egg, no person, put the cells in the egg a totally different egg, person, eehhh.
I find this mental gymnastics absolutely ridiculous!
It is or isn't a person, with or without the shell of any random egg!
And if it is a person outside the egg then every time a cell in your body dies you would consider it abortion, again ridiculous.
Wesley, I don't think Simon is being sarcastic. He's yet another example of a Transhumanist that is not an indiscriminate anarchist. There really are quite a few of us.
Lets not confuse issues here Wesley, any educated person know that a Kidney is the result of multipotent cells that are programmed to create Kidneys, so throwing that into the argument adds nothing except mud, lets stay on topic please.
furthermore, a cell most certainly can constitute an organism. Unicellular organisms are "Biology 101".
You say a stem cell is not a human being. I agree, so that leads me to believe you mean its the location of the ES cell in a random egg that constitutes a human being?
So according to your logic the prime factor in what makes a human are not the cells that contain the genetic information, but rather the location of those cells in an hollow egg that constitutes life. That's not very sound science.
I could easily make the same argument in opposition that says if that organism has not been implanted it is not a person.
It reminds me of a Russian doll.
When its convenient, you promote the argument that location of the stem cells inside an egg is human, and ES cells outside the egg are just ES cells.
Yet when the same argument is posed that the location of the embryo outside the womb is not a person, yet implanted in the womb is, you reject that. Seems hypocritical.
Dark Swan: It's only a Russian Doll because you insist on being confused.
The embryo at the blastocyst stage is not just stem cells. It also has the outer lining which becomes the placenta. It has other substances, etc. It isn't just a ball of cells.
There is no such thing as "stem cells inside an egg." That is just ignorant, junk biology. The egg ceases to exist when the embryo comes into being. Basic biology. Eggs are cells. Embryos are organisms. It isn't the stem cells that have value, it is the entire being.
I have never said there is a different value of an embryo outside or inside the womb.
A cell can constitute an organism. A stem cell is not an organism. A liver cell is not an organism. An egg is not an organism. A sperm is not an organism. A one-celled embryo is an organism, as is a 200 cell blastocyst that that one-celled embryo becomes after one week.
Sheesh.
The embryo at the blastocyst stage is not just stem cells. It also has the outer lining which becomes the placenta. It has other substances, etc. It isn't just a ball of cells.
So do you deny that you could pipette those cells from one enucleated egg to another and still get the same resulting organism?
The SCNT egg is not central to the makeup of the resulting person, use a different egg, same person, right? Right.
If the placenta of an egg is necessary to constitute personhood, then so should the placenta in a womb be a necessary ingredient for personhood, without either the organism will not develop.
so..Why the double standard?
but I digress, it is the ES cells that contain all of the intrinsic components of life, not the egg, not the placenta in the egg, not the placenta in the womb.
If you're going to maintain that a clone via SCNT is a person, then the ES Cells that make up that clone are "a person" - like I said remove the cells and stick them in a different egg, same organism.
All of this points to the fact that life is not an instant, life is a process. If I remove the ES cells from one egg and put them in another I did not just kill and recreate the same life. that life potential persists regardless of which egg it is located in. Once it is located in an egg it takes another step in becoming human, but of course it relies on the following step of implantation, which relies on further development for actualization of an individual to take place.
I say that to not consider pluripotent ES cells that could potentially become a person given the proper sequence the same respect that you give those cells when placed in an enucleated egg is to abandon all the moral imparitives that you have stood for all along
I have never said there is a different value of an embryo outside or inside the womb.
I never claimed you said that, reread it..sheesh, but you do imply there is a different value of the ES Cells based on their location outside or inside of an egg.
ES cells that have the potential to produce the same human as a clone, given the proper sequence of events.
therein lies your moral dilemma
"I could easily make the same argument in opposition that says if that organism has not been implanted it is not a person."
-- which you could certainly do, even though scientific fact would refute your statement. The WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA, for instance, states clearly that an embryo is "an animal or plant in the earliest stage of its development." No requirement of implantation there at all. No exception for embryos inside petri dishes. A canine embryo is a dog, an ovine embryo is a sheep, and a human embryo is a human being.
"...but you do imply there is a different value of the ES Cells based on their location outside or inside of an egg."
You are still confusing basic stem cells with an embryonic human being. Those opposed to ESCR in its current form are not opposed to "destroying cells," as many misguided and/or dishonest people argue. We oppose the destruction of a human embryo in order to OBTAIN those stem cells. A stem cell is not a human being, but a human embryo is. Hope that helps (but I doubt it).
"You say a stem cell is not a human being. I agree, so that leads me to believe you mean its the location of the ES cell in a random egg that constitutes a human being?"
((raises her eyebrow a la Spock))
Let's break this down.
An embryo is a small (*very* small) human being. The moment the sperm joins the egg, the two cells unite and become a single organism (an embryo). She has all the characteristics of a living organism - she eats, expells, grows, and reproduces (her cells). She has unique DNA that encodes exactly what she will be like physically due to its extensive programming. She has cells, just like adult human beings have cells.
Her DNA will program all of her cells over time. Right now, they don't have any specific jobs. They're pluripotent - able to become any kind of cells that her DNA programs them to become.
She is growing because the moment her father's sperm and her mother's egg combined, her body formed - though right off it's only one little cell. It's still her body, and her DNA is telling it how to grow.
Her little (very little!) body is made up of stem cells. These are just cells. They'll eventually become whatever her DNA programs them to become.
To get at those embryonic stem cells, you have to wait until the baby has grown from one cell to a bunch of cells. When that happens, the baby, who has her own DNA and fulfills the obligations of a living being as stated previously, gets cut up (thus killing it) and the stem cells are taken out of her body.
The stem cell is not a human being. It's a cell that's inside a tiny human being that is busy expelling, eating, growing, and reproducing (her cells) like all living things do.
The stem cell is not located in a random egg. It's located inside a tiny body. The body belongs to a unique human individual with her own DNA making her totally different in every way from her mother and her father, any brothers and sisters she may have, and every other human being on this planet.
Now, the pluripotent cells you get when you create them from skin cells are different. What you have is a grown up human being with billions of cells. This human being doesn't have to be destroyed to get at his cells. They're right there on the outside of his body. His cells are taken by scraping them off his bod. He doesn't need to be cut up into little bitty pieces to get at his skin cells. Once we have his skin cells, they are transformed through the power of science. They become pluripotent cells - cells that don't have anything particular they're doing until they're programmed by the person's DNA.
"So according to your logic the prime factor in what makes a human are not the cells that contain the genetic information, but rather the location of those cells in an hollow egg that constitutes life. That's not very sound science."
The moment the sperm cell and the egg cell combine, the egg is gone. The sperm is gone. In their place is a small person that eats, expells, etc. etc. ad nausium. At some point her tiny body takes a little circular shape and she has a hollow center. But the cells surrounding that hollow center are her body. That body has to be cut up to get to the stem cells that doctors and scientists want. Cutting up her body kills her. There's no bad science in Wesley's statement because there's no egg. The egg is gone. There's only a tiny baby with a tiny body.
"I could easily make the same argument in opposition that says if that organism has not been implanted it is not a person."
The moment the egg and sperm join, both are gone and what is left is a tiny person whose body does all the aformentioned stuff that a living being does. Sperm cells are created by an adult human body but do not perform the above mentioned functions because they are not living beings. They are *formed,* the do not do the forming. Likewise, an egg cell is *formed* by a woman's body. It does not do the forming. It's created by the woman's DNA, but it doesn't do any of the stuff that a living body does.
Implantation is not necessary for life because as soon as the sperm cell and egg cell combine, the baby is living, doing living creature things, and is merrily making her way to a place where she can implant herself so she can grow in peace until she's big enough to tackle the world.
"It reminds me of a Russian doll. When its convenient, you promote the argument that location of the stem cells inside an egg is human, and ES cells outside the egg are just ES cells."
Stem cells inside a human *egg* would be cells located inside a specific cell in a grown adult woman's body. Those cells do not do anything other than get formed and then expelled if no baby is forthcoming. However, there aren't stem cells inside an egg, not to my knowledg. And actually, an egg is itself a specific kind of cell. The stem cells you're talking about are found inside the tiny bodies of little living creatures. These creatures exhibit all the same characteristics of life that adult cats, adult humans, and adult bunnies exhibit. That's because they're living creatures. They're not big enough to face the world yet, so they stay in the mother's body for a time until she reproduces enough of her cells for her unique DNA to program them to be specific parts of her body - brain, eyes, skin cells - and she has enough of those cells put together to let her function in the world.
The stem cells created by human skin cells are taken from a person who is very much an adult, has all of his body parts, and can spare small amounts of his skin, which are scraped off; he does not have to be completey dismembered to reach those cells. His skin cells are readily available. They are adult skin cells that are, through the miracle of science, turned back into the same kinds of cells we find inside the tiny baby in her mother's womb.
"Yet when the same argument is posed that the location of the embryo outside the womb is not a person, yet implanted in the womb is, you reject that. Seems hypocritical."
The ES cells that are inside the embryo in her mother's body are located inside a very tiny human body. To reach those cells, you have to cut her apart and thus destroy the small organism that is reproducing, eating, expelling, and growing. Those cells are not embroys. They are simply the cells that make up the baby's tiny body. The embryo herself is a combination of all the cells her little body produces to make her bigger.
The cells outside the womb, as you put it, are cells made from the body of a grown person. He is not in danger of losing his life if you scrape skin cells from his arm. He is made of many, many, *many* cells. They are small parts of is body that can easily be replaced. An embroy is unable to replace her cells if you burst her apart to get to them - she is far too little to rebuild herself and, without the cohesive tiny body she has as an embryo, she will die. A grown man will not die because he has enough cells to rebuild what is lost. He does not have embryos on his arms - just skin cells. Those cells can become exactly like the cells inside the embryo's tiny body. However, they are not located inside an embryo's body. They can be reached without ripping open a baby's body. They can be gotten by taking cells that are easily replaced in a very big human. No need to cut open a baby's tiny body and thus kill her because she cannot rebuild herself fast enough to survive the onslaught.
.....you have the *weirdest* wording I've ever seen. I hope that I used small enough words and careful enough detail to explain why you are dead, pig-headedly wrong about what you interpreted in Wesley's writing, and why you are dead wrong about what ES cells really are and where they come from.
Im afraid you've started off on a false premise from the first sentence.
The moment the sperm joins the egg..
We were discussing SCNT vs Direct Reprogramming. Neither process uses sperm. So most of your references do not apply to what we've been discussing. Perhaps Wesley should make it clearer to his readership what the process of SCNT entails.
If you were trying to tell me how an egg is fertilized, thanks, but I got that one covered when I was 5.
The stem cell is not located in a random egg. It's located inside a tiny body. The body belongs to a unique human individual with her own DNA making her totally different
It is a undeniable fact clones do not have unique dna, thats why they are called clones. Furthermore, any woman's egg can be used in the cloning process SCNT. The resulting organism will not take on any inherited traits from the dna of the woman who donated the egg. Thus any random egg will still produce the same clone of the donor (in many cases, skin) cell.
and adult bunnies exhibit. cute, some of us call them rabbits.
Here is a very plausible scenario:
Take a skin cell and reprogram it to produce ES Cells via redirect programming.
Take those ES Cells and implant them in an egg. According to you I just created a person.
Remove the cells from the egg via pipette. According to you I just killed a person.
inject same es cells into another egg. According to you I have a new life again.
I don't interpret this as bearing and killing and bearing again because the intrinsic life form persisted in the ES Cells the entire time.
The result would be the same person regardless of who's egg is used or at what time.
Their is a state of life intrinsic to the stem cell itself once it is generated. The fact that they can be removed from one egg and thrive in another illustrates this. ES cells can generate a person and ES cells do die!!
The ES Cell has the potential to generate a life form and is alive by your standards, It is able to interact with other elements, given the proper conditions it will produce a life form.
You can say the same exact thing about a cloned embryo as direct programming, in both instances the ES cells carry the neccessary elements to generate a person.
and look at you all now...
defending the sacrifice of ES Cells which can develop into a person if given the chance, looks like some people just slipped down the slope...
Look, D.S., if you can't accept the basic biology -- which you have yet to address directly -- that an embryo is a complete, total organism, then we have no common terms according to which we might hold a conversation. Instead of talking plain biology, you rely on such quasi-mystical terms as "life intrinsic to the stem cell." Whence did it derive this "life"? From the aether? Furthermore, I believe you're the only one here to use the subjective term "person." The only purpose in using the word, that I can see is, to create an emotional distance between the alien thing that is an embryo (I've never seen one; have you?) and a walking, talking person, by way of absurdity: of course an embryo isn't a "person" in the usual sense of the word. How foolish we are to equate it with one. --Thus you attempt to discredit the opposing position not by addressing it in common, agreed-on terms or by using logic, but by mere rhetoric -- and not very subtle rhetoric at that.
In short, because you have shown yourself unwilling to discuss things like a reasonable creature, there's no reason to discuss anything with you at all.
You seem that hate James Hughes, Simon? Why?
you're the only one here to use the subjective term "person."
why your hesitation of calling the embryo a person?
-- which you have yet to address directly -- that an embryo is a complete, total organism
I have acknowledged the status of the embryo by referring to it as a person.
what more do you need spelled out?
I AGREE IT IS AN EMBRYO, its logically inferred by the context.
Wow that 2 zingers in a row. Wesley what are you feeding these people?
the embryo at the blastocyst stage is not just stem cells. It also has the outer lining which becomes the placenta. - Wesley
Again, Regardless of whatever enucluated egg you use the resulting clone will be the same.
as such, Cloned ES cells are egg independent - SCNT proves this, and now AS cells can be directly reprogrammed to generate pluripotent cells, they could be injected into a enucleated egg to create a cloned embryo.
The egg contibutes no information to aid in development of the ES cells into the next stage of the reproductive process. its merely a host vehicle for the ES Cells you call an embryo.
Yet you say those pluripotent cells have no value outside the egg, because you think only an embryo carries the thread of life.
I think thats a serious compromise on your behalf if you know that Given the proper location in the enucleated egg - those cells are capable of developing into a person.
Yet you play by a different set of rules when some one comes to you and asserts that only by location in the womb - an embyro is
capable of developing into a person.
Again, why the double standard?
Yawn.
"We were discussing SCNT vs Direct Reprogramming. Neither process uses sperm. So most of your references do not apply to what we've been discussing. Perhaps Wesley should make it clearer to his readership what the process of SCNT entails."
Yawn again. Okay. SCNT and Direct reprogramming - sperm = no, *kinda.* What is SCNT? It's cloning. Stick someone's 42 chromosomes into someone else's egg and stimulate it so it starts producing a baby person. Same exact thing that happens when you stick a sperm in an egg. How can that be, you ask? There's no sperm involved.
Right. But you're taking genetic material from Y and combining it with genetic material from X (egg cell has its own DNA, blends with guts from another person's cells, new small person is formed). The person is a unique character, and thus gets all the same benes as a baby produced the old fasioned way. ((eyebrow goes up)) YOU claim that SCNT is different beause there's no sperm involved. I specified the sperm-egg union in my earlier statement because there's no denying that the baby produced through the old fashioned way does everything I said. Eat, reproduce, etc. SCNT is simply another way of doing the EXACT same thing - making a small person that, from the moment it's stimulated, is alive. Eats, excretes, reproduces, etc. There's no difference except in the manner in which it happens. Now, lots of people deny that even if it happens the old fashioned sperm-egg way that it's just an egg or a blob of tissue. That's why I broke it down into baby words. All the way back to the sex ed you and I both got at 5. Because once we have the perameters set in place, and we know what I'm talking about, then any variation thereof is simply a variaton, with the same outcome.
"It is a undeniable fact clones do not have unique dna, thats why they are called clones. Furthermore, any woman's egg can be used in the cloning process SCNT. The resulting organism will not take on any inherited traits from the dna of the woman who donated the egg. Thus any random egg will still produce the same clone of the donor (in many cases, skin) cell."
1. The DNA in the woman's egg cell does indeed play a small part in how the baby's DNA is developed.
2. Having seen cloned cats which look and act nothing like the cat that they were cloned from, I had to ask about that. Seems that DNA in every individual animal will react differently once stimulated. That's why identical twins, who may look stunningly alike, will have different talents, different parts of their brains more active than others, have minor skin differences that are biological and not environmental, why they sometimes have differences in their DNA that makes it possible for them to be told apart, why they have different fingerprints, etc. DNA may be similar or the same in twins, but the two children created will be very different, because *how* DNA responds to being triggered is different. Clone a cat, and its baby may have differnet markings.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-01-21-cloned-cats_x.htm
From the article posted above:
'Rainbow is reserved. Cc is curious and playful.
Rainbow is chunky. Cc is sleek.
Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society might be inclined to say: I told you so. But then, so would cc's creators at Texas A&M University...'
'Experts say environment is as important as genes in determining a cat's personality. And as far as appearance, having the same DNA as another calico cat doesn't always produce the same coat pattern.
"This vindicates the opposition we espoused from the beginning, that cloning does not lead to duplication," said Pacelle, senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States.
"Not only does cloning not produce a physical duplicate, but it can never reproduce the behavior or personality of a cat that you want to keep around. There are millions of cats in shelters and with rescue groups that need homes, and the last thing we need is a new production strategy for cats."'
'Carlson said the company tells pet owners that cloning won't resurrect their pet and that the company has turned away some customers clearly interested in getting the same animal.
"In the short term, it's easy to exploit that misperception," he said. "But in the long term, it's unethical, and the pet owner will quickly find that, 'Hey, this isn't Fluffy, this puppy doesn't recognize me or know all the old tricks.'"'
If such variations are available in cats, even with the same DNA, then what kind of variations will you get in a human child who is cloned? Why do we get such unique variation between identical twins (born from the same embryo that split into two little embryos)?
HOW the DNA responds when it kicks in is equally important as what the DNA looks like. Its response between two people who share that DNA is totally unique. Twins, clones - doesn't matter if the DNA registers the same, the children have their DNA processed in different ways, and thus, the DNA is unique.
"and adult bunnies exhibit. cute, some of us call them rabbits."
It could look like I was trying to be cute - if I kill and eat them, I call them rabbits, as opposed to bunnies, which are bred to be four-legged children (i.e. pets). Since we're not discussing eating them, I went the bunny rout. (shrug) No big, just explaining.
"Take a skin cell and reprogram it to produce ES Cells via redirect programming. Take those ES Cells and implant them in an egg. According to you I just created a person."
If the reprogrammed ES cells are put into an egg, and the reprogrammed cells contain the complete 42 chromosomes necessary for human DNA to produce life, and if, should the combined egg/cells be stimulated, the egg/cell combo would start to divide, then what you have basically done is put together all the ingredients for a living baby, and since the only thing stopping the baby from growing is lack of stimulation (and from what I understand - I may be wrong and will be happy to be corrected - some scientists believe that in this situation there's a chance that the cells will start dividing spontaneously, without outside stimulation), then yes. You have a minature person. I agree. All of the ingredients for life are right there. The cells are integrated with each other. You've made a small person. Congratulations.
"Remove the cells from the egg via pipette. According to you I just killed a person."
Can you remove the cells without destroying the combination of skin-cells-turned-ES-cells and an egg? If not, you've taken the essence of life (a cell that has 42 chromosomes, all the genetic info to make a person, and the potential for that person to be born via stimulation or spontaneous action) and made it unlife. Yes. You've killed a person.
"inject same es cells into another egg. According to you I have a new life again."
42 chromsomes. All the DNA needed to make a child. Put into a perfect wrapper (the egg) to let it divide properly. Different egg - different combination of egg DNA and interior DNA. Different potential for the DNA to react in different ways once stimulated. Different environment. If you take an embryo and somehow manage to divide it up into twins without destroying either one - exact same ES cells found in both embryos. Totally unique human beings. Yes, you've made a new baby.
"I don't interpret this as bearing and killing and bearing again because the intrinsic life form persisted in the ES Cells the entire time."
Twins - totally different beings with variations in appearances, potential genetic diseases, voices, hair or eye color, etc. My neighbor across the street is an identical twin. Her sister's eyes were larger than hers. Their voices were different timbers. Her hair went grey before her sister's did. They were identical twins. Same ES cells the moment the embroy split into two little embryos. One embryo had those cells, and gave half to one sister and half to the other. Totaly and completely different people.
The intrinsic life has nothing to do with the cells. It has everything to do with the creation of a unique combination of those cells with an egg. Those cells may be identical when you move them from one egg to the other, but if you were to divide them in half and put one half in one egg and one half in another egg, you will get two totally unique, different individuals. You will get a woman whose hair goes grey faster than her sister's, or whose sister dies of breast cancer while she is cancer free her entire life. You will have people who are unique from each other. The cells are only a small part of life here. What you get is exactly what you get when you have a sperm meet an egg - once the potential for life is met, consider it alive, because once stimulated you will have a person who is totally different from his "parent" or from any "siblings" that are created from the same cells.
"The ES Cell has the potential to generate a life form and is alive by your standards, It is able to interact with other elements, given the proper conditions it will produce a life form."
A cell sitting by itself will not do the things that living beings do - eat, eliminate, etc. It will sit there and then die. If it's inside a living body it will do whatever the DNA tells it to before it dies. It becomes part of a living body when it's placed inside an egg cell and becomes capable of doing living things. It stimulates the creation of a living body. But without something to combine it with - an egg cell - it's just a cell. No matter what you do, it takes a combination of two cells to create a healthy whole. So are they alive?
(Personally, I do because I'm a pan-experientalist and I think even light waves have limited consciousness - are alive, yes - but that's going a little too far afield for this topic so I'm simplifying here. I'm bringing it up because I don't want someone saying, "Hey, aren't you being hypocritical since you've already said you think everything's alive?" I'm just simplifying so as to make the argument, not taking back what I said earlier.)
Are the cells by themselves alive? No, they don't do things that are living and without being inside a body with DNA programming to direct them they don't do anything.
"The result would be the same person regardless of who's egg is used or at what time."
Read that article about the cats, Rainbow and Cc. They're not the same person. Talk to any two identical twins - twins created out of the *exact* *same* *embryo* and who have totally unique physical features despite having come from the exact same ES cells. You will NOT get the same person. The difference will always be there - DNA will trigger X in person 1 and Y in person 2, even if they started out as one individual.
"Their is a state of life intrinsic to the stem cell itself once it is generated. The fact that they can be removed from one egg and thrive in another illustrates this. ES cells can generate a person and ES cells do die!!"
"There," not "their." Unless you meant "theirs," but that doesn't seem to work in this case.
And no - there is a state of intrinsic characteristics that can be triggered by DNA once the cells are put together with some kind of shell (egg) to allow them to grow into a person. ES cells can generate a person if they are put in the right conditions. Once put together properly, you get a working complete that will let DNA turn the cells into a baby. And without that working complete, you get cells that just sit there until, without anything to support them, they die.
"The ES Cell has the potential to generate a life form and is alive by your standards, It is able to interact with other elements, given the proper conditions it will produce a life form."
The ES cell, by itself, has the potential to generate life. It is alive once it is put into a position where it *can* create a new life. So far when you stimulate a cell by itself it may reproduce but it won't produce a baby because it is not put together in such a way for its DNA programming to start forming a little person. The proper conditions you mention must be met first. If those conditions are not met, then you have cells that sit there. To have life, you *must* have combination. An egg and something to fill it - genetic information from both parents or 42 chromosomes put inside from someone else's body. But there must be a combination. There must be an act of creation, or else, as I said, you get cells that just sit there and wait for something to give them instructions, or else they will die.
"You can say the same exact thing about a cloned embryo as direct programming, in both instances the ES cells carry the neccessary elements to generate a person."
And unless those elements are put into a creative environment, where two objects are put together to make a whole, you don't get anything but cells. But yes, in both instances, in lieu of sperm and egg cells, you need ES cells to combine with the egg cell to create a small being capable of having its DNA program its cells to make it into a larger person.
"and look at you all now...
defending the sacrifice of ES Cells which can develop into a person if given the chance, looks like some people just slipped down the slope..."
The cells are incapable of producing life if the required acts of creation are not met. A combination must be formed. Otherwise, you have nothing but cells.
If I take a scraping from my arm and turn those cells into ES cells, they sit there and do nothing until they die, because they are ES cells without instruction. There has been no act of creation. No combination. Stimulated, the cells might divide but they will not change into something new. They will do nothing but sit there.
Place those cells within an adult human body and the cells will interact with the DNA present in said adult, and, following the DNA's orders, will change into whatever is needed to fix the adult body.
Placed within an egg cell and the cells will, through the willful act of combination and creation, become as separate whole, which will create a unique individual who may be like my twin, but will be very different from me, with different talents, different physical appearances, different mentality, and different thoughts. Destroy the egg/cell combo, and you've destroyed that exact, specific person that that one egg combined with that one cell triggered in a specific way by its combined DNA. Put those cells inside another egg, you've once again performed an act of creation, and once again the individual will be unique.
It all goes back to the sperm and the egg, though people want to deny it. You need an act of creation to turn those cells into something bigger than themselves. If there is no act of creation, then there is no birth, no conception, no ensouling of the matter, because the DNA that writes our codes out doesn't trigger in the proper way to make a baby. It can't. You *must* create. Otherwise, you get nothing but useful cells. To be ensoulled, something must be *made," not just changed. Change a skin cell to a ES cell, and all you have done is changed something. Put a skin-cell-turned-ES-cell in an egg and you have performed an act of creation as surely as if you combined a sperm cell and an egg cell. The potential is greater than potential - it *will* happen. You basically have a baby on your hands waiting for the right conditions to divide, and there is a good chance that the baby might just *make* its own conditions by spontaneously dividing. Boom. Alive.
When a stem cell, *By itself* without any form of combination, suddenly starts dividing in the exact same way that an egg cell divides, to make a baby, then yes, I'll agree with everything you say, but until then, I stand by my conviction that God made humans to come into being by an act of *creation,* whether that be naturally or through SCNT. Humans have to be active in some way to make more of their own kind. Passively waiting for cells to spontaneously turn into babies on their own, without some kind of combination act, will not bring us a mini human. It will bring us cells waiting for either instruciton or death.
THIS is why I gave the "sperm and egg" lesson before. SCNT is *exactly* like sperm-egg conception. A human must take an active role in creating another human life. Unless we do so, we ain't got nutthin.
Now, this is strictly an aside- You don't have to read this, but this is in case anybody thinks my statement before was wonky given my philosophy. Feel free to ignore this.
I'm a pan-experientalist. I take the whole, "All of nature sings praise to God" thing a little more literally than other people. And no, I don't believe that the universe is part of God - He's outside of time and space so He's a totally separate entity. That part is strictly philosophy and you are free to disagree and I wont' be offended.
You can't get something from nothing. How can you get consciousness from unconscious matter? Impossible unless the matter has its own consciousness. So everything is "alive" in a sense. Even light particals/waves exhibit conscious behavior.
If everything is conscious all the way down and all the way up how can we do anything and have it be ethical? I believe everything we do is primarily an act of creation.
Plants use light to create food for themselves. Animals eat plants and combine the plant matter with themselves to create energy. Animals die and their bodies are recycled.
Humans have the most sophisticated programming in their bodies around. Moreso than any other animal, humans have DNA that encodes all the things we can do from talking to walking to riding bikes. Our DNA makes us unique - we can empathize with other people and anthropomorphise animals so we feel sympathy and empathy for them, too.
Therefore, any being that has human DNA is alive first of all because everything is alive, and second of all is exceptional because of the extraordinary information found in his DNA. Therefore, all beings that are human are people.
An ES cell is alive - its job is to do what the DNA program tells it to do. That's what all cells do - all cells are alive. Without the DNA computer code to hook it together to a human computer, the cell can only sit there and say, 'Error, error!' all day. Once it is somehow hooked up to a human computer, either by being injected in an adult human and joining with its DNA, or by being put in an egg and turned into an embryo, it starts to build as per its instructions.
An embryo can only come about through an act of creation. Otherwise you only have cells. Cells by themselves are meant to create inside a living organism. They exist strictly to follow DNA's program. That's their purpose. That's what they live for. Unless you have the right circumstances, a cell cannot become a baby.
Therefore, giving the cells work to do - having them fulfill their purpose - is not unethical. Taking cells away from work they're doing is only unethical if taking those cells means killing the person - the soul - that they belong to. So taking cells from me won't kill me, therefore my cells can be donated to do work in some other setting. Taking cells from an embryo kills the embryo. That's unethical. But you can't mistreat the cells themselves, only the organisms the cells belong to.
Mr. Smith- great news!
Swan- by your logic, there's no difference between a person and a dismembered hand, if there is no difference between an embryo and a stem cell line.
An embryo can only come about through an act of creation.
Define act of creation.
ES cells will naturally go through a process of differentiation in culture regardless of whether or not they are implanted in an egg.
If they are not in the proper location(the embyro) they die.
The embryonic cell is another phase in development of a potential human, without location in the womb it will die the same as ES cells will die without location in the egg.
Once the embyro is located in the womb the ES cells will continue to develop. Without location of the embryo in the womb it will attempt to carry on its process but will die without proper location
It is not the signaling that constitutes life, otherwise a preimplantation embryo would not be considered life, as it is not getting signaled from the mothers womb to develop.
It is the cells that can be triggered that are in fact the essence of life.
Cells by themselves are meant to create inside a living organism. They exist strictly to follow DNA's program...Unless you have the right circumstances, a cell cannot become a baby...
Taking cells from an embryo kills the embryo. That's unethical. But you can't mistreat the cells themselves, only the organisms the cells belong to.
well you consider the zygote an embryo right?
The zygote is a single cell and you consider it an organism. That orgainism will execute its process of celldivision regardless of its location, however it will die if its not in the proper location to continue the life process.
The same is true for ES cells in culture. They will continue renew and differntiate themselves regardless of the location.
The embryo becomes a cell and divides in the womb in a similar fashion that the cloned ES cell or zygote divides in the embryo. This illustrates that life preceeds the embryo.
a cell that has 42 chromosomes, all the genetic info to make a person - T E Fine
LOL...enough said, go back to 6th grade Biology.
Dark Swan -
A little personal comment before we get to the meat of everything - I'm having a blast! Thank you for the fun debate and for being a serious contender in the debate. I haven't had this much fun in a long while and I enjoy your wit and your tone. I think you're dead wrong, but I'm happy that we can talk like this.
Unfortunately, with the holiday coming up, I ended up getting elected to cook the turkey this year, meaning I have to start putting everything togeter tonight (Wednesday) so I can come home from work and cook for the parents, siblings, nephew and in-laws. I probably won't have much time to continue with our debate for the next two days. And I may not be online on Friday as I may have to babysit the above-mentioned nephew.
I want to continue this on Saturday (I'm off from work in the morning), but I didn't want you to think I was abandoning ship, and I was wondering if we could pick this up in a different thread later on.
That's the sucky thing about an online debate - everybody's working or home at different times, the turkey needs to be cooked, etc. etc. :-(
Shall we agree to meet up on Saturday? I'm looking forward to it.
Have a great holiday and I'll see you this weekend.
By the way, you're welcome to call me Tabs, same as everyone else.
<3
...P.S. - You're still wrong. :-D
"ES cells will naturally go through a process of differentiation in culture regardless of whether or not they are implanted in an egg.
If they are not in the proper location(the embyro) they die."
You're still confusing an embryonic stem cell with the embryo himself/herself. People are not concerned with the destruction of embryonic stem cells; they are concerned with the destruction of the human embryos themselves.
"This illustrates that life preceeds the embryo."
Yes, LIFE precedes the embryo, as a sperm is "life," an ovum is "life" and, yes, your hair is "life." But none of these, alone, constitute a human being. That entity we don't have until fertilization (or cloning, should that ever work).
TE Fine: "Unfortunately, with the holiday coming up, I ended up getting elected to cook the turkey this year, meaning I have to start putting everything togeter tonight (Wednesday)..."
All the more reason to join me by going the veg route. Happy Tofu Day, everyone!
"All the more reason to join me by going the veg route. Happy Tofu Day, everyone!"
It's 9pm CST and I'm turkey-ed out already! We only do turkey once a year. Christmas it's penne pasta, lasagna, and gnocchi in marinara sauce, with red wine and chocolate cake for dessert, plus esperesso Italian style.
I may actually consider doing the non-meat thing for Thanksgiving if I get stuck cooking again next year, except the in-laws would be disappointed. My bro and his wife are pagans of the "let's go out in the woods and live off the land" variety - he's the guy who taught me how to kill and eat rabbit.
Cue the shuddering.
So he'd be upset if there wasn't a dead animal on the table. Whatcha gonna do?
Personally, though, even non-meat dishes can take forever to cook. Ever made a lasagna from scratch? Ark. And potato gnocchi takes *forever* to kneed - the best thing about pasta, though, is it's easy to do the actual cooking. Bake the lasagna, boil the pasta, and then serve with tomato sauce.
See everybody on Saturday.
Yes, LIFE precedes the embryo, as a sperm is "life," an ovum is "life" and, yes, your hair is "life." But none of these, alone, constitute a human being. That entity we don't have until fertilization (or cloning, should that ever work).
Your not comparing apples to apples here.
Sperm 23 - Ovum 23 chromosomes - haploid doe not constitute a full organism. BUT ES cells contain a full set of 46 diploid chromosomes and are fully capable of producing a person.
The ES Cells are alive, capable of being fused with an egg and the result being implanted to produce a person.
If the ES Cells die, so does the person that would have resulted given the proper care not to kill the ES Cells.
The ES Cell in culture is able to maintain a state of being alive, able to be fused and implanted in to any egg and womb at any time.
ES cells are every bit as viable as a SCNT embryo, yet you refuse to give the life recognition due to its location outside of the embyro.
Id say that a pretty steep cliff to back yourself up against as an ethicist who has not given much consideration to the ramifications fo the life formed by Direct Reproramming
....Have I yet done my wail of sorrow for modern education?
Swan, if you cut off a bit of your finger, it also has the right number. It is still not a person, and still not alive.
You're confusing the idea of an organism with the DNA in that organism.
For that matter, a man who has been shot and killed has the same DNA as that man five hours before, when he was alive-- that does not mean that he is alive.
So Fox if you cut off your finger, how many Embryonic stem cells are there waiting to develop into a human being? -None-
Your comparing Adult Skin Cells to Embryonic Skin cells in this instance.. not a valid comparison.
The ES Cells are waiting to produce a person given the proper location. The same exact way a pre implantation embryo is awaiting location in the womb to continue development.
The ES Cell is the essence of life by its intrinsic properties regardless of location.
It amazes me that you all support the destruction of active cells able to persist in culture and sustain the necessary elemets to generate human life, because it doesnt meet your vague requirements even though the question is days old. How quickly you rush to judgement and justify the kill.
if you cut off your finger, how many Embryonic stem cells are there waiting to develop into a human being
Depends on if you count before or after they've been altered.
Not fused to an egg, but simply told "act like you did before you formed "finger."
You keep equating "embryonic stem cell made by rewinding adult stem cell" to "embryonic stem cell made by tearing it from a tiny human."
Real ESC require the death or harm of a small human--for example, the cloning method of putting a cell into an egg and shocking it to make a copy produces a living organism, while taking a cell and telling it to turn back the clock does not.
Look, I am glad that there is someone standing there to yell "Hey, slow down, think about this!"-- it's a very important function.
However, we've finally found a way to *make* embryonic stem cells without hurting babies-- kind of like how you can take bone morrow so you have a nice bunch of adult stem cells, without hurting adults.
As much as I dislike referring to wiki, please go read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism
there's some good information on, well, basically it explains how a blueprint and a bit of building supplies isn't the same as a house. The metaphor isn't perfect, but it should do....
This comment has been removed by the author.
You keep equating "embryonic stem cell made by rewinding adult stem cell" to "embryonic stem cell made by tearing it from a tiny human."
I'm willing to just refer to them as pluripotent cells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism
Semantics
The word "organism" may broadly be defined as an assembly of molecules that influence each other in such a way that they function as a more or less stable whole and have properties of life.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines an organism as "[an] individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form"
Chambers Online Reference provides a much broader definition: "any living structure, such as a plant, animal, fungus or bacterium, capable of growth and reproduction"
It would seem the cell contains the requirements to meet the broad definition of an organism. Its just a foreign concept because you've never had to think about a person in the context of a cell that preceded the egg as being possible before the potential of Direct Reprogramming. Those cells are generated by instruction to turn themselves into the genetic structure of an individual that if placed in an egg and in a womb could produce a baby. The cells are individually viable once they are formed.
Semantics are rather important, actually. Words have meaning.
They are pluripotent cells-- that doesn't make them inherently bad, same way that blood isn't inherently bad. You can draw blood for donation, to save lives without harming the giver, or you can draw blood and kill the donor.
It would seem the cell contains the requirements to meet the broad definition of an organism.
Actually, no. The stem cells themself are not able to reproduce by simply being put in an area that won't kill them-- as opposed to an embryo, which will grow.
Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell
First line: Stem cells are cells found in all multi-cellular organisms.
They're not one-cell organisms, be they pluripotent or adult types. They're just a *part* of an animal.
Those cells are generated by instruction to turn themselves into the genetic structure of an individual that if placed in an egg and in a womb could produce a baby.
....By putting them in an egg, you'd be cloning.
As evidenced by Dolly, adult cells put into an egg and implanted could produce a baby.
The act of inserting the genetic information into the egg and getting it to grow causes a life to start-- it creates an organism.
Semantics are rather important, actually
Good, im glad that you provided the link to wiki that proves the semantics of the word organism applies to isolated pluripotent cells.
They are pluripotent cells-- that doesn't make them inherently bad, same way that blood isn't inherently bad.
Pay Attention. Ok I make the point for you one more time, but if you keep ignoring it I can't help you make credible comparisons fox.
A stem cell is not comparable to a blood cell. A blood cell is not pluripotent and does not have the same capability to produce a human by its own action if placed in the proper location. An pluripotent cell does!!
The claim that a pluripotent cell is not an organism because it starts as a single cell is also not a good argument in my opinion. A zygote, which you fully consider human, is a single celled organism, incapable of sexual reproduction, that relies on external stimulus from the womb to develop.
The pluripotent cell acts much in the same way.
If a cell is Directly Reprogrammed it is never *part* of another organism as the pluripotent cell is generated in vitro. It becomes a viable life form by transformation, without ever interacting with any other cells. It carries on properties of an organism, as defined by your Wiki link, it maintains an individual state of being alive in culture, its capable of reacting to stimulus, its capable of self renewal, capable of differentiation (growth).
The stem cells themselves are not able to reproduce by simply being put in an area that won't kill them-- as opposed to an embryo, which will grow.
Your assertion is absolutely false! PS cells in culture are capable of self renewal (do you know what that is). PS cells will also differentiate and express themselves through executuion of functions designed to reach the next stage of human development. If the external requirements are not there to support the organism it will die, the same as an embryo.
"Pluripotent ES Cells can develop into many types of differentiated tissues if they are placed into a differentiating environment. This can occur in vivo when the ES Cells are injected into or aggregated with an embryo, or in vitro if their culture conditions are modified to induce differentiation." - Manipulating the Mouse Embryo, pg 369. Cold Spring Harbor Lab Press
The egg will not likely be needed to artificially support growth of a real person in vitro if/when synthetic stimulus is able to trigger growth of the cell culture in vitro.
The act of inserting the genetic information into the egg and getting it to grow causes a life to start-- it creates an organism.
and yet you all will likely be the first to complain when it is shown the egg is no longer necessary to create life from these cells in vitro.
The act of inserting the genetic information into the egg and getting it to grow causes a life to start-- it creates an organism.
Not quite right. You're not only inserting genetic information, but the intrinsic ability to execute the function of that DNA. Inserting a viable life form into an environment that will allow for nourishment and signaling to continue the development of the ES cells is not the moment of personhood. Creation of the initial ES cell is. The same way that implanting an embryo in the womb and signaling to continue the development of the fetus, but you don't consider the fetus to be the beginning.
The claim that a pluripotent cell is not an organism because it starts as a single cell is also not a good argument
I agree; good thing I didn't claim it, eh?
I'm saying it's not an organism because it doesn't meet the requirements to be an organism, to whit: it is not an individual system able to react to stimuli, reproduce, grow or maintain itself. (If you can prove that the cells, in and of themselves, are able to do so-- please do.)
Any attempt to say that it can do so if only it's put into an egg would have to thus redefine every cell of a body into an organism in and of itself, as the act of inserting a cell into an egg is called "SCNT cloning;" a zygote is formed artificially.
You are aware that the egg isn't just some kind of a sack, right? Even when mauled for use in cloning, there is still "information" in the egg-- mitochondrial DNA, for starters. (Which is why a lot of folks are...worried about the plan in GB to use cow eggs in some human cloning.)
And that cord blood and such are pluripotent cell sources as well? And that adult stem cells are *nearly* as versatile as the pluripotent ones? (And totipotent cells beat them all out-- now that, I think we'll agree on it being an organism. By definition, totipotent cells can make all the parts of a new organism, since that's the fancy class-word for the fertilized egg and the cells it makes for a little while after that, before they start specializing into pluripotent, and eventually multipotent-- AKA, embryonic and adult stem cells. And yes, I had to look up all the spellings--it's been a few years since science class.)
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/faqs.asp basic question #2--and I know the NIH isn't on the same side as either of us.
Embryonic stem cells are just a lot easier to get-- humans that are able to walk around don't have as much of the right cells in them, and tend to be upset when you chop them apart to get at the stem cells; embryonic stem cells can also be cultured for longer, giving an even bigger supply.
It also lets folks blind themselves to the reality that they're doing human experimentation, but that's a whole 'nother rant.
I'm saying it's not an organism because it doesn't meet the requirements to be an organism, to whit: it is not an individual system able to react to stimuli, reproduce, grow or maintain itself. (If you can prove that the cells, in and of themselves, are able to do so-- please do.)
Could you please explain to me how you think an embryo reproduces?
The PS Cell is able to maintain a persistant state of being alive as individual cells in culture. ES cells are able to self renew or differentiate based on external stimulus. Read about how stem cell markers react to stimulus.
http://www.cellsignal.com/pathways/stem_cell.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TCX-46P9N8N-H&_user=1794971&_coverDate=09%2F01%2F2002&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000054599&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1794971&md5=dff54533fbf3e48df8c4f6a4ffd9778d
Abstract
Pluripotent mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells can be expanded in large numbers in vitro owing to a process of symmetrical self-renewal. Self-renewal entails proliferation with a concomitant suppression of differentiation. Here we describe how the cytokine leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF) sustains self-renewal through activation of the transcription factor STAT3, and how two other signals – extracellular-signal-related kinase (ERK) and phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase (PI3K) – can influence differentiation and propagation, respectively. We relate these observations to the unusual cell-cycle properties of ES cells and speculate on the role of the cell cycle in maintaining pluripotency.
Mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells are the in vitro counterparts of an in vivo population of cells, known as the epiblast, that are specific to the early embryo [1, 2 and 3]. Epiblast cells are pluripotent, which means that an individual cell can give rise to all cell types of the foetus. ES cells retain the developmental identity and potential of the epiblast even after prolonged culture. This has been shown conclusively by their complete integration into a developing embryo after being reintroduced into the blastocyst [4]. ES cells can efficiently colonize the germ line, resulting in chimaeric animals. These produce functional gametes, which allows ES cells to be used as vehicles for introducing sophisticated genetic modifications into mice [5]. ES cells can also undergo multilineage differentiation in vitro and produce a range of well-differentiated progeny [6 and 7]. Currently there is considerable interest in the prospect of exploiting this potential in analogous human pluripotent cells [8] to generate specific, differentiated types of cell for drug development, for therapies based on cell replacement, and for delivering gene therapies.
What other proof do you require or dispute?
Could you please explain to me how you think an embryo reproduces?
By maturing into the adult form of that organism, producing egg or sperm and starting the cycle over again. (There are a few variations, but I'm sticking to vanilla, human-type reproduction.)
The first link you give seems to be a listing of the types of cells, not evidence of stem cells responding to external stimulation. From a quick read of the first few links, they're side-effects of vaccinating rabbits.
I think part of the problem is that we're talking past each other-- English is very varied, but the words that science uses have pretty precise meanings.
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/maderinquiry/crit3ans.html
and
http://biology.about.com/od/apforstudents/a/aa082105a.htm
might help you out.
The word "life" can mean either "not dead" or "a functioning organism." This is where you funky things like trying to figure out when someone is really dead-- if my head is removed, I'm dead. But there are cells that will not be dead for quite a while; if I have a heart attack, many of the cells will die, but I may live. Shoot, there's still arguments if viruses are alive or not....
Burn victims often have skin samples taken, cultured into a larger bunch of cells and re-applied. History in link:
http://www.medbc.com/annals/review/vol_7/num_4/text/vol7n4p206.htm
For your second link, only the first paragraph is listed. Translated into simple English, it basically says "cells of X type can be cultured with Y technique."
Seeing as no-one here has said you *can't* culture cells, this really isn't very relevant.
The root of this whole argument seems to be that you believe that Pluripotent cells are 1) able to form a full creature and 2) count as an organism when cultured.
http://www.counterbalance.net/stemtp/stemc-body.html
On the top we find totipotent (totally potent) stem cells, which are capable of forming every type of body cell. Each totipotent cell could replicate and differentiate and become a human being. All cells within the early embryo are totipotent up until the 16 cell stage or so.
Next are the pluripotent stem cells which can develop into any of the three major tissue types: endoderm (interior gut lining), mesoderm (muscle, bone, blood), and ectoderm (epidermal tissues and nervous system). Pluripotent stem cells can eventually specialize in any bodily tissue, but they cannot themselves develop into a human being.
Also:
http://www.counterbalance.net/biogloss/blasto-body.html
To paraphrase, embryonic stem cells are the guts of a Blastocyst, ie, are just chunks of an organism.
In theory, science could find a way to make the ES cells act as if they are in a Blastocyst and eventually develop into an organism-- maybe. But that no more makes the ES cells an organism than the cloning of Dolly made sheep skin cells an organism.
there is still "information" in the egg, mitochondrial DNA, for starters.
Yes, but the dna in the mitochondria does not express vectors that become a part of the Fetus itself. Extra embryonic cells are environmental factors that constitute the development of an individual whether in a lab dish, a womb, a school, or a city.
Totipotent cells indeed give rise to 2 basic cell types embryonic and extra embryonic.
The extra embryonic material you refer to is not actually part of the fetus that will turn into a person, it is the shelter, nutrition, and reacts to chemical signals.
You can pin this exact same scenario to a fetus developing in the womb. If those ES cells are reliant on placenta of an embryo, then so is the embryo reliant on the placenta of the womb.
The embryo is a tiny womb for the PS cells which will cease to grow and function as an organism until you put it into the womb.
An organisms characteristics developed by these external circumstances are result in its phenotype. this is how twins may wind up slightly different. Same DNA different reactions to external events.
This development is referred to as Phenotype.
A simple example of phenotypic development is found in the social insects, colonies of which depend on the division of their members into distinct castes, such as workers and guards. These two castes differ dramatically in appearance and behavior. However, these differences are not genetic; they arise during development and depend on the manner of treatment of the eggs by the queen and the workers, who manipulate such factors as embryonic diet and incubation temperature. The genome of each individual contains all the instructions needed to develop into any one of several 'morphs', but only the genes that form part of one developmental program are activated.
Phenotype by definition acts on an existing organism. The location of the PS cells will determine phenotype but will not compromise the integrity of the genotype of the developing organism.
The first link you give seems toresul be a listing of the types of cells, not evidence of stem cells responding to external stimulation.
Actually they are antibodies that aid in the study of stem cell markers, which change over time, to view effects of various signaling but..
Lets try something a bit more straight forward
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1838514
A newly discovered small molecule called IQ-1 plays a key role in preventing embryonic stem cells from differentiating into one or more specific cell types, allowing them to instead continue growing and dividing indefinitely, according to research performed by a team of scientists who have recently joined the stem-cell research efforts at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.
Their findings are being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This discovery takes scientists another step closer to being able to grow embryonic stem cells without the “feeder layer” of mouse fibroblast cells that is essential for maintaining the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells, says the study’s primary investigator, Michael Kahn, Ph.D., who was recently named the first Provost’s Professor of Medicine and Pharmacy at USC. Such a layer is needed because it is currently the only proven method to provide the stem cells with the necessary chemical signals that prompt them to stay undifferentiated and to continue dividing over and over.
“If we can create a totally chemically defined system for growing human embryonic stem cells without any risk of contamination, it would make life much easier for scientists than it is at the moment,” says Kahn. “And that’s our goal.” “Kahn’s study provides us with striking new insights into the molecular regulatory machinery inside embryonic stem cells,” adds Martin Pera, Ph.D., director of the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine. “His team has identified a chemical that controls a critical switch that enables stem cells to multiply indefinitely in the laboratory. These findings will help lead to the development of new techniques to propagate pure populations of embryonic stem cells on a large scale, an essential prerequisite to the successful development of stem cell based therapies.”
So here we have debunked the idea that ES cells do not respond to stimuli. Shall we proceed unless you have a further objection.
So here we have debunked the idea that ES cells do not respond to stimuli. Shall we proceed unless you have a further objection.
Chemical stimuli =/= environmental stimuli.
Seriously, dude, go read the actual definitions! I'm not going to waste any more time if you won't even go that far!
Could you please explain to me how you think an embryo reproduces?
By maturing into the adult form of that organism, producing egg or sperm and starting the cycle over again.
So in other words, No. An embryo itself does not reproduce any more than ES Cells do. It is only at a mature stage of development that either of these organisms are capable of sexual reproduction.
http://www.counterbalance.net/biogloss/blasto-body.html
To paraphrase, embryonic stem cells are the guts of a Blastocyst, ie, are just chunks of an organism.
No, not even close to what it says. It says there is placenta and ES cells in a blastocyst, nothing new there.
As Ive said many times and has been proven, the ES cell is capable of existing Independently of the placenta, and is capable of being recombined with any placenta (a phenotype) to generate a person, regardless the underlying DNA of the individual remains the same.
In theory, science could find a way to make the ES cells act as if they are in a Blastocyst and eventually develop into an organism-- maybe.
Its not theory, it is actively happening. How do you think they will grow body parts? They will insert ES cells into an artificial environment that causes differentiation and specialization. You may choose to ignore that the placenta is artificially produced and that it still capable of producing a fetus in an artificial environment, but it is coming and at this point you are embracing it.
"Embryo" is a stage of human growth, like "infant" or "adult."
I'm not going to waste any more time if you won't even go that far!
The fact is that ES Cells respond to external stimuli, to deny this is to deny fact.
Are you asserting that chemical stimuli is not in the realm of environmental stimuli?
Why dont you educate me as to why a ES cell is not capable of stimulus...I dont think you can because its not true.
Formation of Human PS Cells are also a stage of human development.
Lets go through your link point by point.
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/maderinquiry/crit3ans.html
says
Ultimately, science recognizes that a wholly biological answer is inadequate, and therefore, we try to characterize life rather than precisely define it.
That's what we are doing, yet you are not accepting facts, facts like
* A. All the individuals of a given species tend to have a specific size and shape. Within the ranges of normalcy, the billions of humans on earth all have pretty much a similar size and shape...Besides, if normal, they all have two arms in the same place on the body, two legs in the same place, etc.
Pluripotent cells are by definition very similar in size and shape, but that's not what this is really asking, its asking if the resulting organism will be similar which, as a clone it certainly would be.
* B. All living things show growth. None, if healthy, stay the same size as when they were hatched, born, or subdivided.
ES Cells are capable of self renewal and differentiation into specialized cell types. this process halts if the proper environmental conditions are not met, the exact same thing can be said about a preimplantation embryo.
* C. All living things metabolize. That is, they all take in energy and they all in some way use energy to stay alive.
ES cell are able to feed and grow in the proper environment. Same as embryo.
* D. All living things have a relatively homeostatic internal environment. That is, the conditions inside their bodies are relatively stable compared to the external environment.
Both result in a mature stable organism
* E. All living things reproduce. What's more, they reproduce their own kind, not something else.
We just covered the fact that the organism doesn't reproduce until it matures, again, both have the potential.
* F. All living things respond to environmental stimuli.
I have shown this to be true in several posts, even if you refuse to acknowledge fact.
* G. All living things adapt to a changing environment through evolutionary processes or they become extinct.
Both ES and embryo are susceptible to mutations.
2. Biology states that the cell is the smallest unit of life.
Your link says it all.
3. Although most biologists do not consider viruses, mitochondria, or chloroplasts to be alive, a case may be made for their inclusion. Mitochondria and chloroplasts, in particular, have many of the characteristics of an independently living cell, and they resemble bacteria. Because they have double cell membranes, their own DNA, and reproduce themselves by dividing in two, they are believed to have originated as free living bacteria and became endosymbionts. Therefore, perhaps one could say that mitochondria and chloroplasts are themselves living organisms. However, at least one reason we don't says they are alive is because they are not found independently in nature. They are not found outside of a cell.
So this acknowledges my point even further that what constitutes life is largely defined by location, as even the Might Mitochondria could be considered an organism if it existed outside of a cell. it never has before. But ES cells do now exist outside of an Embryo, they exhibit independent characteristics of life and should be treated as such.
Thanks for the link, it further establishes my position.
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