Lead Into Gold: "Protein Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells" Made Without Genetic Material
This is potentially huge: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, which permit tailor made, patient specific pluripotent stem cell lines to be created ethically without the use of embryos, can now be made without using genetic material. From the story, "Purely Protein Pluripotency," in The Scientist (no link):
Researchers have attained the holy grail of cellular reprogramming: inducing pluripotency without using any DNA-based materials. Using only a cocktail of purified proteins and a chemical additive, investigators have generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that don't carry the potential burden of unexpected genetic modifications, according to a new study published online today (Apr. 23) in Cell Stem Cell.And now a new name has come into the lexicon: Protein Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (PIPSC:
"This new advancement is both exciting and startling," Huck-Hui Ng, a stem cell researcher at the Genome Institute of Singapore who was not involved in the study, said in an email. "Now, cell reprogrammers are armed with a potentially genome-safe method to make pluripotent stem cells.
Although the technique was much less efficient than virus-based approaches--0.006% compared to 0.067% using Yamanaka's original method--these reprogrammed cells, dubbed "protein-induced pluripotent stem cells," or piPS cells, passed all the benchmarks of pluripotency both in vitro and in vivo. Ding's team also showed that they could do away with one of the proteins, c-Myc, although this further reduced the already poor reprogramming efficiency by about a third.Good science and good ethics: It is a wonder to behold.
"This is the first proof of principle demonstration that [protein induction] actually works," Ding told The Scientist. Now, stem cell researchers and protein biochemists "will jump on this and substantially improve" the method. Ding also said that he has unpublished results showing that piPS cells can be generated from adult mouse and human fibroblasts.
But the New York Times still wants human cloning. After all, stem cells are not the final destination. They are just the launching pad.
Labels: Lead Into Gold. Protein Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 4:24 PM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
Strange that even though such a breakthrough would maintain better ethics, those who don't hold such morality in high regard ,still seem to be in charge.
This is similar to your previous posting about how common diseases cannot be genetic. The medical industry is clearly locked into the paradigm that everything is caused by genetics when it should be obvious, from an evolutionary standpoint, that this is not possible.
Or that Evolution is just as likely to be an unsupportable theory in light of your observations Kurt. Common diseases are just as likely to be the same as lions feeding on wildebeests. One has to learn how to survive because the other exists or in spite of the others existence.
No, evolution is real. Anyone who has been in the dating game knows this intuitively. All of the "non-rational" part of human behavior is explained by socio-biology (There is no credible competing explanation). Indeed, an intuitive understanding of socio-biology can work wonders for one's social life. Roissy's blog is instructive in this:
http://roissy.wordpress.com/
Check out Roissy's blog. It is a hoot.
The NYT is complaining about the very constraints or "ethical guidelines" that proponents said they would place on ESCR to ensure the public that things would not get out of control and that it would not lead to human embryo farms. They are now crying about the very "strict guidelines" that they promised and and that they promised would be strictly adhered to. They said they only wanted "left over" embryos from fertility clinics that were not going to be used-were to be thrown away, and were created only for reproductive purposes. Too bad for the NYT. What a bunch of frauds. I hope they really do go bankrupt.
Excellent observation Don. I hope they go bankrupt too.
Hey John. Those guidelines also sound like the Bush guidelines too: "The stem cells must have been derived from an embryo that was created for reproductive purposes and was no longer needed.
Informed consent must have been obtained for the donation of the embryo and that donation must not have involved financial inducements."
The NYT editorial was disappointing. Even though there has been no success with theraputic cloning, even though the loosened Obama guidelines allow pretty much all research currently possible, the Times won't be happy until there are no restrictions whatsoever.
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