Cameron Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 Well first things first I'm new so hi to everyone. I was reading about Stem Cells and something came to mind and I was wondering what the posibilites were with this. So when it comes to cloning we are able to do more and more. I was just simply wondering if it would ever be possible to be able to clone stem cells from Embryonic Cells. If that was possible wouldn't that end all the controversy and make things much easier in the fight to legalize them (I'm unbiased one way or the other). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hypervalent_iodine Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 As far as I know, cloning human cells is a very long and difficult process. It is much easier to simply extract them from a source such as embryos than it is to clone them. I should think that even if you only took one extract from an embryo and cloned it for further use, you would still run into the same ethical boundaries. Also, there would still be a requirement (I think) to use embryonic stem cells as a base reservoir. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 Found this on Wiki - Somatic cell nuclear transfer, known as SCNT, can also be used to create embryos for research or therapeutic purposes. The most likely purpose for this is to produce embryos for use in stem cell research. This process is also called "research cloning" or "therapeutic cloning." The goal is not to create cloned human beings (called "reproductive cloning"), but rather to harvest stem cells that can be used to study human development and to potentially treat disease. While a clonal human blastocyst has been created, stem cell lines are yet to be isolated from a clonal source. - It seems like IMO it is very possible if it had the needed funding it would already have been accomplished. With how important stem cells are in curing people I think this needs to be a much stronger focus in medical science. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Skeptic Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Cells naturally clone themselves all the time, whenever they reproduce. For stem cells the cells might differentiate before reproducing, which would ruin some or all of what makes stem cells special. But growing them with special conditions so they don't differentiate is possible, and in fact the lines of stem cells on which research was allowed to be federally funded in the USA, all came from 12 or so embryos and still being used. (I don't know if the funding issue remains). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 Well with the lift on the ban of federal funding I've read that there is a lot of new possibilities that could be found, but at the same time I've read that it could cause cancer as well. This is all speculation of course, but do you have any idea how far away this could be? Sorry about all the questions, I just want to know as much as I can lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Skeptic Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Stem cells share a property with cancer cells of being eternally young (they don't lose telomers like adult cells), and also of rapid reproduction (stem cells not as much as cancer ones of course). I've heard suggestion that most of our cancers might be caused by natural stem cells in our body rather than adult cells, but I don't know if there is enough evidence to support such a claim. http://www.nytimes.c...lth/21canc.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hypervalent_iodine Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Stem cells share a property with cancer cells of being eternally young (they don't lose telomers like adult cells), and also of rapid reproduction (stem cells not as much as cancer ones of course). I've heard suggestion that most of our cancers might be caused by natural stem cells in our body rather than adult cells, but I don't know if there is enough evidence to support such a claim. http://www.nytimes.c...lth/21canc.html Hmm, that is interesting. I had thought maybe that could be the case after I had posted and remembered that a lot of research groups that operate in the same building as I am use heterogenous colorectal cancer cells lines all the time for Caco-2 assays. They can be a bit touchy sometimes, but are mostly easy to deal with and grow in vitro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted February 2, 2011 Author Share Posted February 2, 2011 They did an experiment in France and Britain on people with X-SCID ans used hematopoietic stem cells as vectors and that ended up causing Leukemia in 5 people that under went the gene therapy. So its obvious that stem cells play a role in types of cancer, it just seems no one knows how serious of a roll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hypervalent_iodine Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 They did an experiment in France and Britain on people with X-SCID ans used hematopoietic stem cells as vectors and that ended up causing Leukemia in 5 people that under went the gene therapy. So its obvious that stem cells play a role in types of cancer, it just seems no one knows how serious of a roll. Vectors for what, exactly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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