<p>UC System, Stanford/Harvard/MIT etc etc. </p>
<p>Stem</a> cell breakthrough uses no embryos - Yahoo! News</p>
<p>Is anyone else irritated by this? Now they have an excuse to do this stuff.</p>
<p>I strongly oppose messing with nature. This includes cloning, stem cells, even vaccines.</p>
<p>Vaccines? Did you ever see what polio does to people? I haven't seen smallpox, but I understand that the skin literally sloughs off, so that you can actually see the skull beneath the skin. And if not vaccines, then no medicines at all? No antibiotics?</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>I'm not irritated at all. We're also messing with (manipulating) nature by making dams, setting up sophisticated technology to predict weather and natural disasters, giving people heart surgery, taking insulin when our bodies don't make it, etc. We have a world around us: we learn from it, we manipulate it, we try to make it better.</p>
<p>How does Wisconsin "smoke" them all? Do other universities had projects just like this? They may be just one step behind Wisconsin in this regard, as it's a "race"...</p>
<p>If it saves lives and cures diseases, I'm all for it.</p>
<p>It may be "messing with nature", but that's a pointless argument, because pretty much all modern medicine goes against the course of nature.</p>
<p>I strongly support this type of research. So many diseases could potentially be cured with the use of stem cells.</p>
<p>Re: the "Is it a race?" question. I know that competition does exist between research labs, and it probably spurs some scholars to work even harder. That can be a good thing. With an achievement like this, I can't help but think more about how much this might do to advance the human condition (rather than the competitive angle).</p>
<p>Most science discoveries are a race. Read the history of science. There were many major inventions that several groups were working on at the same time racing to finish first. To the victor goes the patents. UW already has one of the most crack patent offices of any university.</p>
<p>Here's a bit from the Washington Post</p>
<p>"This is a huge story. Embargo broken overnight by Australian paper, I'm told. Bottom line: Scientists can make stem cells from non-embryonic tissue. This removes politics from the science. This is potentially the great leap forward that will make it possible to treat all manner of diseases:</p>
<p>'In theory, it would allow people to grow personalized replacement parts for their bodies from a few of their own skin cells, while giving researchers a uniquely powerful means of understanding and treating diseases. </p>
<p>'Until now, only human egg cells and embryos, both difficult to obtain and laden with legal and ethical issues, had the mysterious power to turn ordinary cells into stem cells. And until this summer, the challenge of mimicking that process in the lab seemed almost insurmountable, leading many to wonder if stem cell research would ever wrest free of its political baggage. </p>
<p>'As news of the success by two different research teams spread by e-mail, scientists seemed almost giddy at the likelihood that their field, which for its entire life has been at the center of so much debate, may suddenly become like other areas of biomedical science: appreciated, eligible for federal funding and wide open for new waves of discovery.' "</p>
<p>California has a leg up because it passed an initiative to use taxpayer money to support the research utilizing non-embryonic stem cells. Stanford and UCSF are currently leading the way.</p>
<p>Oops! I apologize for that second post. Not what I meant. Although I do oppose stem cell research and feel we are too reliant on medicine, I'm not that fanatical. Vaccines are fine; I was talking more about something like the flu shot, which I refuse to get and oppose unless it's for someone going to a developing country or someone who works with the elderly/sick.</p>
<p>Go Wisconsin! It's one of my favorite states (been through the area...everybody's scary nice) and a school I'm definitely interested in.</p>
<p>2-iron, whatever floats your boat. Just don't tell the rest of us what to do with medicine.</p>
<p>I don't care which university does it, so long as it is in America and helps extend our tech lead over China (until they steal it, anyway). This is what makes our country awesome.</p>
<p>Not that this isn't a great achievement, but the work was done in mouse cells in June by a research team at MIT and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. So I think "smoking them all" is a bit of an overstatement.</p>
<p>^^ exactly. I wouldn't be surprised if Stanford/UC researchers are right behind them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
which I refuse to get and oppose unless it's for someone going to a developing country or someone who works with the elderly/sick.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Just curious, and I'm not attacking you, but why? Is it the "messing with nature" bit? I'd think that, but you said you're fine with vaccines.</p>
<p>Wisconsin's goal is to clone Cornell students. :)</p>
<p>Actually the mouse skin cell work was at Kyoto U first. "Last year, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University identified four genes in mouse cells that have the innate capacity to turn countless other genes on and off in the proper configuration to make a skin cell revert to an embryonic state."<br>
The key is by moving into the human arena you can get the key patents. WARF is already working on that.
The California law specifically said human embyronic stem cells--the reports today mentioned that this change may make that path less desirable when it comes to Federally funded research. California may have to change the law as it was passed by initiative I believe. Funding is nice but from what I have read Cali is off to a slow and disappointing start in this and now may be going down the wrong path all together. But keep suing WARF, it keeps the lawyers busy. That's the last thing UW wants. Maybe some Oberlin students with a dash of MIT and Chicago.</p>
<p>Cornell students lack the outrageous spark and humor of Wisconsin students. Just a bunch of grinds hoping for IB jobs or professional schools.</p>
<p>hey 2-iron, we mess with nature all the time</p>
<p>ever hear of genetically mutated crops?</p>
<p>The MIT/Harvard group was the first to make truly ES cell-like iPS cells -- the Japanese paper last year came up with a good list of necessary and sufficient genes, but they didn't actually succeed in making ES cell-like cells.</p>
<p>(Sorry for the pedantry, but this is my field.)</p>
<p>I'm DEFINITELY for it; I wanna make a career out of this kinda stuff</p>
<p>This is so great, I see the face of the world changing in the next ten years due to this, mark my words.</p>
<p>I think this is a great step, but I don't like the way it's being presented. "Oh, yay, now we can stop getting cells from embryos!" Um, no. You don't stop research into one technique because a new one comes along. This technique is still very new and needs a lot more research and development - they don't even know yet whether these cells will behave like embryonic cells, and there's the whole cancer risk thing to work around. It annoys me that a technique still in its infancy will be cited as an excuse not to support embryonic stem cell research.</p>