Therapeutic Cloning

Sidhe said:

IMHO it's simply an example of religous intolerance for the most part, they've been arguing against it for so long they object to it whether it involves life as they understand it or not. Fortunately the scientific community are not living in the dark ages, so eventually they will win the rest of the Philistines over

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My concern has nothing to do with religious issues thank you very much.

Man should not be allowed to play god, I don't know why and it may save millions of people and cure the plagues of our time, but damn it your just wrong, the preservation of human life is just not part of Gods plan!!!!

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Man shouldnt be allowed to harvest another man, just to suit his own needs.

It's the same with the condom thing in Africa, it's just religous mumbo jumbo, if they really were Christian they'd be trying to prevent suffering and disease and to make the world a healthier place, they're not, simply ignore them; it's like a fly buzzing around your ear, it's annoying but it will do you no harm. The sad thing is of course it may mean the unnecessary deaths of alot of people, thankfully with enough will the idiots don't get a say.

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Very bad analogy. Very bad. Condoms, if used properly, are fine. My belief, however, is that Condoms dont change behavior. People who have sex and use condoms will still want to have sex even when they dont have a condom in hand. You could ship virtual tons of condoms to Africa (pretty sure we have) and you would still have the problems they have down there. Just like in NY where they give out millions of condoms every year for free....and yet, it has some of the highest rates of STD transferance in the nation. Condoms, in of themselves, are not the answer. Making people responsible is the answer.

By the way, I am positive more christain organizations are at work in Africa helping the poor than any other instution out there.....so for you to say christians dont care is incredibly wrong.

Anyway, back on topic. I just saw the movie "The Island" and that is sort of what scares me about this. One....only the rich will benefit from any such scientific advancement and two, what right do we have to kill an organsim that could be a sentient human being - regardless of how it comes to life?

From reading this thread it's at least obvious that more cellular biology in school would be a good idea.

Yeah, I've ammended the opening post. This has nothing to do with what you see in 'the Island'. In truth, it is more similar to a blood transfusion than to anything else - a few cells are used to make a world of difference in someone's life.

El_Machinae said:

The cells created during the cloning process are not viable embryoes. We aren't trying to turn them into viable embryoes.

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El_Machinae said:

It's a clump of cells that looks a lot like an embryo. If you put it into a prepared woman, it will not take hold, and it will die. There's almost no way to 'make' it viable. We could, of course, but we could do the same to a skin cell.

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I trying to understand what you are saying, but you really are saying two different arguments. It is true that researchers (most) will never plan on implanting a cloned cell into an uterus and allow it to develop to term. In that viewpoint, the cells aren't viable, since they are not being placed in a female.

However, the cells that are "created" using Nuclear Transfer techniques are viable conceptuses, when implanted into females. Dolly already shows that possibility to be true, the same with Cumulina (mouse), CC (cloned cat), and Snuppy (dog). On average, ~3% of all cloned cells can develop to term, a little higher in cattle, a big lower in higher mammals (this values being established intially with mouse cloning). It just so happens that a cloned embryo in humans has never succeeded, not because it is totally impossible, rather nobody has the ethical balls or finanicial backing to use NT on nearly 100 eggs, to see if the 3% rule of stochastic changes is conserved to humans.

Now if you were talking about researchers like Jaenisch who created a cell line that was incapable of implanting, that is a different story, but that would be difficult to apply in therapeutic cloning, since you cannot really take the time to inactivate a specific gene for every person.

For current therapeutic cloning techniques, one would have to use nuclear transfer to create a "zygote," allow it to grow into the blastula stage, and harvest the inner cell mass cells. This is what Hwang in Korea claimed to do, except it turned out to be fabricated, but is still very much a possibility. A researcher simply could skip the step of removing the inner mass cells, keeping the blastula intact, and implant it in a female. This is reproductive cloning, and the current technical differences between reproductive and therapeutic are very much similar, it is the intent that differs.

Yeah, Rossant's technique of preventing the blastocyst skin from forming (using gene inactivation) is a good one. I really do hope that it settles the debate. Long-term, gene inactivation might not be viable for mass production of stem cell lines (you're right), but right now we have so few cell lines to work with that ANY additional cells will benefit everyone.

Hwang did not successfully produce a cell, so the closest thing we have right now is Miodrag Stojkovic's work (which did not form a viable blastocyst). I am convinced that if we refine his technique (or a similar technique) that does not result in a blastocyst properly forming, but allows the harvesting of ESC, meets the definition of my question.

Once we can get the ESC, I would be happy to restrict more research into refining the attempts to make blastocysts viable.

From IVF research, we're getting better and better at telling when a blastocyst would have been viable or not.

El_Machinae said:

Yeah, I've ammended the opening post. This has nothing to do with what you see in 'the Island'. In truth, it is more similar to a blood transfusion than to anything else - a few cells are used to make a world of difference in someone's life.

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Well, now thats more akin to gene therapy as opposed to cloning isnt it?

I'm pro cloning, so i wouldn't object to this.

Mobboss: I don't really know what you're talking about. Gene therapy can be done in conjunction with transplants or stem cell therapies.

Just keep in mind that when people say 'therapeutic cloning', they don't mean making people like you see in 'the Island', or even a viable embryo. They mean making a bunch of cells that can be implanted in a patient to cure their diseases.

I read recently of a technique being worked on where stem cells are injected into diseased hearts. So far early research suggests that the damaged parts are regenerating. Although not cloning per se' you are essentially 'growing' a new heart.
It sure beats a transplant! I hope that they perfect this.

Sadly, the heart experiment has not had good results (unless you're referring to something more recent) .

However, allowing therapeutic cloning will mean that genetically matching stem cells will be a thing of the past. Always being able to have a transplant (or making it unnecessary) is much better than waiting for a donor!

MobBoss said:

Well, now thats more akin to gene therapy as opposed to cloning isnt it?

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You can clone a person and you can clone a cell, perhaps that's where your getting confused also? I don't know? Basically we're talking about taking cells from someones marrow and then using various chemicle methods to make them develope into say pancreatic cells to help repair a damaged or destroyed insulin producing cells. Not anything to do with Embryo's. And Mob boss every time I refer to religious nuts it's not meant to be directed at you, if anything you seem markedly more sane than the people I refer too. I'm talking about people waving banners around saying ban frankenstein science outside labs. Unless your one of those people then I am not talking to you and I agree just throwing condoms at Africa would not solve the problem, that's not what happens, denying them however would exacerbate it, that was kind of what I was getting at, destroying the chance at helping to get rid of disease.

ironduck said:

It matters a lot because the more people object the slower the research will take place which again means that many many more people will not benefit from this.

We're talking about serious, serious diseases that are not being cured.

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You're correct, I should have clarified that.

My point was that the research will be done sooner or later despite any attempts to object on a religious basis, so any delays to this research will only delay helping those that can benefit from it.

sahkuhnder said:

You're correct, I should have clarified that.

My point was that the research will be done sooner or later despite any attempts to object on a religious basis, so any delays to this research will only delay helping those that can benefit from it.

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You could quite easily argue that this in itself is morally reprehensible since their actions are leading to suffering and death in people who could benefit or even be cured.

Sidhe said:

You could quite easily argue that this in itself is morally reprehensible since their actions are leading to suffering and death in people who could benefit or even be cured.

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I was alluding to that in the hopes people would see and draw their own conclusion just as you did.

The only people who oppose cloning are those who don't completely understand it. Like people who oppose evolution.
But it should only be used for people who are in a grave condition that is not lifestyle-based ("You kept eating those oily fries! Why should we give you a cloned heart!").

Isnt it possible to clone body parts on animials now ?

(no need to clone a human to harvest organs)

ybbor said:

*doh*

I thought the "yes I would" meant yes I would support it, not yes I would oppose it. your poll is very counter-intuitive. could a mod change the vote?

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*sigh* I did the same thing.

sahkuhnder said:

I was alluding to that in the hopes people would see and draw their own conclusion just as you did.

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Good because I made that point five and a half million posts ago, I wouldn't want anyone to miss it



Team Sahkuhnder/Sidhe

And how soon do you think we might need to make it again Be prepared

El_Machinae said:

If you learned that therapeutic cloning (making stem cells to treat diseases like Parkinson's and Paralysis) could be done without making a viable embryo* first, would you ethically object to it? In other words, if no viable embryo is ever created.

(*a viable embryo is one which could grow into a fetus (and onward) if implanted into a prepared woman)

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You need to expand this a little more. Is an embryo that is not viable more analogous to a crippled embryo, or a non-embryo?

I can imagine, for example, an embryo that has been stripped for some essential gene that allows it to reproduce, and so would die anyway even if stem cells weren't extracted. (This would not be more humane.)

I see everyone skips over my question as usual..