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Biotech / Medical : Biotransplant(BTRN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: seminole who wrote (1230)	2/1/2002 2:44:02 AM
From: Arthur Radley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1475

If you are trading the stock, hope you bought at the close on Wednesday...nice pop back yesterday. The following article is very interesting...until you get to the last paragraph... "Technique might quell stem-cell research concerns By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY Scientists say they have created a monkey embryo without fertilization and then taken stem cells from it to grow new organ tissue. The technique may bypass ethical objections raised against embryo research. Led by Jose Cibelli of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., researchers conducted the research in macaque monkeys, close genetic relatives of humans. ACT created controversy in November with its announcement of cloned human embryos. In the new research, the scientists created a line of stem cells through "parthenogenesis," the development of an egg into an embryo, without sperm fertilizing the ovum. The process involves tricking the egg chemically to begin the cell division process. In reptiles, parthenogenetic eggs can grow in the womb, but in mammals they fail to develop. Ongoing work in producing human stem cells by parthenogenesis, Cibelli says, makes him "100% sure this will work." Medical researchers hope stem cells can be teased into developing into replacement organs for people with diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes. Some hope that making embryos through parthenogenesis could bypass concerns about therapeutic cloning, in which a clone is created with a person's own cells solely to harvest the stem cells, a process that destroys the embryo. Released in today's Science, the new report describes a stem-cell line grown from the unfertilized egg of a macaque monkey named Buttercup. Cells from the monkey's egg, the one success in an effort that started with 77 eggs, developed into a stem-cell line. In a petri dish, those stem cells were prodded to grow into brain cells and heart cells. Still, some have ethical questions about parthenogenesis. Bioethicist Ben Mitchell of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Chicago says scientists are charging into unresolved moral gray areas, such as the status of parthenogenetic embryos, without consulting society. "My view is these are momentous decisions that should not be left to scientists or politicians alone." One other issue Cibelli acknowledges is that stem cells derived through parthenogenesis could be used only to make new tissues for women of child-bearing age, because only they produce ova. Putting stem cells from such women into someone else would likely trigger rejection of the foreign tissues by the body's immune system. For everyone else, "we're cooked," he says, unless stem cells are created in other ways.