Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : Geron Corp. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CHIP HUNTER who wrote (1803)	11/12/1998 3:01:00 PM
From: TheWay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3576

Chip, Your dreaming. This stock is headed down. This brief news blip only delays the single digits.

To: CHIP HUNTER who wrote (1803)	11/12/1998 3:01:00 PM
From: Rock_nj	Respond to of 3576

Thursday November 12 2:12 PM ET Clone Technology Could Grow Liver In A Dish -Study By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists said Thursday they had used cloning technology to fuse human and cow cells in an attempt to grow organs for transplant in a laboratory dish. The team at tiny biotech company Advanced Cell Technology said the cells had reverted to a primordial state known as stem cells, which means they are capable of growing into any kind of cell in the body. Although they used the same method they used to clone cows, the scientists at the privately held company, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, say they have no intention of trying to create an entire creature that would essentially be a human clone. Instead, they want to try to grow organs and tissues in the lab for use in transplantation therapy. ''We will not use this technology to clone human beings,'' Michael West, president and chief executive officer of Advanced Cell Technology, vowed in a statement. ''We also recognize that while we have made an important step in embryonic stem cell research, substantial additional work is needed before these cells can be available for human therapeutic use.'' First, they want to assess the public response, said James Robl, a professor of animal science at the University of Massachusetts who helped found the company, which has licensed and patented the technology. ''We need to let people know that the time is here to respond to it and make decisions about where we should go,'' he said in a telephone interview. ''We have some evidence to indicate that this may in fact work but before moving forward and investing a lot of money into it I think it is very important that first of all we let people know what we are doing,'' he added. Otherwise, the company may end up sinking a lot of money into a project that the public will not tolerate. But Robl thinks the potential benefits outweigh any initial distaste people might have for the idea of mixing human and animal cells. ''Embryonic stem cells hold the promise of providing an unlimited supply of cells that may be grown in the laboratory into virtually any type of tissue for transplant use,'' he said. He foresees taking a few cells from a patient and growing them perhaps into heart cells, for use in repairing a damaged heart, or brain cells for injection into the damaged brains of Parkinson's patients, or even into growing a whole organ such as a liver. Because the genetic material comes from the donor, there would be no problem of rejection. Robl's team took a human cell -- in this case a skin fibroblast cell -- and fused it using an electrical current to a cow's egg that had its nucleus removed. The human nucleus, which contains all the genes that carry the ''road map'' for building a functioning body, crossed into the hollowed-out cow egg. This process started the egg growing and dividing almost as if it had been fertilized by a sperm. Earlier this month a team at the University of Wisconsin at Madison said they grew human stem cells from human embryos left over from test-tube fertility treatments and donated by the parents. On their own the cells differentiated into cartilage, bone, muscle and other kinds of cells and are still growing in laboratory dishes. Their study, funded by Geron Corp (Nasdaq:GERN - news), is farther down the road than Robl's. But their cells would be foreign to the patient receiving them, since they contain the human genetic material from someone else. There would be the problem of rejection just as there is now with donated organs. Not so with cells cloned from the patient. Robl says his human-cow hybrid cells -- made from cells donated by Jose Cibelli, one of the scientists on the team -- died after a couple of weeks. ''If the cells get past this initial hump, then they theoretically would be like normal human embryonic stem cells and can be used just as other human embryonic stem cells can be used,'' Robl said. He said eventually the human genes would take over and only a very small amount of cow DNA would remain. He thinks this approach might be more ethically acceptable than using human embryos. Currently U.S. federal funds cannot be used to pay for such research.