S. Korea opens stem cell bank

Professur

Professur

Well-Known Member
Congratulation. Human beings are now a comodity.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A bank that will create and supply new lines of embryonic stem cells for scientists around the world opened in Seoul on Wednesday as part of a global partnership in the contentious field.

Led by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk, the World Stem Cell Hub will serve as the main centre in the international consortium, which includes the United States and Britain. It aims at accelerating research into embryonic stem cells that scientists someday hope to use to replace and repair diseased and damaged parts of the body.

Underscoring South Korea's strong official backing of the project, President Roh Moo-hyun made an appearance at the opening ceremony. South Korea bans cloning for reproductive reasons but provides full support for scientists doing it for medical research.

"A tremendous thing is happening here," Roh said. "It's the politicians' role to deal properly with the controversy over life ethics so that it cannot block scientific research and progress."

The South Korean government gave $24.4 million US in assistance to Hwang's team at Seoul National University this year.

Hwang will also receive as much as $3 million US in annual government funding until 2009.

"When the use of these stem cells is limited to a particular country, it takes much too long to create technologies usable for the whole of humanity," Hwang said in a telephone interview before the announcement of the partnership.

"By creating a global network, we plan to share stem cells created in each country and share information on those stem cells," said Hwang, who has received world recognition for cloning the world's first human embryos and extracting stem cells.

In May, Hwang announced he had created the world's first embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients - a major step in the quest to grow patients' own replacement tissue to treat diseases.

The Seoul-based stem cell bank is expected to help scientists from countries like the United States get around government restrictions on culling stem cells, which often involves destroying the days-old embryos harbouring them.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush bans federal funding for research on all but a handful of old embryonic stem-cell lines.

The first branches of the stem cell bank will open in Britain and the United States, Hwang said.

Many scientists are aching to accelerate research on embryonic stem cells, which can grow into all the other tissues in the body. The cells are seen as a potential source of replacement tissue for people with a variety of ailments.

Instead of using embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization, the Koreans create them from cloned skin cells. That process is favoured by some scientists because cloning can create a perfect tissue match for sick patients.

But critics say it condones creating human life for laboratory research.

The Korean-led consortium hopes to create about 100 cell lines per year with genetic defects that cause such diseases as diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, AIDS, Lou Gehrig's, and sickle cell anemia, according to experts familiar with the project. Researchers would then study how these cells develop into diseased tissues.

Funding is expected to come from the government of South Korea, private American donations, and possibly other sources. The South Koreans would not patent the new cell lines but would charge fees on special orders.

More than 125 stem cell lines have been reported around the world, taken mostly from donated embryos. The U.S. government allows funding only for work on old cell lines, developed before Bush outlined his qualms in August 2001.
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Source




I repeat:

"It's the politicians' role to deal properly with the controversy over life ethics so that it cannot block scientific research and progress."
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Dr. Mengele, your patients await you
 
Professur said:
Congratulation. Human beings are now a comodity.
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Instead of using embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization, the Koreans create them from cloned skin cells. That process is favoured by some scientists because cloning can create a perfect tissue match for sick patients.
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Guess what? Banks of human (and animal) tissue already exist and are exchanged between laboratories all over the world. Certain types of cancer cell lines, for example, that grow aggressively are removed from patients and retained for research.

This is a great step for all of us who value human life and wish to bring an end to some of the world's most horrific diseases.
 
Human beings aren't a comodity (except in terms of slave-trade and sex-trade)... bits of humans have been a comodity for decades. Organ transplants, blood donations, sperm and ova donations, real hair for wigs, etc etc...

When the use of these stem cells is limited to a particular country, it takes much too long to create technologies usable for the whole of humanity," Hwang said in a telephone interview before the announcement of the partnership.

"By creating a global network, we plan to share stem cells created in each country and share information on those stem cells,"
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Sharing information, research etc...should make you happy, Prof. The more they know, the further away from using abortuses or even artificially inseminated donated ova that they can go. Eventually bypassing that particularly sticky moral conundrum.

i don't see the downside.
 
I don't really see the downside in using left over embryos from IVF either, considering they are going to be destroyed anyway. At least the tissue could be used for prolonging life, rather than just being binned.

I'm not sure how useful aborted foetuses are for stem cell research. My guess is "not very."
 
Bobby Hogg said:
I don't really see the downside in using left over embryos from IVF either, considering they are going to be destroyed anyway. At least the tissue could be used for prolonging life, rather than just being binned.

I'm not sure how useful aborted foetuses are for stem cell research. My guess is "not very."
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Almost not at all actually, but that's the way that pro-lifer's stir the shit. Bring up the emotional issues.

The downside of using left-over embryos... the moral quagmire. It's 'potential life' that's being 'used' for scientists to 'play God'.

As opposed to potential life
that's being dumped into a
cremating oven.
Thinkingof_.gif
 
The Sale of said cloned samples is the new issue... all good things in life are free, remember ? ;) The mud being slewn abouts has a name...and it's profit.
 
It costs time and money to raise a cell line and maintain it. Believe me, recently I've been trained to do it and it can be a pain in the arse. I imagine it's even more difficult with stem cells. To distribute these cell lines, of course they are going to charge.
 
Bobby Hogg said:
It costs time and money to raise a cell line and maintain it. Believe me, recently I've been trained to do it and it can be a pain in the arse. I imagine it's even more difficult with stem cells. To distribute these cell lines, of course they are going to charge.
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Of course they are, and it makes perfect sense to do so... doesn't stop it from becomming a thrown weapon against what could very well become the greatest medical discovery since penicillin.
 
MrBishop said:
doesn't stop it from becomming a thrown weapon against what could very well become the greatest medical discovery since penicillin.
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Or, as it's shown so far, a complete waste of time (given the hype)
 
Gonz said:
Or, as it's shown so far, a complete waste of time (given the hype)
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Considering most research has been tied up by ethical debates, the results have so far been quite encouraging in animal models.
 
Gonz said:
Or, as it's shown so far, a complete waste of time (given the hype)
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Tell that to burn victims. Stem cell recearch has allowed for the growth of larger sections of derma for grafting onto burns.
 
It has also been shown to reverse the effects of nerve and brain cell damage in mice, offering potential for treatment of paralysis, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's etc. which I believe is the original cause of excitement over the potential of stem cell use.
 
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