S. Korea opens stem cell bank

IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 20, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- "In yet another in what has been a whirlwind of recently reported breakthrough developments, Stemcells Inc. is reporting that researchers in conjunction with the Reeve Irvine Research Center at the University of California, Irvine have restored lost motor function to a mouse with spinal cord injuries using the companies proprietary human stem cells," stated SmallCap Sentinel analyst D.R. Clark. "Mice who had experienced loss of hind leg mobility as a result of crush injuries were able to walk again after the transplant of human neural stem cells, effectively reversing the paralysis according to the study."

Support for the study was also provided by the Christopher Reeve Foundation through its International Research Consortium on Spinal Cord Injury.
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Spinal cord injuries is another well-sought after use for stem-cell research.

FDA Approves Brain Stem Cell Transplant and Genentech Inks Another Brain Cancer Deal

City of Industry, CA --(www.FinancialNewsUSA.com)-- 10/24/2005 - Biotechnology industry news provided by Financial News USA (OTC: FNWU) Federal regulators on Thursday approved what would be the first transplant of fetal stem cells into human brains, a procedure that if successful could open the door to treating a host of neural disorders. Stem Cells Inc. (NasdaqNM:STEM), the Palo Alto, Calif. biotechnology company developing the Batten disease treatment, said it receives it fetal tissue from a nonprofit California foundation that also collects tissue from miscarriages and other surgical processes. Stem Cells chief executive Martin McGlynn declined to name the foundation. Geron Corporation (Nasdaq:GERN) will be presenting an update of the company's product development programs on Monday, September 26, 2005, at the UBS Global Life Sciences Conference at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time in New York City.

Genentech Inc. (NYSE:DNA) signed a deal with a nonprofit foundation in Burlingame to study the use of its colorectal cancer drug Avastin as a treatment for brain cancer. The Food and Drug Administration approved Avastin in February 2004 for colorectal cancer treatment. The drug interferes with angiogenesis, or the growth of blood vessels, in tumors. Genentech has been exploring its use for other types of cancer, including kidney, breast and ovarian. U.S. Biodefense, Inc. (OTCBB: UBDE) and AntiCancer, Inc. announced recently that they have formed a collaboration to research, develop and commercialize novel approaches on utilizing human neural crest stem cell and their potentials in human transplantation.
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Brain Cancer
 
Not one single example of actually making life better. When it does, post it. Until then it's just pets on parade.

I'm not against the R&D. I'm against the hype for something unproven to work on humans.
 
?????

Come on, you can't be serious. You do realise that NO treatment is allowed to be used on humans until it has been fully tested on an animal model? The hype comes from the ethical debate that suggests we do not carry out the research (thus the potential benefits have to be emphasised), the results are merely encouraging.
 
U.S. stem cell researcher pulls out of partnership with S. Korean team




PITTSBURGH (AP) - A University of Pittsburgh researcher has pulled out of a partnership with a South Korean stem-cell research team, citing concerns over ethical practices in obtaining donated eggs for the team's groundbreaking research.

Gerald Schatten, director of the Pittsburgh Development Center and a medical school professor, said in a statement released by the school Saturday that he is ending the 20-month collaboration with the team led by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk.

He cited reports last year in the scientific journals Science and Nature, which raised a number of ethical questions, including allegations that one of the co-authors of the team's research was among those who donated eggs.

"My decision is grounded solely on concerns regarding oocyte donations in Dr. Hwang's research reported in 2004," Schatten said in a statement, adding that he still believes the team's work constitutes "landmark discoveries accelerating biomedical research."

Hwang, who could not be reached for comment in South Korea on Sunday, has denied allegations of ethical impropriety, saying the researcher in question had actually said she would be willing to donate eggs for research to other groups.

Schatten said that "regrettably, yesterday information came to my attention suggesting that misrepresentations might have occurred" on the egg donations. He said the nature of the information mandated confidentiality, but he had contacted academic and regulatory agencies and suspended collaboration with Hwang.

Hwang garnered worldwide attention after announcing last year that his team had cloned the world's first human embryos and extracted stem cells from them. In May, he 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.

Hwang is a national hero in South Korea for his groundbreaking work that has also attracted worldwide attention. South Korea's government has embraced the research, and Hwang is able to operate freely without any widespread criticism in the country about the ethics of his experiments.

The World Stem Cell Hub, led by Hwang, opened Oct. 19 with the aim of serving as the main center for providing scientists around the world with embryonic stem cells, master cells that can grow into all kinds of tissues in the body and are seen as a potential source of replacement tissue for people with a variety of ailments.

The center said Nov. 1, the first day it accepted applications from patients, that it had received 3,500 responses through the Internet or by phone, fax or in person.

The journal Nature reported that the use of a co-author as an egg donor raised questions of whether she profited from the arrangement. The journal also quoted bioethicists as saying that there should be an arms-length relationship between a research group and the donors in order to avoid any hint of coercion.

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source
 
citing concerns over ethical practices in obtaining donated eggs
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Now wait a damned minute. These are ethical, never wrong, unbiased professional science workers whose lot in life is to further mankind & shower us with magnificent advances, not republicans :rolleyes:
 
Lemme see... they're ticked off that one of the donated ova came from a willing participant who happened to work at the lab?
Not that they're using donated ova at all, but the source?
 
SKorean doctor working with cloning pioneer says he paid money to egg donors




SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A South Korean doctor working with stem-cell pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said Monday he paid compensation to more than a dozen women to obtain their eggs for research, raising new controversy about Hwang's work amid accusations of ethics violations.

Roh Sung-il, chairman of the board at Mizmedi Hospital, said he paid 1.5 million won ($1,400 US) of his own money to each of 16 egg donors in late 2002 to compensate them for lost work.

Roh told a news conference he paid for the eggs because there weren't enough voluntary egg donors, and that Hwang hadn't known about the payments.

The payments weren't illegal at the time. But in January, South Korea enacted a law banning commercial trading of human eggs.

The revelation comes amid allegations that Hwang obtained eggs from a junior scientist at his lab in violation of ethics rules.

Earlier this month, University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten pulled out of his 20-month collaboration with Hwang, citing his partner's "unethical practices." Hwang has insisted he strictly followed government guidelines.

Hwang and his top adviser couldn't be reached Monday to comment on the latest revelations.

Hwang is a national hero here and has garnered worldwide attention for his trail-blazing cloning and stem-cell research, creating hope the technology could someday cure now-untreatable diseases.

Last month, Hwang opened the World Stem Cell Hub with the aim of serving as the main centre for providing scientists around the world with embryonic stem cells - the undifferentiated master cells that can grow into all kinds of tissues in the body and are seen as a potential source of replacement tissue for people with a variety of ailments.

Thousands of patients have applied to participate in Hwang's research, hoping the technology could help overcome diseases such as Parkinson's or damaged spinal cords.
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MrBishop said:
He didn't break the law :shrug:
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You heard it here. Would all you blacks please stop yowelling about your great grand parents being slaves. It wasn't illegal back then, so it wasn't wrong either.
 
Professur said:
You heard it here. Would all you blacks please stop yowelling about your great grand parents being slaves. It wasn't illegal back then, so it wasn't wrong either.
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The difference is that he's being lambasted for paying for ova. As if it's a moral or ethical conundrum. If he did this after the law was passed...I can see him being called out for it...the same as slave owners after emanciaption.

Equating slavery with the aquisition of ova is a bit much, no?
 
Obviously, the entire point of this thread has been lost on you. It's about ethics, not laws. See the part I bolded in the very first post.

IMO these people are no better than the doctors at the nazi death camps. They perform their attrocities in the name of science, instead of for the betterment of mankind. And they've no right to call themselves "doctor".
 
Would you be as outraged if he were buying sperm? Or do you get outraged every time a woman has her period or a man wanks washes his spunk down a sink?
 
My lib side comes out when stem cell is mentioned.
IMO they should bust it wide open, with just about every means.
 
Professur said:
Obviously, the entire point of this thread has been lost on you. It's about ethics, not laws.
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No...it's about YOUR ethics. To be more specific, it's about the North American version of 'ethics' being used to judge someone in a completely different continent who is BTW working to help solve some of the worst diseases and injuries that plague mankind today.
 
Wow. Not one single Eurpoean has problems with stem cell research? Nor any Africans, Asians or Australians?

At this point, it's a crap shoot whether anything viable comes from stem cells.

Look at the keywords...from The Stem Cell Research Foundation.

Experts are predicting that stem cell research has the potential to help up to half of all Americans,
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Even though most of the work done in this field has been experimental, most scientists find cell therapy so promising that they believe...
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Despite the many challenges before us, most scientists believe that cell therapy will revolutionize medicine. With the use of cell therapies, we may soon have dramatic cures for cancer, Parkinson's, diabetes, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration and a host of other diseases.
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I'm all for privately funded research. Let the scientists foot the bill for R&D. If something good happens, the libs can write laws stealing the profit. If nothing comes of it, the scientists, not the public, are left holding the bag.
 
Gonz said:
I'm all for privately funded research. Let the scientists foot the bill for R&D. If something good happens, the libs can write laws stealing the profit. If nothing comes of it, the scientists, not the public, are left holding the bag.
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Now that would work excellent for me. :)
 
All research is a matter of hoping and seeing. You can't be certain of something until you've shown it.

Since it is in the public's interest to see things like this carried out, public money should be involved.

What's more annoying is the fact that this is just another political bandwagon issue for a lot of people, particularly Americans who can't seem to view any issue upon its own merits, preferring instead to draw a sense of partisan politics into it.
 
MrBishop said:
No...it's about YOUR ethics. To be more specific, it's about the North American version of 'ethics' being used to judge someone in a completely different continent who is BTW working to help solve some of the worst diseases and injuries that plague mankind today.
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So by that definition, the doctors working at the Nazi death camps were just doing a day's work.

Obviously, you still haven't read the openning article, where they state, "It's the politicians' role to deal properly with the controversy over life ethics so that it cannot block scientific research and progress." . That's not my ethics their discussing, but their own. Their own that they're admitting there's controversy over, but they're letting politicians run the show. And we all know how moral and ethical politicians are.

And if you read it a second time, you might find "controversy over life ethics so that it cannot block scientific research and progress.". What is the point of morals and ethics if not to block some actions? Deplorable, unjust, actions. If China was to make legal killing little girls tomorrow, would it be OK to harvest them for organs and stem cells?







Just because something's not illegal, doesn't make it right. The same as something being illegal doesn't necessarily make it wrong. Oh, and Hypocraties wasn't a North American.
 
"It's the politicians' role to deal properly with the controversy over life ethics so that it cannot block scientific research and progress."
Dealing properly with the controversy. Making sure that people understand the pros and cons of the research and where the stem cells originate so that misconceptions don't arise... like the Right to lifers who insist that stem cell research is the same as promoting abortion...which it damn well isn't.

Making sure that interest groups don't interfere with standing laws. Making sure that the research isn't blocked outright because of emotional reaction based on interest groups stirring the fires.


If China was to make legal killing little girls tomorrow, would it be OK to harvest them for organs and stem cells?

It is legal to kill girl babies in China as they are born...and force abortions prior to that. They drive a needle with chlorophorm into the soft plate of the head as it's cresting, so that the baby doesn't breath its first breath. They can't get useful stem-cells out of newborns nor abortuses prior to 15 days post-fertilization.

As for the Nazis....
Many of the most important issues in medical ethics today - from genetic testing and stem cell research to the humane treatment of prisoners of war - are directly affected by the experiences of medicine leading up to and during the Holocaust," Dr. Wells said. "Physicians need to explore these issues without getting caught up in political agendas or the results can be something we never intended and cause great harm."

According to Dr. Wells, World War II era Germans were extremely advanced in medicine, technology and public health research but these successes have largely been overlooked by history because of the medical extremes of the Holocaust. For example, Germany was the first to have a high-powered electron microscope, the first to document the link between asbestos and lung cancer, and an innovator in developing high profile public health campaigns for a variety of health issues - such as anti-smoking campaigns and promoting breast self-examination to help detect tumors at an early stage.
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The Nazi scientists and Doctors were doing good work until they were subjugated by a political group. Therefore...

"It's the politicians' role to deal properly with the controversy over life ethics so that it cannot block (or in the Nazis' cases..twist) scientific research and progress."
 
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