With all this hot debate about the ethics of using embryonic stem cells for research, I wonder about the stem cells available at birth. My husband and I just spent quite a bit of money to have the stem cells from our daughter’s recent birth cryogenicly frozen in case she may ever need them for whatever medical miracles lie ahead.
Are these stem cells inferior to the embryonic stem cells? If not, why not just routinely collect them during delivery since they will just be thrown out anyway (except for us few who have saved them)? That way, nobody is destroying a “life” and the research can continue.
In another thread, it was stated that there are not an abundance of stem cells available at birth and the collection for experiments from all the different hospitals was prohibitive. What you did does seem to make a lot of sense and I hope you are all for the research, which will make it possible to use the stem cells you saved,if for some reason they are needed. Since we don’t know all the uses the research will discover, perhaps they may be used in a benign way, rather than in an emergency.
Kniz, do you happen to have a link to the other thread? I’ve searched and can’t find it.
However, the original question remains unanswered - are the stem cells collected from the placenta at birth different somehow from the stem cells available from aborted/never implanted embryos? Does anyone know?
Long story short, since most if not all of the testing that has been done on stem cells has used umbilical cord cells or adult cells, all the advances and medical mircales that have been noted have occurred with them. You’ve done a good thing by setting these cells aside for your daughter. I am all for stem cell research myself as long as life doesn’t has to end for it to occur and I would be interested to know if any research laboratories have need for more adult stem cells.
Thanks for the links Palandine! It’s definitely a start. However, the picture of Dr. Mengele at the bottom of the second link indicates he may have an agenda. Comparing the use of a blastocyst to Dr. Mengele’s experiments is a clearly intentional use of Godwin’s Law. But, this way lies Great Debates.
I don’t understand his comments like:
What we do know is that embryonic stem cells are capable of generating any human tissue - otherwise a blastocyst would never become human. Sure, we don’t know if we can control that. But, we don’t know for sure that adult stem cells can become any human tissue, and that’s a big difference.
Does anyone know about the difference of viability between the different stem cells? It sounds like there are three major sources: [ul][li]Embryos[]Placental/umbilical cord blood after birth[]Adult tissue[/ul][/li]It’s easy to suspect that embryonic cells are ‘better’, because they are younger, and that cord blood is not quite as good, and that adult cells are the least useful. However, suspicions are often not borne out by empirical data. Does anyone know?
douglips, I would say that Michael Fumento falls in the Libertarian/Conservative side of the political equation. I would agree he has an agenda, but the fact is that everyone in this debate does. I also wish he hadn’t drawn the Nazi parallel because detractors (which I’m not saying you are, BTW) can immediately say “Godwin’s Law” and pay no attention to the rest of what he is saying. What I found interesting about both articles is that he mentions articles about how unbilical and adult stem cells have been used to generate different types of tissue cells. This makes sense, because I presume much of the stem cell research currently taking place is being done on stem cells taken from adults or umbilical cords, with a small number of privately funded laboratories actually using embryonic cells.
I would also say that a blastocyst has human DNA and therefore IS human, but as you say, that way lies Great Debates.
“Stem cell” is a general term referring to cells that are pluripotent, or undifferentiated, meaning that they can develop into several different types of cells because their function is not yet set in stone. If I’m not mistaken, a related term would be “totipotent,” meaning having the potential to form a new individual.
So, embryonic stem cells are totipotent, because they could potentially form all the tissues necessary to become a human.
On the other hand, the only stem cells I’m aware of in adults are those in the bone marrow. These are pluripotent, and when they mature they form the white and red blood cells, but they couldn’t really form a whole human, or even, say, a kidney. Although I’m not sure what therapeutic properties these would have, besides the treatment of blood disorders.
Sort of. All tissues in the body contain at least a layer of stem cells. This is because only undifferentiated cells can divide. So if a body part is damaged, stem cells are needed to repair it. These adult stem cells are pluripotent over a number of different tissues.
It seems then that adult stem cells are not as ‘flexible’ in their natural state as embryonic stem cells. This doesn’t mean we couldn’t induce them to change through some chemical or other means, but it means we don’t know for sure that they can become any tissue.
Now, what about placental stem cells? Are these pluripotent or totipotent?