What will be the major breakthrough that brings stemcell therapy into the mainstream?
Will it be restoring damaged nerves for para and quadraplegics?
Or merely curing diabetes?
Where will it move beyond the grasp of fundies to be a serious threat to it?
This may be more suited to GD, but I’ll leave that for the mods and participants to decide.
Baldness
I’d imagine that getting approval to make such treatments publicly available is easier than with more invasive procedures. Stem cells used to replace skin without scarring would be another item that might, similarly, find its way into clinical approval easier. But of the two, curing baldness would be like the new viagra. You’ll have email spam for stem cell pills all the way up to your shiny dome.
And once you’ve got that amount of public awareness and support, they’re here to stay.
Nobody is against stem cells harvested from adult tissues or umbilical cords (of live births)…so even if you demonstrated a fantastic breakthrough with embryonic stem cells, many would say that such breakthroughs should be done usually less morally questionable sources of the stem cells than embryos.
I am baffled by why most people don’t make the distinction between being against all stem cell research and being against embryonic stem cell research. That just hampers the work being done with adult stem cells too.
An excellent point, and one I should have thought to incorporate into the OP. As you say, the unfortunate reality is that most of John Q Public automatically equates stemcells with embryos. I think the biggest cause for that is that if the media were to take the time to explain the difference when they mention it, they’s have used up the time for the sound bite they were trying to get out.
The better question for the OP might have been what is it going to take for the automatic reaction to the mention of stemcells being miracle cure rather than dead babies.
We both know that the best solution is education. We also know that mediacom isn’t interested in educating John Q because there’s no market percentage in it. And for the most part, John Q isn’t interested in being educated, he’s happy with his sound bite world view.
I think it could be a competitive thing. Once American businesses see companies in Asia and Europe patenting valuable products from stem cell research, they’ll want to get in on the action and they’ll orchestrate a “grass roots” movement to open up stem cell research in this country.
So far, there is no such thing as stem-cell therapy. There is only stem-cell research. Research is boring, theoretical stuff, with no direct results. It’s easy to scream about immorality when it doesn’t cost you anything.
The public will stop screaming as soon as they see any kind of practical benefits. It doesn’t really matter if the benefits are dramatic (cure for cancer) or mundane (cosmetics).As soon as there are millions of people who want it, it will happen, and the debate will end. (Didn’t birth control pills cause a similar debate in 1960?)
this will also be a major motivator.
That or replacement teeth. But yes - something non-heroic, I reckon.
Stem cell research is already perfectly legal in companies as long as they aren’t taking taxpayer money.
Private research, yes.
But I’m asking about actual therapy where some ailment is being cured. If a company were to attempt to market something, there would be objections, litigation, speechifying by politicos scoring point with constituants. Talking heads on tv 24 hours a day.
At some point, a company is going to announce that they can cure diabetes or make a paraplegic walk again. Another one is going to announce that they can cure vitiligo.
Someone ranting against using stemcells for vitiligo is less likely to be percieved as a raving extremest than someone arguing against a cure for diabetes.
Where’s the breakover point where the naysayers are told to go crawl back in their holes?
Personally, I’m holding out for adipose-derived stem cells. There are people in the same lab as I am working on those right now, and they’re making moderate progress. And yesterday, we had a visiting speaker who started using adipose-derived stem cells for transplants of SCI and actually saw both neurite extension and improvement of brain-stimulation-induced rhythmic motion.
Think about it! The source is virtually endless, and threre’s no need for immunosuppressants! (I’m stuck working on embryonic cells [in rat!], but my stuff is looking at more a theoretical than practical repair concept. I was working with extra biopsy tissue from human, but our source dried up- we only get samples from a surgeon doing a very specific procedure, so it completely depends on whether he has the samples to give us.)
Actually, between mesenchymal cells, adult-derived neural stem cells, adipose-derived cells, and iPS cells, I think we’ll be able to sidestep the worst of the ethical issues sooner than people think.
As for what it’ll take for public perception to do a 180? I agree with the need for education about what “stem cell” really means, and that it’s not all (or even mostly) ground up fetuses. I also think it’ll take something of a magic bullet. Right now progress isn’t instant, but it’s still progress. We’ll get there.