While browsing through the UW Alumni magazine (yes, I read it; no, please don’t ask me for money, I’m poor), I ran across a nice quote I thought I’d share:
Imagine it like the software in a computer that is five years old…these [stem] cell lines are inherently inferior. We’re forced to focus our efforts on lines that are inherently less innovative.
Dr Anthony Blau, commenting on Bush’s veto of a bill that would open up new cell lines for research
That quote sounds to me like Dr Blau is claiming great strides in human stem cells in the last five years, but I don’t recall evolving that fast.
I think a better analogy for stem cells is freezer burn. Sure, that steak is supposed to be perfectly preserved behind the fifth of vodka (“just in case”), but when you finally get around to cooking it, it’s all ruined. The vodka, happily, is just fine.
Actually Blau is right. Most of the cell lines that were approved were actually nonexistent or derivatives from other lines. Only about 8 true lines of hES cells are in use that can be studied using federal money.
Further, all these lines are contaminated with xenobiotics, while the groups in Singapore, Israel, Japan, and Europe are working on cells that are uncontaminated, as well as a broader spectrum of cells from a more diverse set of donors.
So, Blau is dead on. Less than a dozen lines (which aren’t truly immortal, eventually they start losing totipotency), from a limited group of genetic backgrounds all contaminated with xenobiotics. Sounds pretty crappy to me.
The freezer is a bit of an issue, but not so much when you freeze them back at -140 degrees celsius in DMSO.
My boss suggests throwing out ES cells on N2(liq) after two years becasue they don’t behave ‘normally’. I haven’t noticed a difference. But then, since they’re avian, we can derive them any time we need to. How about we use fundies as a ready source of stem cells? Could be phun. ;)
Krakus, that’s an awful suggestion. Because it would fail at the informed consent requirement. Not that they couldn’t give you consent; just tell them that it’s been decreed by Bush as part of homeland security and only terrorists would oppose it. No, the consent part isn’t the problem either, it’s that those folks are never informed, and seemingly are incapable of being informed.
:)
Stem cells? But doesn’t that mean cloning? And doesn’t that mean all kinds of Evil? I’m confused–or I might be, if I lived in Dover, Pennsylvania (yes, of Kitzmiller v. Dover fame)–because I hear that in Dover they’re going to teach human cloning!
It is not illegal to obtain new stem cells for research. It is just that the feds won’t fund it, right? I just want to make sure this is clear. Federal funding is not always the big boon it is made up to be. Look at cancer research. I would be willing to bet that if the funding were completely removed from cancer research, and an “X” prize, say for the amount of two billion dollars, was offered instead of the limitless funding, cures for all types of cancer would be found quickly. At any rate, it does not seem likely that cures will be found because if there is no reason for the research, there is no reason for the funding. Every time the feds fund something, they stick their noses into the business and muck it all up. The scientific community is better off without federal funding. Bush is doing us all a favor because without funding it is nearly impossible to REGULATE stem cell research.
Just because you’re that venal, Jeromy, it doesn’t follow that everyone else is. But thanks for the object lesson on the dangers of inductive reasoning.
Hi RavenT. Venal I am not. If you knew me you would understand that. I am a very realistic person. I am an atheist with a wife and several children, and I do some good things around my community for no compensation whatever. Not bragging, just refuting your unwarranted accusation. On the other hand, information about cancer research is available freely to the public – because it is federally funded. Therefore, I have some insight as to the corruptness of the system (and not necessarily the people conducting the research), as does anybody else who desires to look. I also have some personal insight into cancer research that I choose not to share with the general public.
But that was not the intent of my post, only a bi-product. I only intended to make the point that it is actually better to not have the government involved with something that (I personnaly feel) is extremely important to mankind…stem cell research. On this I think we agree.
Please do not bother to respond if name-calling is your game, or if this blog is about defaming somebody’s character simply because you disagree with them. I apologize if I, by mistake, have offended you.
I’m not at all offended, Jeromy, I’m just pointing out some of the fallacies behind your assertion that:
Your argument seems to rest on several dubious propositions.
The first is an argument from incredulity–you can’t understand how cancer can be such a complex problem that it can’t be solved quickly, therefore it isn’t such a complex problem. “Cancer” is literally hundreds of diseases, and your proposal to wipe out the infrastructure for information-sharing and communication only magnifies the task, rather than finding cures more “quickly”. For you to conflate all those diseases, in the various states of our understanding them, and for you to assume that all the wheel-reinventing that would have to take place under your proposal, shows a fairly superficial analysis both scientifically and economically.
Second, your bet assumes that money is the only motivation the researchers have for conducting research. I assume your basis for believing that is that you are inducing from an n of 1, yourself, that because you would consider money necessary and sufficient motivation for conducting research, that that motivation is necessarily true for all researchers. If I am mistaken about your logical process, I invite you to show me the evidence which refutes that analysis.
Finally, as to your use of the term “limitless”, I do not believe that word means what you think it means. I refer you to Abel Pharmboy’s analysis of the article on cuts in the NIH budget published in that deranged socialist rag, the Wall Street Journal.
I’m not offended at all; it’s just that your claims are pretty evidence-free boiler-plate rhetoric, based on weak reasoning, so I am inviting you to back them up with better evidence.
Ah, I in turn have just shown my fairly superficial typing skills.
The italicized section above should read:
Yeah, okay. you’re right. My argument was not only weak, but probably just flat wrong. Probably. I am aware that cancer is a category of several illnesses. It is, now I know we can agree on this one my friend, human nature, that if you continue to throw money at a single person or a group of people, and this person or these people understand that if a certain goal is reached, the money will stop, well then, the goal will most likely never be reached. Especially if many of those people managing the project are corrupt to begin with. Unfortunately, the good people working on the problems are not the ones with the massive bank accounts. Nor do they make the regulations. Nor do they approve the guidelines.
I still think it is better not to have the government involved with stem cell research. You can disagree with me on the money issue all you like. The fact is, if you involve a group of people who are by their very nature corrupt (the government) you will corrupt the research in one way or another. It just makes sense. Look at Iraq. I was there not very long ago, and corrupt does not even begin to define the environment there. Not only on the US side, but you ain’t seen corrupt til you’ve dealt with the Iraqi government.
I don’t want you to think I’m a paranoid nut. I’m not. Good things certainly have come out of nearly all scientific endeavors, whether they were regulated by the governemnt or not.
Additionally, I have no interest in having any kind of argument. You can pick my words apart all you please. In fact, go ahead, you’re pretty good at it and I might learn something. I’m not going to join you in the nitpicking though because I just thought it would be nice to bring up my opinion and see if others feel the same way I do: Stem cell research is better off without the US government regulating it. What do you think of my opinion? Thanks. I’ve been pretty busy so please have patience.
I totally agree with that statement. For Bush to use his only veto to date to cripplingly regulate stem cell research is one of the single worst actions he’s taken (and given his record, it had plenty of competition for that title). It will take decades for US-based stem cell research and patients in the US to recover the ground he threw away with both hands.
Sometimes I listen to Michael Savage. He’s pretty cool, even-minded, and level-headed about most subjects. He said that “Bush and Rumsfeld have become Johnson and McNamara”. How true. It’s almost as if they took instruction from the Johnson administration on how to screw up a war. We need another Nixon…somebody with enough international savvy to duck us out of Iraq. Or somebody with enough balls to take care of the situation properly. There are a lot of really really horrible people in Iraq right now, fighting in the same way as the VietKong, by using children and women, commandeering nice people’s homes, just for the sake of killing whomever they feel has offended their god. I don’t suppose it would do us any good to explain to them that there is no god. They are very hateful people. I’ve met many of them.
By the way, the original legislation against Stem Cell research was initiated by Clinton. It wasn’t as harsh, but still unreasonable. Bush gave it a stupid religious twist and signed it. I don’t think we will ever know how it got the huge yea-to-nay margin in congress.
Only thing I can figure is, somebody forgot to pay off the politicians.
This is long, but I want to make another point…
It has been said, by pretty much all of our elected officials, that the death of a soldier is a necessary, but sad, sacrifice, to fight terrorism. Whether or not you agree with that, they do. The method of fighting terrorism is disputed, as it rightly should be, but not the sacrifices.
These people who are dying are grown humans. Other people love them and depend on them. When they are lost, other people mourn and suffer.
Stem cells are derived from a source that has no name, no history, the father and mother are often unknown, and nobody even knows it when they “die”, if that is the opinion of the observer.
Illness kills many more people every year than does terrorism. Which sacrifice is more important? Which has more impact?
All things are relative, and have associated causes and effects.
I wonder if we can get Bush to say, “These unborn, unknown, un-mourned stem cell donors did not die in vain. They died for a noble cause.”
Eh? Waddya think?