The Viability of Stem Cells as a Cure for Dieases

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I was just wondering, amidst all the debate about Stem Cells, are Stems Cells what researchers claim to be; an ultimate cure? With the revelation that the S. Korean scientist fabricated much of his recent research which by any event sent shockwaves through the entire community, what do Stem Cells promise? Or are Stems Cells what String Theory is to Physics; more talk and publicity than any real promise?

Note: There is substantial skepticism about Physicists, even among the String Theorists themselves about String theory. For all the publicity, it hasn't yielded much for experimentation for decades.

[wilfulton]

Supposedly stem cell therapy will allow us to eventually replicate organs that are damaged by disease or injury. As the organ in question would be grown from the patient's own body, there wouldn't be any danger of rejection, and they wouldn't need to spend the rest of their lives on immunosuppressents to keep them from rejecting the tissue and as a result antibiotics so they don't get sick all the time from not having a functional immune system.

It is the holy grail of medicine because it in theory would allow us to regenerate organs and tissues and because it could let us treat injuries to the nervous system, such as severed spinal cords, parkinsons, etc.

As far as hype or fact? I'm not 100 percent sure, but I was under the impression that adult stem cells are already being used to treat various conditions...

[wilfulton]

Ghetto edit:

http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics4.asp

This link might help answer some of your questions.

[Patrick Degan]

At this point, we can't be sure about the full potentialities of stem cell therapy. But the problem is a Federal government which has put itself foresquare against scientific research into the matter because it believes it will make the Invisible Cloud Being angry.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

At this point, we can't be sure about the full potentialities of stem cell therapy. But the problem is a Federal government which has put itself foresquare against scientific research into the matter because it believes it will make the Invisible Cloud Being angry.

Despite that, most of the research abroad hasn't yielded much, and much of the complaints has been the idea of the US loosing its much cherished leadership in Science, whereas I would agree that more funding would be nice.

[salm]

Despite that, most of the research abroad hasn't yielded much, and much of the complaints has been the idea of the US loosing its much cherished leadership in Science, whereas I would agree that more funding would be nice.

Part of that might be because in many other countries research is illegal or at least restricted.

[Darth Tanner]

I still don't think this tech will eventually yield much in the way of cures. At the moment there is no indication that fully functioning organs can be grown, only tissue. Now this is incredibly useful for burn victims and such but its not going to be able to replace body parts at will within any of our life times by the look of things.

Those liver cells we produced for example are just tissue, we still don't have a clue how to grow it into a functioning organ.

I still think we should be concentrating on minimising the technological replacements that already exists. For example if we could reduce the size of a kidney machine so that it actually is the size of a kidney then you’ve got a mass producible replacement organ.

[Fire Fly]

I was just wondering, amidst all the debate about Stem Cells, are Stems Cells what researchers claim to be; an ultimate cure? With the revelation that the S. Korean scientist fabricated much of his recent research which by any event sent shockwaves through the entire community, what do Stem Cells promise? Or are Stems Cells what String Theory is to Physics; more talk and publicity than any real promise?

Note: There is substantial skepticism about Physicists, even among the String Theorists themselves about String theory. For all the publicity, it hasn't yielded much for experimentation for decades.

There is much evidence to support the notion that stem cells can cure certain disease. In mice, there have been some remarkable applications. At this point however, the direct application of stem cells to humans is little. Beyond that, it is still too early to really say anything else. That's why more research is needed.

Despite that, most of the research abroad hasn't yielded much, and much of the complaints has been the idea of the US loosing its much cherished leadership in Science, whereas I would agree that more funding would be nice.

Science does not produce results in such short time spans. It is slow, it is time consuming, and very expensive. There are few countries which actually have decent stem cell research programs, backed up by brain power and by money.

Part of that might be because in many other countries research is illegal or at least restricted.

Untrue. Many countries actually have flexible policies, with respect to the United States (link). The biggest reason why the United States is still a leader of stem cells is because of the sheer abount of money that we have, despite tight regulations, evdient by the number of research centers (link).

[Admiral Valdemar]

I still don't think this tech will eventually yield much in the way of cures. At the moment there is no indication that fully functioning organs can be grown, only tissue. Now this is incredibly useful for burn victims and such but its not going to be able to replace body parts at will within any of our life times by the look of things.'

Those liver cells we produced for example are just tissue, we still don't have a clue how to grow it into a functioning organ.

That is down to tissue engineering lacking in areas here, not stem cells. We can only produce layered tissues for basic organs i.e. the bladder, because to do anything more would mean angiogenesis, else the nutrients don't reach the cells and necrosis occurs. This would require a far more advanced organic scaffolding system or artificial womb. There's nothing saying they can't grow such organs if this hurdle is overcome, given totipotent ESCs can form any tissue.

I still think we should be concentrating on minimising the technological replacements that already exists. For example if we could reduce the size of a kidney machine so that it actually is the size of a kidney then you’ve got a mass producible replacement organ.

That is still a machine, no less. A machine that is clumsy, inefficient and also one big biofilm magnet, not to mention lacks regeneration abilities. The whole point of stem cells and other tissue engineering ventures is to produce viable, tailor made organic replacements for biological systems, rather than supplement them with chunks of metal that suffer a great many drawbacks. Even the likes of the heart pumps that are mini-turbines and far simpler than a human heart require far more power and have never been tested for decades long operating times. The human heart can pump quite happily, 24/7 for 80+ years if well maintained. No human machine known of such complexity can rival that.

[Darth Servo]

Well, if the religious idiots would stop protesting the research, maybe we could find out if it really is all the hype we've been told it is.

[Covenant]

I still don't think this tech will eventually yield much in the way of cures. At the moment there is no indication that fully functioning organs can be grown, only tissue. Now this is incredibly useful for burn victims and such but its not going to be able to replace body parts at will within any of our life times by the look of things.

Those liver cells we produced for example are just tissue, we still don't have a clue how to grow it into a functioning organ.

I still think we should be concentrating on minimising the technological replacements that already exists. For example if we could reduce the size of a kidney machine so that it actually is the size of a kidney then you’ve got a mass producible replacement organ.

There is a point where a machine cannot be further shrunk, or shrunk and made affordable, or usable in children or elderly or whatever. Even if we could shrink something the size of a car into an organ, the organ will simply be better at it. Even artifical hearts are a poor substitute for the real thing, all of their schmancy metal and tech included.

Plus, there is evidence stem cells can make organs. It's called all of us. Saying that there's no evidence for it is just silly. If for some reason we encounter completely insurmountable problems with growing organs in a vat, we can still grow them in a pig or something perhaps. Gross, but hey, to someone needing a liver transplant I'm sure it'd do.

[wilfulton]

To again address the initial question, we are literally at the dawn of a new era in medicine. We don't truly know what all we can do with stem cells, but we do know that, potentially, we could build a whole new body (the proof of that being that we all grew from a single cell). But in all honesty, we would never truly know what is practical with this system, if we never bothered to research it. It would be like primitive man staring in terror at the concept of fire, and thus never going forward to master it for his own, fearing it would anger some earth god and bring floods or whatever.

But even to those who talk about how "God will fix it if we just believe in him!" I wonder if anyone has bothered to ask "Is it possible that right here before us, with stem cells, lies that very fix, right at our fingertips? We have only to expend the effort to learn how to master it, as our ancestors did fire over a million years ago."

While I don't know myself what potential this research has, I am personally excited to find out. But even if ultimately, all we could get to do with stem cells is grow tissues, even then there is still promise, burn victims being an obvious one, but potentially even victims of heart disease could also benefit. After all, all of us have/had hearts that developed from that one single cell.

[sketerpot]

I was just wondering, amidst all the debate about Stem Cells, are Stems Cells what researchers claim to be; an ultimate cure?

That's a good question, and the only way to find out is through stem-cell research.

[Lisa]

In regards to stemcells making organs... Is it our own stemcells used and if it's to replace an organ that failed due to genetics (ie type one diabeties, various kidney diseases) will that organ fail for the same reason?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I was just wondering, amidst all the debate about Stem Cells, are Stems Cells what researchers claim to be; an ultimate cure?

That's a good question, and the only way to find out is through stem-cell research.

What might be worrying however, is that inflated hopes and expectations would give rise to more fraud like that Korean Scientist. Attracting funding has always been something of a rat race.

Moreover, I have my doubts about the use of stem cells for tissue replacement as many have admitted that it is extremely difficult be it with embryonic or adult and just recently, some cancer scientists discovered that stem cells are possibly responsible for malignant cancer. It's not all that clear cut, and especially when biology as a field is one of the most trial and error science among all the sciences. You don't have tonnes of clinical trials and product withdrawals for nothing. As it is, biological mathematical modelling/biophysics is very much at its infancy.

[Magus]

In regards to stemcells making organs... Is it our own stemcells used and if it's to replace an organ that failed due to genetics (ie type one diabeties, various kidney diseases) will that organ fail for the same reason?

Perhaps, but it's important to keep in mind that most failure for this reason is not predetermined - rather, it is simply more likely due to that particular genetic abnormality. Additionally, people can often live with organs that will "eventually fail" for 20-40 years - meaning that at most you would need 1-4 replacements in a lifetime...which is much better than the alternative.

Also, since it's usually a chance that an organ will fail for genetic reasons, the new one might play the odds more favorably, making the subsequent replacements unnecessary.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If it was a genetic anomaly in the nDNA, then gene therapy would have to be used along with the new stem cell graft, since the risk of the cells carrying out that same error is too much to not justify eradicating it prior to implantation.