Word: embryos
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...Stem Cells: The Hope and The Hype" [Aug. 7] mischaracterized altered nuclear transfer (ANT), a project with which I am associated, as an approach that involves the use of an embryo that dies. ANT produces cells that have the same power and potential as embryonic stem cells but that do not have the same essential properties of the fertilized embryo. So ANT neither creates nor destroys human embryos. Further exploration of this project has been endorsed by leading moral philosophers and religious authorities as well as the President's Council on Bioethics...
...have demonstrated, for the first time, that human embryonic stem cells can be generated without interfering with the embryo's potential for life." --ROBERT LANZA, leader of a team that has developed a method to harvest and grow human embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryos. Scientists and politicians say questions about viability and ethics remain...
...fact remains that any stem cells created using this approach would still not qualify for federal funding - since it would entail the creation of new stem cell lines - and, in addition, still does not address concerns about harm to the embryo that many religious and conservative groups have. For members of the Catholic Church, which opposes any creation of human embryos outside of the human body, the technique still involves manipulating - and potentially harming - an embryo. "The problem is that the researchers are subjecting a human being to risks without any advantage to that individual," says Edward Furton, staff ethicist...
...still others, who accept in vitro fertilization, aren't convinced that ACT's technique does not harm the embryo. The procedure, which is based on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, a test commonly done when couples at IVF clinics are concerned about passing on genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is supposed to spare the embryo after a single cell is removed. But since the test has only been used widely since the 1990s, it's not absolutely clear that taking one cell out of the embryo has no effect on normal development of the implanted embryos...
...even if the procedure turns out to be safe for the embryo, there remains the very real question of what quality stem cells the technique would produce. Some studies suggest that even at the eight-cell stage, when the blastomere, or single cell, is removed, the embryo has already embarked on a development path, and has assigned certain lineages to each of the eight cells; if that's the case, then the stem cells derived from a particular blastomere may already be restricted to becoming just specific types of cells - and may not be useful in generating...