Word: nas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...While the NAS is in favor of a ban on all reproductive human cloning (i.e. creating a child), citing safety concerns, the prestigious group calls for work to continue in the field of embryonic cloning, where scientists create embryos in order to extract stem cells for use in medical research. Stem cells, of course, remain a political hot potato, simultaneously sparking high hopes of cures and treatments among researchers and advocates but horrifying many pro-life groups, which view embryos as human life and the extraction of stem cells as the destruction of life...
...body. Stem cell-based treatments hold out the hope of reversing progressive nervous disorders, such as Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis, and of replacing the weakened insulin-producing cells that cause diabetes. A September report by an expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) found that embryonic stem cell research could be used to treat conditions as varied as heart disease, severe burns and cancer, with significant benefits for more than 100 million Americans...
Although stem cells are also found in adults, the NAS panel (as well as an earlier report by the National Institutes of Health) found that stem cells derived from embryos are far more versatile. By generating embryonic cells that are genetically identical to that of the patient, therapeutic cloning offers a means of producing stem cells that will be accepted by the body without the need for dangerous immunosuppressive drugs. The NAS panel therefore described embryonic cloning as an “attractive option” for overcoming the problem of immune rejection and for turning research breakthroughs into actual...
...created by NAS in 1970 to enlist members of the health professions in examining health policy issues. It currently has 1,429 members, including Fineberg...
...nominated for the job by the IOM Council, the institute’s 20-member governing board, and appointed by NAS President Bruce Alberts, who is also a member of Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the University’s second-highest governing body...