(STEPHEN BROZAK and LARRY JINDRA, M.D. ABC News) There is some anticipation that this fall will be an important season for the debate on embryonic stem cell research. On Aug 30, 2010 a Washington, DC district judge (Lamberth), issued a temporary injunction halting all federal funding for basic research into embryonic stem cell technology. The [...]
Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy is the most common form of genetic juvenile macular degeneration. Manifestation of the condition begins in late childhood, leading to legal blindness. It is symptomatically similar to age-related macular degeneration, and it affects approximately one in 10,000 children. Olympic and Paralympic skier Brian McKeever is the best-known victim of the disease, which [...]
Generation of inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPS) offers the possibility of creating patient-specific stem cells with embryonic stem cell therapeutic potential from adult sources. Recently the main hurdle of iPS cell generation, the need for introduction of oncogenes in the adult cells, has been removed by use of chemical modulators as well as alternative non-cancer [...]
Embryonic stem cells possess the ability to propagate in tissue culture indefinitely. This is different than differentiated cells, for example, skin cells which can only multiple in tissue culture approximately 50 times before undergoing senescence. The ability of embryonic stem cells to escape senescence is related to expression of the protein telomerase. Usually when cells [...]
Scientist Dr. Joseph Wu at the Stanford University School of Medicine has recently published a new and improved method to generate stem cells "artificially". For almost a decade there has been substantial controversy regarding the use of embryonic stem cells, with the debate becoming socially and politically focused as opposed to based on science: one [...]