Researchers Claim To Produce Stem Cells From Adult Cells 166
coljac writes: "An article in The Times on Monday details the claims of British researcher Ilham Abuljadayel who says she can produce stem cells from adult cells (in this case, white blood cells). Stem cells, the main source of which is currently human embryos, are undifferentiated cells which under the right biochemical conditions can grow into any kind of tissue cell. Stem cell research promises breakthroughs in many areas of disease (and even aging) research, but until now has been dogged by controversy because of the use of human embryos. If verified, this is a pretty exciting development."
The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:3)
Could this be another cold-fusion, or are we looking at a revolution in bio-sciences that the current scientists fear?
And what of the ethics? Could this be used to reverse ageing? (unlikely, but if it could, what are the ethics of keeping entire generations around just so they can oppress their descendants).
Thoughts as I teach a class....
But of course... (Score:1)
Leaves and petals (Score:2)
I can always keep dreaming...
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
Uh... what?
Why would artifically un-aged people oppress their descendants? This fear doesn't make much sense. I think the main fear is the overpopulation that could result from a massive decrease in the human death rate, which we're already seeing due to current medical technology. How many people we need before we have a problem is, of course, up for serious debate.
Tom Baker Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:3)
Just keep generating a supply of stem cells, and build over any failed component. The existing material could easily be reprocessed as a source of building material.
Regeneration, rather than age prevention, may be the real secret of longetivity.
No, that's turning stem cells into adult cells (Score:1)
well it sure looks like i'm going to live forever. (Score:1)
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:3)
And what of the ethics? Could this be used to reverse ageing? (unlikely, but if it could, what are the ethics of keeping entire generations around just so they can oppress their descendants).
One big benefit would be a few generations who actually start to think, and still be usefull in a physical sense. As a point, very few young people listen to their elders for advice. As a result, they go and do stupid things, but by the time they are reasonably seasoned/experienced in the world, nobody listens to them anymore.
As for other factors, this would be the first few generations who would have to begin to live with the ramifications of decisions made when they were younger. Politicians should be frightened of this. If it is possible to live 200 years, then they might find themselves in jail for actions that would not normally get a senior imprisoned on compassionate grounds.
Personally I think this would be interesting.
As for disease battling - by all means, this would certainly reduce the need for blood and organ donors - eventually you could have stem cells generated for you to replace organs that have worn out or have been injured.
But yeah, the biggest ramifications will be what to do with a larger population of healthy people - I guess there's the incentive to move to space. Why worry about the damages with radiation when you can replace the damaged parts later?
Oh yeah - this is one future I'm looking forward to.
Re:End of Aging/Death? (Score:2)
If it means the end of doctors, who will put the new liver in you? Besides, there are many ways to die other than organ failure. You can grow all the brains you want, but that's not going to help the person who had a bullet tunnel through theirs.
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
Actually, if people did not die the earth might be a better place. Altruism is a great thing, but it would pale in comparison to self-interest. Would we be so careless with non-renewable resources if we knew we'd be around when the supplies ran out? Given that the world population is doubling every thirty years, keeping one extra generation around would only be the difference of thirty years population growth.
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:2)
Perhaps you should read the article again.
"So unlikely does the claim seem to many biologists that she has found it impossible to have it published in leading journals."
My interpretation of this is that the claim is unlikely so it was impossible for her to publish in reputable journals. Considering it had been pretty much presumed for years one could not undiffereniate a differentiated cell, the skepticism is warrented. Many have tried, none have appeared to succeed until now. If these are indeed stem cells that were produced, this will truely be revolutionary.
Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:3)
Do people ever stop and think about whether a given development is a good thing or not, before pushing forward on it?
pluripotent vs. totipotent (Score:2)
Totipotent cells can become any type of tissue found in the human body. They're the cells found in embryos & (female) reproductive tissues.
Pluripotent cells are much more common, found in bone marrow and (I believe) other places as well. They can become some types of tissues, but not others.
Excellent news (Score:1)
There is evidence for the regrowth of nerve cells but the problem has that only stem cells seem to be able to replace the damaged cells.
This is very promising. Soon fixing spinal injuries and brain damage will be possible.
Would you say that now is the time to panic? (Score:2)
I see a lot of Luddites (yes, Luddites) who are ready to run for the hills because of the perils of "playing God" (some of the slightly more rational are instead fearing about population growth instead of nebulous mythological concepts).
Back up the truck, Nellie. What we have here is a claim about a procedure that may be the first step on the road towards a treatment that could turn out to have some negative sides. Let's don't any of us panic until we have something to panic about.
Do we really think that a species that can conquer aging (once we do) will let a little thing like population size stop us?
--
MailOne [openone.com]
New tissue = No tofu (Score:5)
The non-obvious importance is that we can start "growing" meat and other kinds of animal tissue (perhaps vegetable as well?) on an industrial scale...
It won't be a hundred years before we stop raising cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. and start eating artificial food that can be engineered to spec. I'm sure it would be more efficient from a thermodynamic viewpoint.
The bad news is that the rich will live forever. The good news is that you won't have to eat tofu.
Re:End of Aging/Death? (Score:1)
The answer, no, no, and no.
1. One would require a hospital to administer treatments. First, not all diseases will be cured by this. Second, there will always be emergencies requiring immediate care.
2. Read #1. Emergencies (car accidents, bullets) and other diseases will still cause death.
3. I don't know about you, but if some one is going to administer pluiripotent cells to me, I sure as hell want them to know where to administer them and how. For example, a patient may have congestive heart failure (CHF). If a doc is to administer pluipotential cells to a heart to regrow cardiac muscle, he/she better know what their doing because the stem cells will become the cell they are surrounded by. A heart in CHF will typically be considerably fibrosed so injecting the cells haphazardly could potentially cause them to take up around fibroblasts (the cells that produce the fibrosis) and become fibroblasts. That'll only make matters worse.
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
Retire at 70 and collect social security for the next 250 years?
Re:Bill Gates Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:1)
Year: 2566
Location: Redmond, Washington.
1 Microsoft Way
Floor: 399
Plebe: "My Lord...we CAN'T release the biotoxins yet..You haven't had your stem cell injections"
Big G.:"gurrrgle - 11011100101110111010111011" (vanishes)
Plebe: (nervously) "Yes m'Lord. Yes...right away!"
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
We are truly getting further and further from the meaning of life, and I am not kidding. The kiddies don't respect their elders and are not taught to revere them; they don't think there is much an old person can teach them, either. When Mom and Dad get old they get put in a home and visited once a month.
The oldsters become disenfranchised, lonely, and embittered by the neglect of their children. They feel ripped-off and unappreciated, so when it comes to consideration of any 'legacy' they might leave their children, they are loathe to provide them with a damn thing. They paid their Social Security so even if they still enjoy six figure incomes, they will be damned if they will give up one red cent of the - what, 60k? - they get from the govt.
And now we are going to prolong their miserable life? If I were that age, my attitude would be "don't do me any favors".
We don't really want them around anyway...
Re:Guess what? (Score:1)
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:1)
A Simple solution.
Provide everyone with an adequate supply of hazardous materials.
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:2)
Problem is, we've already done it, and they're not working fast enough. The hazardous materials that REALLY would work well are rapidly coming to the point where they might eliminate the whole race. Oops!
Point of order (Score:1)
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:2)
It's good. (Score:3)
And the planet can easily take 20 billion people.
So relax and try to get some sleep, OK?
Scottish == British? (Score:1)
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:1)
On the other hand, there's a whole lot we don't know about life. We have made great strides in advancing life expectancy, but the quality of those extra years may not be all that great. If this technology could let people live to be 100 without nursing homes and hospitals it could have huge benefits for society.
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
Now, "oppressing one's descendants" is certainly not ethical. As something of a libertarian, I like to save my ethical condemnations for those acts which directly hurt someone.
Bad Troll, no doughnut. (Score:1)
Just because you don't believe that population growth is going to be a problem is not a reason to discount those people who do.
Here's a thought...reply to them, with a logical, well thought out reason on why it WONT be a problem, or what can be done to remedy it, etc, rather than just name calling (Luddites) and dismissing other peoples opinions out of hand.
Re:well it sure looks like i'm going to live forev (Score:2)
2) I'm not sure why you think this may "deprecate" "this whole religion thing". It would probably effect how at least some people think about religious and spiritual issues, but deprecate it? I really doubt it.
A few notable points... (Score:3)
2. There may be some unforeseen limit on this that we will only discover after implementing it [maybe these stem cells have some maximum ability to regenerate tissues, at which point nothing an bring it back, sort of like a rechargable battery]
3. Repairing brain damage will enable full function, but not recovery of memories, personality, etc. So a tumor/shot to the head will still be very life altering.
-={(Astynax)}=-
Not new news, but newsworthy... (Score:2)
It's not so much a huge matter scientifically, aside from the novelty of actually triggering differentiation in adult cells that had been (to a far lesser degree than the majority of adult cells, but to some degree, inevitably, nonetheless) differentiated already... it's the scientific ethics (and avoidance of the smack up-face with the so-called "moral majority" in the US, and probably similar issues abroad) advantage of being able to produce undifferentiated human cell culture (generic blastosphere-like cells?) without actually going through a fertilization-and-extraction stage.
Long term, this could be the key to cloning organs from the same individual, maybe with added gene therapy and some telemerase baths on the organ in question, for surgical replacement. "Your heart's bad? Let's take a look at your records... oh, you've got a weak valve from a developmental shortage of hormone G... we'll just clone you up a new one without the bad valve. Come back in three months for the surgery..."
Short term, it means more capacity for researching into human aging, desease, and genetics without running afoul of morality laws, or genuine ethical issues.
It's nice to think there might be a good side, someday, to the tech that's railroading us toward a Gattaga situation...
I keep wondering about the barely-differentiated cells mentioned in the first paper I read on this. It seems to me that an undifferentiated cell in an adult human, without the correct hormonal elements of gestation, would likely be cancerous... perhaps they don't have whatever triggers cause cell division firing yet. at this level, human biology is so complex... I keep wishing I'd done my grad work in biomedical science or human genetics... solid state physics doesn't really delve far enough into the subject matter to give any expertise...
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
If we managed that in say ten years, 20 billion should carry us another decade beyond that if we're lucky. What do you propose we do when we're at 120 billion in 40 years from now?
Re:Tom Baker Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:2)
What?! (Score:1)
Progress Is Go(o)d.
(Except for the blink tag. That was Bad. That was the only exception, though. Really. Here, have a dish of algea bloom ice cream with depleted uranium sprinkles. Yummy!)
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
Retire at 70 and collect social security for the next 250 years?
That would be a failure of Social Security, not a necessary consequence of anti-aging. If we retard or reverse a person's aging, that person can damn well keep right on working until the point where his physical condition no longer permits it. Or he could retire, but off his savings, not my hard work. Social Security's retirement age is already looking fairly silly. If life spans were to increase to, just to throw a number out, 200 years, the age where one begins to collect benefits must increase accordingly.
Re:Want News Faster? (Score:1)
Everyone? Full of Shit? Perhaps the overgeneralization and escatology is a substitute for an inability to make reasoned argument?
The criticisms I have seen of Drudge and his website is that he does not comport with certain traditional journalistic practices. (Verifying stories from primary sources whenever possible; obtaining confirmation from second and sometimes third sources prior to reporting statements from unnamed sources; careful attribution of the nature of unnamed sources). Drudge doesn't deny this -- indeed he embraces the difference between himself and the fourth estate, claiming that his form of reporting is better and fresher precisely because he does not carefully vet the information he reports. Such a style is more likely to scoop others, but is also more likely to result in reporting of false or misleading information.
The critics who accurately accuse him of being a non-journalist miss the point, just as supporters who wrongly glorify his gossip as "great" journalism.
Notwithstanding all of that, his site is, however, a pretty decent collection of links to political commentary.
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
Well consider this: as the amount of knowledge that humans aquire continues to grow, so too does the time it takes to aquire that knowledge. This may be a life saver for human achievement. How long before people have to go to school well into their fifties and sixties just to have a working knowledge of things? As for the opression, I think that you'll find as one generations average life expectancy expands, so does the next generations and the generation beyond that. If anything, this technology could bring humanity into places that have never been dreamed of. It makes me all teary eyed... =)
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:4)
Science isn't a "good" thing nor a "bad" thing, anymore than knowledge is a "good" thing or a "bad" thing. Science and knowledge and "pushing forwards" the boundaries of understanding are entirely orthogonal to concepts like "good" and "bad".
It's what people do with the knowledge that we can judge as being "good" or "bad".
Occasionally the way the science is conducted can also be seen as "good" or "bad".
But never make the mistake of thinking that science itself is "good" or "bad".
I'd hate to think that our ability to gain knowledge was restricted by anything other than intelligence and dedication.
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
If we achieve "near-immortality," then the birth rate WILL decrease. It simply will, that's been fairly well documented as standards of living increase. And there's still attrition through accidents, suicides, people who couldn't get to the hospital in time for the replacement heart during a major MI, etc.
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:2)
WHY would living forever be great? Where does your idea of our destiny come from?
Technology _will_ advance, whether we like it or not. Trying to avoid it seems pointless, and that's certainly not my goal here. However, ageless humans would (will?) have vast and profound consequences on the entire race. Let's try to sort out those consequences now, before we end up saying, "oh shit, why didn't we do this 50 years ago, before it was too late?"
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
I dunno... If it gets so I can keep a spare body or personalized organ bank around, and if someone thinks up a way for me to make weekly backups of my brain/memories/personality... Well, I can come close, now can't I?
Admittedly, it would take a whole lot of infrastructure, not a little wealth, and a number of scientific advances that nobody knows for a fact are possible (or impossible). Still, I hold out hope.
OK,
- B
--
go back and read history again (Score:1)
The proper term for someone that is fearful of technology would be a technophobe.
have a day,
-l
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
So what's possibly happening here is that the conclusion reached is very questionable, so the peer reviewers are critiquing every bit of the paper. And they might find that some results obtained are not sufficient enough to prove the given conclusion, and they are very relucent to put up their reputation to accredit the research at this point, so they are not allowing the paper to be accepted, or at least until more experiments are done.
You also have to add the time delay from 6 to 12 months for a submitted paper to sometimes get this far in the review process -- she might have several publications in the works until she finds one that accepts it.
I think the important thing right now is to get independant confirmation of the results from several other labs, similar to how cold fusion was reported repeated by many labs, but more reputable ones were able to disprove the results.
Re:It's good. (Score:1)
Who are you? If you die, but your spare body is filled with your memories, are you now alive? Or is it someone else with your memories in a duplicate body? I'd argue the latter...
From everyone elses perspective, you'd still be there... it'd be the same person they're interacting with, but it wouldn't be you... You're dead. Think about it this way: if you don't die, but someone activates your spare body with a current copy of your memories, are you now in two places at the same time? No. You effectively have a twin brother (or sister) with the same memories as you. If you die, he lives... you do not continue to live through him. It doesn't change if you die first.
Having the ability to create backup organs can help you live longer, and help you survive massive injury... but if you die, you're dead... that's life (er... death).
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
If you asked me "Would you like to live to 200 years?" I would reply that I'd only want to do that if my body would be young/vital, or at least not nearly so bad as that of an average 70 year old.
It's not just old people who think prolonging life is no big favor... I just read an article about a diabetic who has decided, after numerous amputations, surgical procedures and ailments, that he will no longer seek any kind of medical attention for anything, that he wants to die without artifice keeping him alive. He is 38 years old.
People who argue against longevity on the grounds that living longer, but in poor health, is not good are missing the entire point. This isn't a greek myth; this isn't a parable about the hubris of mankind; this isn't about some fable where a person gets a wish and asks for immortality but forgets to also ask for eternal youth as well. This is about keeping a body healthy enough that quality of life can be maintained as well as increasing longevity.
One last thing... Of the old folks I know who are bitter: most were bitter when they were younger, too. Of the ones I know who are upbeat, they are known for having been upbeat all their lives. What it comes down to is that if your basic personality is that of an asshole, you're gonna be an asshole at 60 just as you were at 20, and getting older just means you get louder about it.
What we need more than extreme longevity is something that'll make people lighten the fuck up.
It's just life.
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:2)
But if this is not a hoax or a false result, we are probably looking at 10 to 20 years into the future the ability to replace organs with no concerns on compatibility. I certainly hope this is a sign for the human race to significantly think about ZPG. I don't think we need to go as strict as China (one child per family, forcing negative population growth), but, for example in the states, start taking away tax credits for any children beyond the second, or taxing MORE for those (include list of exclusions for this here). Enough sci-fi books have tried to predict what the over-population of earth would be like, and in most cases, that point occured AFTER we had colonized the moon or another planet.
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:1)
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
Some Life expectancy Stats... (Score:1)
Just so everyone know, the US has a huge aging research center that takes up what was formerly a chemical weapons lab...
Their research shows that if you remove all of the inherent pitfalls of being crammed in a meatsuit (cancer, stroke, etc.) that it is statistically improbable for anyone to live past 200,000 years.
In that time period one of the many millions of fatal accidents waiting to happen are most likely going to get you. Being eaten by cats, crushed by a slushy machine, or choking on a hunk of thumb cooked into meat-pie being several unimaginative possibilities.
Mod This Up (Insightful!) (Score:1)
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:5)
In order to do that it is necessary to get the chemical, physical and electrical environment correct for the particular organ that you are trying to grow. You need the recipes. We don't have the recipes yet.
That's the first problem. Then there's the time problem. How long is it going to take to grow an organ big enough that you can use it?
As for living forever, that isn't clear at all. For one thing the brain cells aren't designed to reproduce at all, and once enough of them are dead you are too. Adding reproducing brain cells to an adult may well have side effects. But there are signs that it might help in some cases e.g. parkinsons but even then it doesn't seem to be a cure.
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:1)
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:1)
What was that line in Independence Day? "They're like locusts!" We should be that way, looting and pillaging the universe.
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
take != sustain
population (Score:1)
i mean, i personally think that one of the major problems with our society now, is that common sense and logic are no longer required for survival. hence, the preponderance of people who probably shouldn't be alive - trying to negotiate an urban center in a canyonero.
but now, when they finally are about to shuffle off this mortal coil - we'll go and grow em a new lung, or liver, or spine.
well, at least maybe with immortality people will get over their quibblings about not sending willing participants on colonizing missions to distant planets.
maybe we will explore the cosmos - not by creating wormholes or by breaking the universal speed limit, but by slowly and surely plodding along. who cares how many light years till we get to alpha centauri! we've got the time.
just as five minutes seem like a lifetime to children, just as hours go by without adults really noticing them; perhaps someday we'll patiently read quadrillion page novels between solar systems.
well shit, we'll have to go somewhere to get away from all these immortal mental midgits!
Hmm... this might be a good time to sell short (Score:1)
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
(Hmm... How does one pursue this without horribly abusing the first person singular subjective pronoun? This is a sign that this would be a Very Big Development - the structure of our language can't handle it.)
Anyway, in the case of prematurely activating my clone with a copy of my memories, there would then exist two people who subjectively (and I contend legitimately) believe themselves to be me. Each would have (and feel) the full body of my experiences and memories continuous until the last backup. Certainly, they'd be diverging as individuals starting from the first picosecond, but I still say they're both (hypothetically) me.
It also brings up an interesting hypothetical question of who gets to use "my" driver's license, SSN, etc., in the case of premature clone activation...
OK,
- B
--
Old news is new news (Score:1)
Oh really? (Score:5)
I've done a "decent" amount of reading in hematology (being a 3rd med) and I can't seem to reconcile some things. Some things just don't stand up.
In blood, there are (as the article points out) a number of stem cells which, while they retain their ability to differentiate, also give off progeny as needed. These progeny are then directed, by various growth factors in turn directed by the biological needs, to differentiate into the various cells. Theoretically, all blood cells (with the exception of red blood cells or erythrocytes) retain the complete genetic code.
But I can't see how it can really be reversed. White blood cells aquire a bunch of different organelles within them depending on their decided function. Do they loose these organelles too? Or do they just regain the ability to differentiate?
What might happen is that certain regulators which prevent certain things from happening in cells may be removed.
But does anyone really think that "just" the needed things are removed? If the cells in your heart or skin suddenly regained the ability to differentiate into anything, they would still first be respective cells of those parts. My (limited) guess is that they've just removed regulating factors and that probably brings the cells closer to neoplastic (a.k.a. uncontrolled cell growth) and that's about it.
Also, some of the top hematologists would be reviewing this paper before it was "not accepted" in a number of journals. Don't you think that these journals would be aching to be the ones to publish something so legendary? In the end, I can't see how "forgetting" to add something to the media suddenly would do this. I wish they'd let out more information.
Re:Tom Baker Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:1)
And what do you do once something is wrong with the person's brain. You can't just rip out a chunk of it and drop in some stem cells. This isn't a "live forever" thing. It's a "possible way to reap the rich medical harvest that stem cells can provide without the annoying ethical questions surrounding fetuses." (Meaning, a lukemia treatment that would have previously needed a fetus' stem cells might now be able to be done with a person's own cells.)
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
That doesn't have any bearing on what would happen when a greatly increased lifespan gets introduced into a society that's already got low mortality, low birth rate, and high standard of living. It's never been done, we have no experience with it, and any predictions are bound to be complete guesses.
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:3)
Suppose that we do become able to grow T-bones in a vat, not only that but really good, boneless, fatless, gristle free T-bones and cheap too. Wouldn't this remove pretty much all objections that vegetarians have to eating flesh? After all, it's now much healthier than our current meat products and didn't involve the slaughter of any animals to produce it, is it now a vegetable?
I'm not trying to be a jackass here, I'm just genuinely interested in the complex changes that are occuring due to genetic engineering.
_____________
Re:veganism? (Score:1)
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:2)
Well, maybe, but a more direct genetic tinkering approach is more likely to yield progress there.
As we understand more and more of the human genome, and biochemistry in general, we will be able to do some amazing things. Like sci-fi amazing.
We're close to some amazing things already, with prototypes of plants that produce plastic [monsantoindia.com]. But someday in the not too distant future we're going to learn how to manipulate our aging and self-repair mechanisms. We'll also be able to twiddle with our kids, just like they were doing in the movie Gattaca. And we'll be able to create some new, awful diseases.
This stuff is right around the corner, folks. Biotech has great potential for good, and ill. And we thought our NUCLEAR adolescence was bad -- we ain't seen nothin' yet.
Patent(tm) (Score:2)
Yup, only the rich will live forever...
(hint: start saving NOW!)
Re:well it sure looks like i'm going to live forev (Score:2)
Bah... I plan on living forever...
So far, So good
Re:Tom Baker Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:2)
Brain cells are just like any other cells. The only difference is the neural connections, and those form themselves, given time.
Yes, if you lose a section of brain that was used to handle long-term memory, you'd lose THOSE memories. Oh, wah. As if you'd not have built up more memories than you'd know what to do with, by that time. By replacing the damaged/dead segment, you'd at least be assured that new memories could take their place.
Those segments of the brain dealing with the concious mind are perhaps the most complex. If you believe that the mind is Turing in nature, then all you'd have to do is run a regular backup of the configuration of those cells, and then restore from backup once the cells had been replaced.
(If you're more spiritually inclined, then the configuration is irrelevent. The important stuff just runs on it. So handling those as you would any other cell would be just fine.)
The point of regeneration is that it is NOT "living forever", because you aren't guaranteed to be exactly the same person afterwards. Rather, it is a self-repairing/self-maintaining partially-closed system, which may end up hosting multiple "conciouses" within the same body and memory set.
Sophistry? Science? Bad Journalism? so much blame (Score:3)
Perhaps it was bad science. The researchers thought they isolated only white blood cells and managed to trap some astrocyes. It wouldn't be the first scientific trap that caught something other than intended. Perhaps it was bad journalism. What kind of person wrote the article, from what resources, with what background with what purpose? I remember when the MIR space station lost pressure and the CNN science correspondant had to look up how much pressure a Torr was (maybe CNN can't afford interns).
Then the last possability (I'll bother with). It was good science and good enuff reporting. In my experience pure researchers have this insane laser like focus on their specialty. They literally don't see anything else of the world. Their time table estimates are wildly inaccurate with an optimistic bias. Perhaps that's a necessary character trait, to maintain the relentless intensity and make the breakthough. Without a good perspective on how well and how poorly researchers tend to see the world can a writer really present an accurate depiction? Given a researchers appearent success should a journalist hold a that scientists predictions as highly suspect? If they did, what would the reader think?
I think I've done enough preaching, but I'll make one final remark ala Jerry Springer. At the end of the day, we all make our own judgements as to what the objective truth really is, factoring out other peoples prejudices and factoring our own. And don't pay prostitutes with a personal check if you're the mayor of a major city.
This does NOT overcome DNA aging (Score:4)
Experiments with Dolly (baaaaaaa) indicate that while she is a genetic copy of her "parent" donor sheep, so is the "genetic age" of her DNA.
As it turns out, DNA ages just like the rest of the body. Over time, it deteriorates and genetic errors build up. At some point (known to be around 120 years in humans) the decay begins to trigger the cell self-destruction mechanisms, even if those cells are otherwise healthy. The body begins to die one way or the other.
So the "fear" is that even perfectly cloned bodies (or body parts) are not immortal.
Who knows what dying in that fashion would be like - perfectly healthy organs, and then things begin to fail rapidly and suddenly - with little chance of repair.
Don't count on playing God - He's a lot sneakier than we suspected just a couple years ago.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:2)
Not that this is my feeling, but to play the devil's advocate: it seems like a lot of vegetarians take the position that the exploitation of animals for food, clothing, etc. is wrong. How much more exploitative then to take a creature's very essence, and grow it in a tank to feed people? In a certain sense, this is the ultimate exploitation of the animal. I'm sure there will be some folks who will take this position and avoid tank-grown meat to eat tank-grown vegetables instead.
Me? I expect we'll all be eating food made from single-celled organisms sometime soon. My hope is that it's more like Asimov's Trantor than like The Matrix, but either way single-celled is the way to go.
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:2)
Re:Oh really? (Score:2)
The level of differentiation between hemopoetic stem cells and their fates isn't that great (certainly not like a totipotent stem cell and say a nerve cell), especially depending on the what type of white blood cell is formed. I really wish the article were more specific on this point.
In the case of B and T lymphocytes, the differentiation effectively consists of splicing a random antibody and MHC pattern (for expression on the cell surface), and budding off a few more lysosomes to help the cell digest stuff it internalizes. The key here is that genetic information is lost during the splicing process... something that can't be reversed.
Monocytes theoretically are reversable, however, since they 1) exist naturally in circulation, 2) aren't specific to antigens, and 3) aren't fully differentiated yet.
Something is fishy about all of this.
So they can become a different Cell... (Score:2)
Re:Tom Baker Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:2)
Unless it turns out that memory is holographic, as some results have indicated. In that case, all of your memories get a little fuzzier, and some of the oldest ones may be gone.
This is the riskiest part - you're really messing with your "self" (assuming that changing your memories of the past isn't enough to seriously change your "self", which may or may not be the case). I think it might be best to always be adding some new cells so that they could be learning your thought patterns, and then periodically scrub out the old dead cells. Of course the new cells won't ever perfectly replace the old ones, so I imagine that over time your consciousness really would change as a result of the underlying cellular replacement. On the other hand, this probably wouldn't have to be any more drastic than the other consciousness-altering events of your life, like drugs, religious ecstasies, or a midlife crisis.
The periodic maintenance approach might be a little safer than just downloading from backups onto a tabula rasa mind. After all, I'm sure there are folks here who don't always verify their backups :)
"Magic Bullet" deals with this (Score:2)
There is a short story by Greg Bear (I think it's Greg Bear) titled something like "The Magic Bullet" (forgive my memory).
A genetic researcher discovers a way to make existing cells "cannibalize" oocytes in egg cells, making the host effectively immortal. Slight hitch: only half of the human race produces egg cells, and the researcher doesn't belong to that half. :-)
In an attempt to save mankind (literally), the male researcher tries to hide the results. However, he had experimented on mice first, and one of his (female) lab assistants noticed that some of the mice weren't dying...
Re:Anyone see a population problem here??? (Score:2)
Eventually people will do _everything_, both good and bad, with science and knowledge. Anything that's phsically possible will be realised eventually.
Given that premise, I see the potential for knowledge and/or discoveries that have MUCH more severe negative consequences than positive. Maybe they have no positive consequences at all. Those negative consequences will still be exploited. Is knowledge still neutral?
wouldn't reverse or prevent aging (Score:5)
This could go a long way to heal things like heart disease, cancer, etc. Where the problems are they cells can't regenerate like they should. But this won't save you from aging.
NOTE: this is just what I remember from what biology I've had in the past. Anyone wants to prove me wrong, feel free.
The Silence Conspiracy (Score:2)
Even more interesting was how hard they got jumped on.
Since then, they've replicated the process with human cells (our cells have ~ 75 replications in them: applying the appropriate chemicals (telomerase)) the number has been pushed to 225 with no signs of degradation). And the steps that are involved are being charted backwards, to find out what either a/ triggers aging, or b/ stops the non-aging process. It's actually rather hard to find out much on the issue; many companies are playing it close, in hopes of a huge payout; and seemingly legitimate fears of hordes of pitchfork, torch and injuction waving religious nuts (membership in the Christian Right qualifies) and Luddites.
Theoretically, there may be a simple chemical trigger we could take, like a daily pill, that would reverse/halt the aging process.
I don't see stem cells as the route to immortality (as in, unaging). They are and will continue to be vital in fundamental research, and the treatment of injuries/disease.
And I'd highly recommend an old classic, The Trouble with Lichen, as covering many problems that a greatly extended lifespan will cause society.
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:2)
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
Yep, It Would Remove All Objections, But... (Score:3)
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Re:It's good. (Score:2)
But that's beside your main point. We might reach those numbers in twice the time, but the question what to do about it remains.
And while I'm not particularly worried, I can't say I have an answer. Such a world would be so radically different from ours that it's hard to imagine, and you probably would be very wrong in most predictions. Think about what people predicted about how previous big changes would affect society. Reality tends to surprise. But it also tends to sort itself out, and the doomsayers are routinely proven wrong.
There would clearly have to be some major changes in how societies function. If living space and resources like water and air becomes real scarce they will have to be managed very tightly, either as private property or rationed by government. There might be restrictions on breeding. We might colonize the planets and the oceans. We'll certainly invent new better ways to produce food and products. It may turn out that even with aging beaten, people only live to 150 on average, so we'll just be twice as many. I could go on and on, but I already have.
If it happens, it'll be an interesting ride!
Re:wouldn't reverse or prevent aging (Score:3)
Look into telomerase for the answer.. If only we could figure out how to have our bodies automagically tell the difference between benign telomerase (used to rejuvenate cells) and cancerous telomerase (which creates unchecked cell reproduction, aka cancer). That's why there's billions in them thar hills...
Your Working Boy,
Re:The Pseudo-science Conspiracy (Score:2)
Why do many states and counties impose term limits on their politicians? They do it because an incumbent politician can become so powerful and so entrenched that it becomes impossible for any other candidates to compete.
Now think of death a sort of "term limit" for everybody... remove the term limit and the immortal people will begin to accumulate wealth, knowledge, and experience without limit.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but a healthy 400-year-old will probably have a number of advantages over your average 20-year old.
Re:Tom Baker Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:2)
What I always find interesting is that so many people make this assumption - the aging problem. In the scheme of things, it's really not a problem, it's sort of planned obsolescence. A species that didn't get old and die would outgrow its food supply pretty fast.
I'm as much in favor of not getting old as anyone, but in general, I really don't think humans are ready or that sort of thing. In reality, it's not the aging problem that we have to worry about, but the not aging problem we'll have when we have a cure for getting old. I mean, come on - we're not exactly devoted as a society to looking ahead and considering the future. I get a little frightened when I think about people having 200 years or more to not think about the consequences of their actions.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's really goddamn amazing that we can even seriously consider being able to do these things, and I don't for a minute suggest that we shouldn't try to achieve them. But I don't think they're the solution to a problem - they're just a whole other kettle of worms.
-Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
Re:But of course... (Score:2)
That quite true. For those interested in reading further, the NIH has published an article, "Stem Cells: A Primer [nih.gov]". You may be especially interested about the section towards the end about stem cells in adults, especially the section, "Why not just pursue research with adult stem cells?"
"...but all of the focus has been on the controversial method of using embryos as the source. I don't see that changing."
Mind if I borrow your sentence and rearrange it a bit? I'd instead say all of the controversy has been focused on the method of using embryos as the source. If you look around, you'll find that adult stem cell research is going on, busily and quietly. Since there's nobody attacking the research, there's also nobody hyping as part of a defense. Embryo stem cell were discovered first, so of course the research is further along. What's more, it's both promising and threatened, so that's where the resources are going first.
Adult Stem cell research is NOT BEING IGNORED. Rather, it is impossible to predict which avenues of research will eventually pan out, and so scientists are loathe to close off any possibilities. One, maybe both of these paths may prove to be a dead end. But we won't know until we look.
Re:pluripotent vs. totipotent (Score:2)
Actually, the stem cells in human embryoes are only totipotent for about 4 days after fertilization; after that point, they specialize into pluripotent stem cells. The stem cells harvested from embryoes are pluripotent, not totipotent.
"When a sperm fertilizes an egg, the product is a single cell that has the potential to form an entire organism. This fertilized egg is a totipotent stem cell, which has the potential to develop into a complete organism. In the first hours and days after fertilization, this cell begins to divide into identical totipotent stem cells. Then, approximately four days after fertilization, these totipotent stem cells begin to specialize, forming a hollow sphere of cells called a blastocyst. One part of the blastocyst is a cluster of cells called the inner cell mass, which are the stem cells that will go on to form most of the cells and tissues of the human body. These are pluripotent stem cells, which are different than totipotent stem cells -- pluripotent stem cells do not develop into a complete organism.
"Recently, human pluripotent stem cells have been isolated from two sources: the inner cell mass of human embryos at the blastocyst stage and from fetal tissue obtained from terminated pregnancies. Because these cells are capable of limitless division and self-renewal, they can be maintained indefinitely in tissue culture, making them a vital resource for research."
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/about_ninds/spieg_fisch_t estimony.htm#Why%20are%20human%20pluripotent%20ste m%20cells%20important
Pluripotent not totipotent! (Score:3)
While regenerating stem cells from differentiated cells is a big deal--since it takes forever to isolate stem cells and grow them--it's nowhere near being able to generate a completely cloned human from a single random cell. There's an enormous difference between pluripotent stem cells and the totipotent cells found in a very early embryo. While a pluripotent CFU can generate each and every single blood cell type, it can't generate neurons or striated muscle. While a pluripotent cell from the neural plate could theoretically generate any type of neuron and even cells that color your skin, the cells that help generate your teeth, and the cells in your adrenal glands, you wouldn't be able to make a liver or a pancreas from them. Only cells from before morulation have this kind of totipotency, and there's really no indication that they're actually causing cells to revert back to this level.
It's not an enormous leap to imagine being able to revert some differentiated cells to their stem cell derivatives. Obviously, erthryocytes can't since they've dumped all their DNA, and neither can lymphocytes, since they've spliced out a lot of theirs, but if other leukocytes keep their DNA intact, all it takes is removing certain regulatory proteins. Not a mean feat by far, but it's not magic either. And nowhere in the article do they claim they've retrodifferentiated completely differentiated NK cells, macrophages, or anything like that. For all we know, they could have just retrodifferentiated stem cells that are less pluripotent (like CFU-GM cells, which can only make granulocytes and macrophages) or even just the non-differentiated forms of RBCs or WBCs (For example, polychromatic erythroblasts, while normally committed to erythrocyte production, still have all their DNA and can still divide, so it wouldn't be too hard to get them to revert)
More obviously, they really haven't claimed that they've done anything about the telomere problem, which really puts a damper on the whole immortality idea. Sure, you could just add telomerase to the mix, but that's more likely to generate uncontrollably dividing cells than anything useful.
In other words, this is over-hyped. Sure, it's good news to people suffering from leukemia and other disorders of hematopoiesis, but if you need a new liver, don't get too excited.
That's been solved already. (Score:4)
As it turns out, DNA ages just like the rest of the body. Over time, it deteriorates and genetic errors build up. At some point (known to be around 120 years in humans) the decay begins to trigger the cell self-destruction mechanisms, even if those cells are otherwise healthy. The body begins to die one way or the other.
You're confusing two mechanisms:
- Error building up.
- The protective (hayflick limit) cell-reproduction counter running out and shutting down the cells.
The site of the counter has been discovered: It's the repeating sequences on the end of the chromosomes (telomeres), which don't copy completely and get shorter with each reproduction. In the absense of an enzyme (telomerase) which adds more repeats to them, the cell reproduction stops after a certain number of copies.
There are several places in the body where the cells contain telomerase and "reset the counter". One of them is a step in producing germ cells (eggs and sperm). So the baby starts out with the counter reset. They procedure they used to make Dolly did NOT reset the counter. But it would be trivial fix that, i.e. by dosing the DNA-sample cell with the enzyme.
(While the degradation of the telomeres is apparently a consequence of the way open-ended chromosomes are copied, the lack of telomerase in most tissues appears to be a protective mechanism to reduce the cancer rate from the geneic errors you mention. To become cancer a cell must acquire errors that BOTH stick its reproduction switch "on" AND switch on the production of telomerase before it has run out the clock. If it misses the second step the tumor stops growing, typically at about the size of a pea, and may then self-destruct.)
And that's why I wonder about this research... (Score:4)
And there are a number of possibilities for what happens as the cells differentiate. (Production of DNA-regulation enzymes, phosphorilation of DNA bases, DNA edits, folding, etc.)
If the cells were anything BUT white cells (by which I assume they mean fully-mature antibody-producing white cells), I'd be less sceptical.
One step in the maturation of white cells is the differentiation of the antibodies. This involves the deletion of two small segments of DNA in the sites corresponding to the hypervariable regions of the antibodies. This is a noisy deletion, happening differently in each of the many cells in which it occurs, leading to the variety of antibodies with which we are blessed (and sometimes cursed).
Deletions like that are NOT reversable. (They correspond to editing out a chunk of a tape recording, and reversing them would consist of figuring out the missing waveform and editing it back IN. The information is LOST, so you don't have it to put back.)
Assuming all the OTHER steps in cell differentiation from totipotent to adult are members of a limited set of easily reversable changes, applying such fixes to an adult white cell would give you something that looked very much like a stem cell, and could fix most tissues of the body. But try to replace the immune system and you find that the splices were already done. Maybe the markers that control the edits are gone, and you get all one type of antibody. Less likely: the edits still happen but the variety is greatly reduced.
Make a clone and the clone has a defective immune system. If it survives to reproduce its offspring inherit the deficit as a nasty recessive.
Nevertheless, this IS very encouraging news. It sounds like the researcher may have found a way to reverse all the non-DNA-edit differentiation steps, producing a cell that "thinks" it's a stem cell. If true, even with an antibody coding problem such a cell could be used to repair many tissue types and grow replacement organs. And once the process is understood it might be adapted to a cell type that DIDN'T have DNA edits in its differentiation history.
Re:A few notable points... (Score:2)
I suspect that once you have a technology that can, say, extend your lifespan to double it's current limitations, you have a good chance of achieving immortality. It's likely, for example, that there would be advances that would allow stem cells to be regenerated, and if you lived longer because of tissues grown from stem cells, it's all the more likely that you'd live to see it.
Re:wouldn't reverse or prevent aging (Score:2)
That and cumulative damage from metabolic processes. That's why anti-oxidants are such popular dietary supplements. They supposedly reduce metabolic damage by mopping up spare oxidizing agents. That's also why a very low calorie diet increases lifespan as well.
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:2)
Re:It's good. (Score:2)
OK,
- B
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Other types of WBCs (Score:2)
Re:New tissue = No tofu (Score:2)
To answer your concerns though - If everybody raised animals in an ethical manner, I wouldn't see much fault in using them for food. After all, people, not to mention plenty of other animals, have been doing that very thing for millenia. But the issue is respect and care for the animals. If my eating of chickens is promoting an industry which takes chickens, rips their beaks off, stuffs a tube in their face, and cages them up in racks and racks, and squeezes as many eggs out of them until they die, or are killed for meat, I don't want to participate in that. If it means boxing up meat cattle in a space they can't even move in, for their entire premature lives, separating offspring at birth, etc, I don't want to participate in that. It is impractical, and in many cases impossible, to buy completely ethically raised animal food, simply because economies of scale make it much more economical to raise animals in an unethical manner. So I abstain. The secondary reason is that we eat proportionally way too much meat than we were designed to anyway, and a mostly, or totally vegetarian diet (that is with high quality vegetarian food) is a better diet anyway (less risk of cancer, food poisening, wierd hormones, blah blah blah). The third reason, I suppose, is that after a while I've become sort of sicked by the idea of eating some thing that was living and running around before, although that is not really a practical reason.
So if either 1) everybody starts ethically raising animals, so that I can be assured that the meat I'm stuffing in my face at least came from something that had a decent life, or 2) we come up with some neato technology that allows us to grow artificial animal meat, I can see un-vegetarianizing (especially for the omega-3 in fish, etc.).
Re:Tom Baker Regenerates Into Time Lord (Score:2)
IMHO, that's one of the reasons nobody is really doing anything about global warming. Nobody alive today is likely to live long enough to see the long-term consequences of atmospheric pollution, so why should they do anything?
Now, if your average major industrialist had a few more centuries tagged onto their life-expectency, their world view is likely to go through a major overhaul. One day's profits aren't going to make a big impact on someone likely to live into their third or fourth centuries.
On the other hand, if your ultra-expensive coastal Villa is likely to vanish into the rising oceans before you've had a chance to even live there, then you might do something about the cause of said rise in oceans.
(This is covered in more depth, and with a better grasp of English, in John Wyndam's novel "Trouble with Lichen".)
Re:Bear's white blood cell story was "Blood Music" (Score:2)
Stableford, Bear, Stableford, Bear...
The names are so similar it's easy for me to get confused.
...
Not buying that one? Okay, how about "I've re-read so much of the stuff on my bookshelf in the last two weeks that's it's all blurred together, also, I'm stupid." ?
Re:Bear's white blood cell story was "Blood Music" (Score:2)