A cure for blindness, now?
` As with my previous entry, it looks as if stem cell injections could be used to reconstruct a damaged retina. This is inferred by an experiment where partially blind mice were given injections of newborn mouse photoreceptor cells, which were able to join with the rest of the retina properly (unlike sheets of fetal retinal cells, which are already in use in humans).
MacLaren thinks that his cells are well suited to transplantation, because they are only one step from being adaptable stem cells and can tolerate being moved from one eye to another. Also, they are newly committed to becoming photoreceptors, so that they continue to grow into photoreceptors even after the move.` So, let's kill fetuses and take their nerve cells!! ...Or just wait until they die. Actually, since dead fetuses are slim pickings these days, what with all the medical advances in the past hundred years, we could instead use embryonic stem cells that are cultured with the fetal cells to make more of the same fetal cells!
Researchers will now want to test whether newborn cells, rather than stem cells, are successful in other transplants, Reh says: "We've been doing it all wrong". Grafting new spinal neurons, for example, might help treat spinal-cord injuries.
` Using that method, more people than ever before can be pissed off by a single medical technique!
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4 comments:
Yes! Let people see with the magic of dead fetuses and embryos together!
Go stem cell research!!! Woohoo!!! But GAH!!! Why do people have to be so stupid about stem cell research and stem cell usage? Part of me wishes that all the anti-stem cell research people would get debilitating diseases and injuries that could only be cured by the use of stem cells. Then they would see!
` Yes! May a plague of Alzheimer's come down upon them! No, better make it Parkinson's. That way they can still think enough to change their minds.
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