I think the history of the issue contradicts your position Mike. 30 or 40 years ago it was thought that the human organism was pretty much fixed and nonmalleable. This is why the early emphasis on embryonic stem cells, as opposed to older specialized cells. Over the past decade or so numerous discoveries in virtually all fields of medicine has shown that keyed with the right stimuli the human organism is neither fixed or nonmalleable but can be coaxed into almost anything, including taking adult stem cells from bone marrow and fat, and getting them to form a large number of different cell types.
Recent discoveries in epigenetics, the methylation of DNA governing gene expression which is heritable but also changed by environment. I.E. a study in Northern Europe showing that grandchildren were still having epigenetic effects from a famine their grandmothers endured during WWII, show how complex the DNA cell interactions are and how much is unknown, increasing the risks and difficulties involved in therapeutic cloning.
All of the scientific progress and discoveries in the last 30 years or so in this field tend towards the conclusion that the primary reason for focusing on embryonic stem cells as a means of therapy is false. That primary reason being that adult cells cannot be stimulated or coaxed to act like embryonic cells. This coupled with the increasing knowledge of the dangers potentially introduced by the use of embryonic stem cells indicate that embryonic stem cells as a direct source of therapy are a research dead end. Studying embryonic stem cells in the laboratory, learning the mechanisms which trigger and govern changes is essential to developing stem cell therapy, but in the long run, it is adult stem cell therapy which will be safe and effective. It is theoretically possible that there may be one or two rare conditions which only therapeutic cloning can be used to treat, it seems highly unlikely, given the modern developments in this field.
I never said anything about stem cell therapy being useless or a dead end. I said embryonic stem cell therapy is a dead end. It seems apparent at this point in science in this area that adult stem cell therapy will be able to perform all the functions that embryonic stem cells could theoretically be used for and in a much safer way for the patient. It is important to make this point. Embryonic stem cell therapy has become a religious or superstitious mantra for certain irrational political and media factions. It was a good idea given the science 7 years ago when embryonic stem cells were first discovered., it is a wild goose chase given the science today. Indeed by the mid 90s around the time that ESCs were first discovered new discoveries were already showing the greater plasticity of adult tissues and stem cells than had been the assumption in the past.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1826 Embryonic stem cell research into fundamental cell metabolism and triggers for specialization is essential to developments in this field. Therapeutic cloning, farming embryos, etc. is a wild goose chase. A waste of research money and time. It is true that if you spend billions on therapeutic cloning, you will find cures. The same billions spent on adult stem cell research would produce the same cures faster, and in a form which is inherently safer for the patient. The embryonic stem cell therapy issue has ceased to be science and become superstition.
http://www.nationalreview.com/smithw/smith200409090835.asp You said, "Stem cells are multiversal items present in all life. But its also a new science barely out of its infancy. Have a little more faith in the researchers of stem cell science today, before stateing there are any 'dead ends'."
You do not ask me to have faith in embryonic stem cell research but in stem cell research in general. I never dismissed stem cell research as a blind alley, but only the idea of embryonic stem cell therapy producing miracle cures not achievable with other forms of stem cells. You say the science is in its infancy. That may be true, but because of the data set issues I described in my previous post, the infant adult stem cell therapy is a vital and growing baby while the infant embryonic stem cell baby appears to have been still born.
"Adult stem cells
Stem cells can be found in all adult and young adult beings. Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells that reproduce daily to provide certain specialized cells?for example 200 billion red blood cells are created each day in the body from hemopoietic stem cells. Until recently it was thought that each of these cells could produce just one particular type of cell?this is called differentiation (see Morphogenesis). However in the past few years, evidence has been gathered of stem cells that can transform into several different forms. Bone marrow stromal stem cells are known to be able to transform into liver, nerve, muscle, hair follicle and kidney cells."
"Adult stem cells may be even more versatile than this. Researchers at the New York University School of Medicine have extracted stem cells from the bone-marrow of mice which they say are pluripotent. Turning one type of stem cell into another is called transdifferentiation."
"In fact, useful sources of adult stem cells are being found in organs all over the body. Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have extracted stem cells from skin that are able to differentiate into many types of tissue, including neurons, smooth muscle cells and fat-cells. These were found in the dermis, the inner layer of the skin. These stem cells play a pivotal role in healing small cuts. Blood vessels, the dental pulp, the digestive epithelium, the retina, liver and even the brain are all said to contain stem cells."
"Adipose derived adult stem (ADAS) cells have also been isolated from fat, e.g. from liposuction. This source of cells seems to be similar in many ways to Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from bone marrow, except that it is possible to isolate many more cells from fat. These cells have been shown to differentiate into bone, fat, muscle, cartilage, and neurons. These cells have been recently used to successfully repair a large cranial defect in a human patient [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell#Cord_blood_stem_cells"
"The breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research came in November 1998 when a group led by James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison first developed a technique to isolate and grow the cells. Embryonic stem cell researchers are currently attempting to grow the cells beyond the first stages of cell development, to overcome difficulties in host rejection of implanted stem cells, and to control the multiplying of implanted embryonic stem cells, which otherwise multiply uncontrollably, producing cancer."
