Dr. Condic Explains Why Reprogrammed Cells Are Not Embryos
This is a great read for anyone who worries about the various reprogramming techniques for creating stem cells. I would include myself in that category. Dr. Maureen Condic, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, makes an excellent case at Public Discourse that stem cells are not embryos. She highlights the important distinction between true "totipotency" that can give rise to a developing organism and the common usage of "totipotent" which is often employed to describe a cell that can differentiate into all the different tissue types including...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - March 11, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Source Type: blogs
Genetically Modified Food: Bad; Genetically Modified Humans: Good
In the November 2012 elections, voters of Washington state had to decide on Initiative 522. I-522 would require food sold in the state to be labeled if any of its components were produced by genetically modified organisms (GMOs).Proponents made a necessary distinction between selectively bred plants and animals and those that are GMOs. Selective breeding has been standard practice in agriculture since man began herding animals and growing crops. GMO plants and animals are those that have a genetic makeup that would not occur naturally through normal breeding. For example, a plant that has had a gene inserted that gives it ...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - March 10, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Genetic Engineering Source Type: blogs
Barcoding Human Embryos
(Image from New Scientist)I have never worked in manufacturing but I can imagine inventory and quality control are important parts of the process. Keeping track of inventory and making sure the right parts get to where they are needed would be a priority. The barcode has surely revolutionized the manufacturing industry.The barcode is certainly finding a home in the human manufacturing plant, also known as the IVF clinic. Scientists from Barcelona have announced in the journal, Human Reproduction, that they now can place a barcode tag directly on an embryo to make sure you end up with the right kid. Because mix-ups d...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - March 4, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: IVF Source Type: blogs
Oklahoma House Votes to Ban Research Destroying Human Embryos
Last week the House of the Oklahoma State legislature overwhelmingly passed the Protection of Human Life Act of 2013. This act prohibits the destruction of human embryos for research and prohibits research on cells that were obtained from the destruction of a human embryo.HB2070 reads:No person shall:1. Knowingly conduct nontherapeutic research that destroys a human embryo or subjects a human embryo to substantial risk of injury or death;2. Transfer a human embryo with the knowledge that the embryo will be subjected to nontherapeutic research; or3. Use for research purposes cells or tissues that the person knows were obtai...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - March 3, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Stem cells, Embryonic Source Type: blogs
TV Show "Intelligence": Patriotic Transhumanist Propaganda
My husband watches the new TV show "Intelligence" starring Josh Holloway (previously Sawyer from Lost) as Gabriel, a man with a rare genetic mutation (or some such) that allowed the U.S. government to put a chip in his brain. This chip gives Gabriel unlimited access to the Internet directly into his consciousness. As an agent for a super secret intelligence agency, that comes in super handy. Gabriel, the best of all guys, uses his enhancement only for good. He saves people and catches bad guys and he looks good doing it. Gabriel is the quintessential enhanced American hero reminiscent of Captain America, just wit...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - February 25, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Transhumanism Source Type: blogs
Urgent: Tell the FDA What You Think About "Three-Parent" Embryos
On February 25th and 26th, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be having a meeting to discuss allowing the technique that creates embryos with three genetic parents to proceed to clinical trials. The "three-parent" embryo technique is also called mitochondrial replacement, maternal spindle transfer, or oocyte modification. In an effort to "treat" mitochondrial disease, this technique would intentionally modify IVF embryos to have the genetic material from three persons. This modification is also one that will extend beyond the children produced and will be passed onto future generations. (For mo...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - February 17, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Genetic Engineering Source Type: blogs
Scientist Claims New Reprogramming Technique Works in Human Cells, May Lead to Cloning
After the ground-breaking news last week that Japanese scientists were able reprogram adult cells to embryonic-like cells in mice by simply bathing them in weak acid, the next step was to try this with human cells. The technique is called "stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency", or STAP.With lightening speed, Dr. Charles Vacanti and his team at Harvard Medical School has announced that they have created STAP human cells. New Scientist has the story:Talk about speedy work. Hot on the heels of the news that simply dipping adult mouse cells in acid could turn them into cells with the potential to turn into ...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - February 12, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: STAP stem cells Source Type: blogs
Eugenics Still Coercive and Devoid of Real Compassion
Today more and more people are whole-heartedly embracing eugenics. They probably don't know it as eugenics, but every time a human life in the womb or in the lab is cut short because his or her genetics is not up to snuff, that is undoubtedly eugenics.Many associate the eugenics of old with a lack of compassion and with government coercion. Today's eugenics, in contrast, is perceived as an exercise of free choice and a compassionate endeavor. In modern sensibilities, tossing out embryos or aborting fetuses with genetic disorders, even disorders that will not surface until adulthood (with time for a cure to be found), is th...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - February 5, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Eugenics Source Type: blogs
New Fast and Easy Technique to Reprogram Adult Cells May Have Ethical Issues
Scientists in Japan have developed a way to cheaply and easily take adult cells from mice and reprogram them back to a pluripotent or embryonic-like state. They demonstrated that these cells were capable of becoming all the cells in a full grown mouse. They call the technique stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency or STAP. Unlike, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that use viruses to reprogram a very small percentage of adult cells back to pluripotency, STAP uses stressors like acid baths or physical pressure to quickly reprogram a much larger portion of cells.Continue reading at LifeNews >> (Source: Mary Meets Dolly)
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 29, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Source Type: blogs
BioTalk, Episode 7: IVF -- Is it Really Good for the Children?
IVF advocates desperately want us to believe that biology is irrelevant when it comes to "family," but the testimonies of countless donor conceived children, prove otherwise. In episode 7 of BioTalk, Chelsea and I discuss the ironic legacy of third party reproduction: that couples are so desperate for a child to love and yet concern for whats good and right for the child itself is actually put last.
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Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 27, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: IVF Source Type: blogs
ELLE Writer Calls IVF a "Scam"
This personal narrative by Ali Margo at ELLE about her experience with the fertility industry will break your heart. She chronicles her two rounds of IVF that end with a call from the clinic telling her that all 20 of her embryos are dead. Read between the lines and you will find greed, exploitation and snake-oil. Margo paints a very unflattering picture of a billion dollar industry that she points out has a 70% failure rate. Here are some excerpts from "$47,000 Dollars Later, I Have No Baby: The IVF Scam":You think your uterus is why youre here, but thats not why youre here, the fertility doctor said, ...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 22, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: IVF Source Type: blogs
Sex-selection in the West
Everyone knows that sex-selection is rampant in the places like China and India where ultrasound and legalized abortion mean that roughly 160 million women are "missing." What many people do not know, or refuse to acknowledge, is that the practice of aborting girls just because they are girls is growing in the West as well.A study done by Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund, of UC Berkeley that looked at U.S. 2000 Census data. They found that among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents there is a male bias especially in third children. They report, "If there was no previous s...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 15, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Abortion Source Type: blogs
More Media Stem Cell Confusion
This reporter is clearly confused. Regular adult stem cells, which have been used to treat leukemia and lymphoma for decades, are found naturally in bone marrow and other tissues. In contrast, iPSCs are adult cells, like skin cells, that have been reprogrammed back to an embryonic-like state. So while adult stem cells are naturally found in many parts of the body, iPSCs are embryonic-like stem cells that are created in the lab. iPSC technology is relatively new and is not being used to treat patients. As far as I know, there is only one clinical trial going in the world right now using iPSCs in humans. Because iPSCs are pl...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 13, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Source Type: blogs
Mini-Kidney Likely Grown from Embryonic Stem Cells Not Skin Cells
In this study, we have successfully directed the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) through posterior primitive streak and IM under fully chemically defined monolayer culture conditions using growth factors used during normal embryogenesis.So it seems some news outlets mislead us. I doubt this was a deliberate attempt to confuse the public. This may be a genuine case of confusion about the differences between ESCs and iPSCs on the part of the media.Nonetheless, it is becoming more and more difficult to piece together what research is ethical and which is not just from mainstream media reports. We pro-lif...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 8, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Stem cells, Embryonic Source Type: blogs
Cry for Help from Young Woman Conceived with IVF
This e-mail from a reader broke my heart. It is a cry for help from a young IVF-conceived woman who mourns the loss of her siblings that didn't make it. It is also a look at the darker-side of IVF that no one wants to talk about: the massive loss of life inherent in the IVF process. She writes:I was wondering if you knew of any websites or resources that support people struggling after being conceived using IVF. I've been searching and searching online, and I've been unable to find a single source of advice.I was one of three embryos created in the process, but I was the only one who survived. I mourn my siblings every sin...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - January 1, 2014 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: IVF Source Type: blogs
