As our political and economic fortunes continue to trend down hill it is always a good tonic to consider some of the more promising developments that are occurring. For example, the breakthroughs in stem cell research and organ building proceed apace:
Scientists' stem cell breakthrough ends ethical dilemma
Experts in Britain and Canada find way to make stem cells without destroying embryos
Scientists have found a way to make an almost limitless supply of stem cells that could safely be used in patients while avoiding the ethical dilemma of destroying embryos.
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Because the cells can be made from a patient's own skin, they carry the same DNA and so could be used without a risk of being rejected by the immune system.
Scientists showed they could make stem cells from adult cells more than a year ago, but the cells could never be used in patients because the procedure involved injecting viruses that could cause cancer. Overcoming the problem has been a major stumbling block in efforts to make stem cells fulfil their promise of transforming the future of medicine.
Now, scientists at the universities of Edinburgh and Toronto have found a way to achieve the same feat without using viruses, making so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell therapies a realistic prospect for the first time.
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In two papers published in the journal Nature, Keisuke Kaji in Edinburgh and Andras Nagy in Toronto, describe how they reprogrammed cells using a safer technique called electroporation. This allowed the scientists to do away with viruses and ferry genes into the cells through pores. Once the genes had done their job, the scientists removed them, leaving the cells healthy and intact.
We are still a ways off from being able ot reliably produce large numbers of (adult derived pluripotent) stem cells but the progress is impressive. And, the story gets even better:
Technique may help stem cells generate solid organs, Stanford study shows
Stem cells can thrive in segments of well-vascularized tissue temporarily removed from laboratory animals, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Once the cells have nestled into the tissue’s nooks and crannies, the so-called “bioscaffold” can then be seamlessly reconnected to the animal’s circulatory system.
In order to grow new organs to order, it will be necessary to build scaffolds, seed them with the appropriate triggers, introduce stem cells, maintain them in viable states as they differentiate in the desired directions and then transport them into the patient. We are making remarkable progress in all these areas.
At the same time we are, on a daily basis, identifying cellular markers to target in cancer cells of all sorts. Biotechnology and health care may well be unrecognizable in 10 years as we routinely cure cancer and heart disease, and replace damaged organs with brand new ones we have grown for ourselves.
At the same time, there are risks that can derail much of this progress. Politics is the single greatest source of danger to Biomedical innovation. Beyond the current targeting of Big Pharma (one of the several identified enemies of the left) there is the all too human impulse for equality. A desire for equality is understandable and admirable, yet it is also overtly in opposition to excellence. In a related context, Reason notes that our desires for equality can harm us all; Reason first quotes Colin Farrelly:
When I talk to people about my interests in [engineering greater healthy longevity through science] are a number of reservations and concerns they have. Let me briefly identify, and address, two of them: (1) many feel that talk of retarding human aging sounds like mere science fiction; and (2) many express the viewpoint that it is distasteful to worry about decelerating aging when there is so much poverty and disease in the world.
Reason's comments are telling:
But the instinct that leads to rejecting longevity engineering is a patchy one that leads us falsely. You don't see many of these people giving up their comfortable lifestyle because it is better than poverty. You also don't see many of them decrying the progress of the past century that has led to better medicine - all accomplished while there was much poverty and disease in the world. They accept the beneficial progress that has taken place while at the same time recoiling from more beneficial progress accomplished under the same circumstances.
We continue to struggle with a disconnect between fighting aging and fighting disease. In reality, almost all diseases that any of us will confront are essentially secondary to the aging process. Cancer is the outcome of long term accumulation of errors in the biological machinery of our cells. Such damage accumulates with age as our repair mechanisms fall behind; damage collects more quickly than it can be repaired. Heart disease represents the penultimate stages of a cascade of damage that accumulates because we have less robust repair mechanisms as time goes on. Our tissues become less elastic, our heart has to work harder, oxidized (rancid) fats collect on our vessel walls and cause inflammation as our bodies attempt to clear it, and on and on as we descend into senescence. Yet our regulatory agencies refuse to tolerate research or treatments that expressly address aging. They remain stuck in an outmoded paradigm which hinders all research.
[Various medicines that many take routinely and chronically are, in effect, anti-aging medicines. High Blood Pressure is not a disease but a risk factor for illnesses; it is a secondary effect of aging for most people; ie, blood pressure medicines are almost always anti-aging medicines. High Cholesterol is also not a disease but a concomitant of aging and a rich diet; ie, Lipitor, et al, are essentially anti-aging medicines. Of note, none of these medicines would have passed regulatory muster had not the FDA and the research establishment first defined High Blood Pressure and High Cholesterol as diseases. In the same way, companies that are investigating Sirtuins for their anti-aging properties must find ways to market their research as directed against Diabetes (Type II diabetes is the epitome of a disease of aging) because they would not find funding or have any chance at gaining regulatory approval were they to market themselves as anti-aging drugs. If/when such drugs reach the market, the off-label use will dwarf any use for diabetes; the market would be in the hundreds of billions which is why so many groups are working on this.]
Worse still is the possibility that legislated equality in access to health care, which requires rationing, will further stunt innovation.
Those who most desire equality in medical care should take heed: Equality of health care means that the top end, which funds and receives first the benefits of innovation, will have to descend to the bottom end. That is the only way that expenses can be even minimally controlled and it means that innovation will be stifled at a time when medicine and biotech is finally on the verge of actually "getting it."
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