But which kind of stem cells?
Fox News | Adult Stem Cells May Help Spine-Injured Mice:
In lab tests, mice with spinal injuries had some improvements after getting injections of adult human neural stem cells.The mice showed evidence of spinal-cord-lesion repair and better mobility, report Aileen Anderson, PhD, and colleagues.
Adult stem cells are wonderful! They show tremendous potential to cure a wide range of illnesses and/or injuries. Unlike embryonic stem cells, using adult stem cells does not require killing humans for research. This is great news!
National Geographic News | Stem Cells Repair Damaged Spinal Cords in Mice:
A new study shows that human stem cells injected into mice can repair damaged spinal cords and help partially paralyzed mice walk again.Although many questions remain unanswered, the research raises the hope of using stem cells to help people with spinal cord injuries.
"We're very excited about these stem cells," said Aileen Anderson of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of California, Irvine. "We're really on the cusp of making some big leaps forward."
...
For their experiment, the UC Irvine researchers used fetal brain stem cells provided by StemCells Inc., a Palo Alto, California-based company. The scientists injured the spinal cords of mice and nine days later injected them with the stem cells.
Say what? Are we talking about the same experiment?
Medical News Today | Human neural stem cells significantly improved mobility in paralyzed mice:
Scientists at the University of California at Irvine have managed to inject adult human neural stem cells into the spinal cord of paralyzed mice, which experienced significantly improved mobility. You can read about this study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.This could lead to effective treatment for patients who have spinal cord injuries. When the human stem cells were injected into the mice's spinal cord, they split into new oligodendrocyte cells, restoring the myelin around the faulty mouse axons. New synaptic connections were made between the neurons.
Right, adult stem cells! That's what I thought....
Guardian Unlimited | Human stem cells allow paralysed mice to walk again:
Scientists have used injections of human stem cells to heal spinal injuries in paralysed mice, allowing them to walk normally again.The research, which was funded by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, suggests that stem cells could be used to repair spinal damage in people who have suffered damaging accidents or disease, although further studies, including safety tests, are needed before the treatment can go into human trials.
Neuroscientist Aileen Anderson and her team at the Reeve-Irvine Research Centre at the University of California, Irvine, used stem cells taken from the neural tissue of aborted foetuses. When injected into the body, they can develop into any type of nervous tissue.
Okay, I'm getting confused. Which kind of stem cells were used?
Forbes | Stem Cells Treat Spinal Cord Injury in Mice:
Scientists say they've used adult human neural stem cells to regenerate damaged spinal cord tissue and improve mobility in mice with injured spinal cords.This success by researchers at the University of California, Irvine shows the potential of using human adult neural stem cells in order to treat spinal cord injury patients.
Adult stem cells. See, I told you!
Let's go see if the University of California, Irvine can set us straight....
Today@UCI | Adult human neural stem cell therapy successful in treating spinal cord injury:
Researchers at the UC Irvine Reeve-Irvine Research Center have used adult human neural stem cells to successfully regenerate damaged spinal cord tissue and improve mobility in mice.The findings point to the promise of using this type of cells for possible therapies to help humans who have spinal cord injuries. Study results appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
In their study, Brian Cummings, Aileen Anderson and colleagues injected adult human neural stem cells into mice with limited mobility due to spinal cord injuries. These transplanted stem cells differentiated into new oligodendrocyte cells that restored myelin around damaged mouse axons. Additionally, transplanted cells differentiated into new neurons that formed synaptic connections with mouse neurons.
Adult stem cells again. Well, just to be sure, let's check one more source: the actual study results.
The current study addresses three previously unexplored issues in stem cell transplantation research for spinal cord repair in what are, to our knowledge, the first spinal cord injury experiments using prospectively isolated, human CNS stem
cells grown as neurospheres (hCNS-SCns) derived from fetal brain (14, 15).
That's weird. The UCI press release doesn't agree with the published study.
What to believe? It seems more likely that the published study results from the PNAS are accurate. In other words, I think these stem cells probably came from unborn children. Sadly, this news will only encourage the vultures.
Please don't misunderstand me. Hope for paralyzed people is a wonderful thing. However, there is such a thing as paying too high of a price, even for a medical miracle. Shall we sacrifice our children to heal ourselves? Worse yet, shall we create a distinct subclass of human beings for the express purpose of being sacrificed on the altar of medical science?
It's appalling that the question even needs to be asked. It's even more appalling that the answer is probably "YES!"
(cross-posted at Naaman the Ex-Leper)
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