Adult Stem Cell News The 527 Media Thinks You Can’t Use
Ask yourself why the 527 Media devoted barrels of ink and bundles of bandwidth to a company’s very misleading announcement about a virtual non-development in embryonic stem cell research, but could find no room for yet another achievement involving adult stem cells.
From Life News:
Adult Stem Cell Researchers: We Can Do More With Adult Stem Cells
September 14, 2006San Francisco, CA (LifeNews.com) — At a American Chemical Society this week, teams of stem cell researchers told participants that they can get more out of adult stem cells than previously thought. The scientists said that adult stem cells can become any cell in the body with a little bit of coaxing.
If so, then one of the big reasons given for embryonic stem cell research is no longer valid and human life doesn’t need to be destroyed for stem cells.
Three presentations at the ACS conference touched on the possibility, according to a WebMD report. The papers used different studies by showed similar findings.
The papers all found that adult stem cells taken from bone marrow ordinarily would have become blood cells but can be persuaded to become organ or even nerve cells. The changes occurred when the scientists altered the physical environment in which the cells grew.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley used a workout of sorts to prompt adult stem cells to become blood vessel cells. They attached the bone marrow cells to an elastic membrane that stretched and relaxed over the course of several days to get them to grow.
Eventually the adult stem cells turned into smooth muscle cells.
Berkeley scientist Kyle Kurpinski told WebMD, “If a cell cannot flex its muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger, it cannot build its muscles.”
“Gov. Schwarzenegger got big biceps by lifting dumbbells … It works the same way for stem cells to become smooth muscle cells. They have to sit in culture day in and day out lifting weights,” he added.
In a second report, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania told the ACS meeting about a discovery LifeNews.com previously covered. They discussed new data showing adult stem cells changing into most any environment in which they’re inserted.
If adult stem cells can indeed “become any cell in the body with a little bit of coaxing,” what need is there for life-destroying embryonic stem cell research? Answer: NONE.
