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Thetaloops
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
Posts: 151
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Germany pulls ahead with Stem Cell Research
 Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:50 pm
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Stem cells from fat used to repair girl's skull
Doctors report damaged bone grew back after surgeryThe Associated Press
Updated: 12:46 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2004Surgeons have used stem cells from fat to help repair skull damage in a 7-year-old girl in Germany, in what’s apparently the first time such fat-derived cells have been exploited to grow bone in a human.
The girl had been injured two years before in a fall, which destroyed several areas of her skull totaling nearly 19 square inches, the German researchers reported.
Other surgeons had failed to correct the defects, and the girl wore a protective helmet. Her brain could sometimes be seen pulsating through the missing areas of her skull.
But several weeks after the stem-cell surgery, she was able to leave her helmet behind, the researchers report in the December issue of the Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery. The skull is now smooth to the touch, the missing parts replaced by thin but solid bone, said Dr. Hans-Peter Howaldt of the Justus-Liebig-University Medical School in Giessen, Germany. The child was not identified.
Howaldt, who performed the surgery last year, said the damage was too extensive to be repaired with bone grafts from her body. He said the hope was that if bits of the child’s bone were mixed with stem cells, the cells would turn into bone-building cells that would create additional bone.
That appears to have happened, Howaldt said in a telephone interview Thursday.
“I cannot prove that our success comes from the stem cells alone,” he said, “but the combination of the two things simply worked.”
Embryonic stem cells used in research most often come from embryos left over after in vitro fertilization procedures.
Step One: An egg is fertilized by a sperm in a lab dish.
Step Two: The fertilized egg begins to divide and develop into an embryo. About five days later, the embryo becomes a blastocyst -- a hollow ball of about 100 cells. The inner cells are the embryonic stem cells.
Step Three: Stem cells are removed from the blastocyst and cultured in the laboratory where they theoretically can multiply indefinitely.
Step Four: By adding and removing certain proteins, scientists can coax the cells to develop into new heart, bone, nerve or other cells to treat diseases.
Assisted reproductive technology: Fertility treatments that involve a laboratory handling eggs or embryos, such as in vitro fertilization.
Blastocyst: A preimplantation embryo of 30 to 150 cells.
Differentiation: The process by which early unspecified cells acquire the features of specific cells such as heart tissue, liver or muscle.
Embryo: The earliest stage of development from the single cell to implantation in the uterus.
Embryonic stem cell: A cell from an embryo that has the potential to become a wide variety of specialized cell types.
In vitro: Done outside the body.
In vivo: Done within the living body.
Tissue or cell culture: Growth of tissue in a laboratory dish for experimental research.
Source: Associated Press, MSNBC research • Print this
'A very big deal'
In August, other German doctors reported growing a jaw bone in a man’s back muscle and transplanting it to his mouth to fill a gap left by cancer surgery. The researchers used bone marrow, which also contains stem cells, to help grow the bone. But it’s not clear whether the stem cells were responsible for the bone growth.
So Roy C. Ogle of the University of Virginia, an expert in skull reconstructive surgery who has been studying bone regeneration from fat-derived cells, said he considered the new report to be the first indicating that any kind of stem cell had been used to grow bone in a human.
“It is a very big deal,” said Ogle, who called the study a landmark.
He agreed that the study didn’t prove that stem cells provided the new bone. But it also indicates that the implanted cells did no harm, which has been a concern with using stem cells in people, he said.
Ogle said many surgeons would have augmented the child’s bone with a mineral paste or collagen instead of stem cells. Howaldt said he believes it’s better to use the body’s own tissue.
Howaldt and his colleagues treated the skull in the same operation that recovered bone from the girl’s pelvis and about 1.5 ounces of fat tissue from her buttocks. The bone was milled into chips about one-tenth of an inch long and placed in the missing areas of the skull. Then surgeons added the stem cells to the bone chips. The cells had been extracted from the girl’s fat in a laboratory while surgeons prepared the girl’s skull.
Howaldt said the bone chips appeared to instruct the stem cells to make more bone. While the new bone should grow as the child grows, she’s old enough that her skull won’t grow much more anyway, he said.
© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:57 pm
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The U.S. has a bunch of very cruel and insane people dictating Biblical beliefs to scientists. From medical marijuana, stem cell research, herbal research to gay marriage, America is no longer the leader in progressive thinking. They would rather see people suffer from illness than cure a disease. Carving an "S" on their collective chests, and they expect everyone else too also.
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Heard it from a pilot who spoke real gooooood! |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Dec 17, 2004 9:03 pm
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This is one of the reasons why:
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2004/12/new_sat_questio.html#more
New SAT Questions Replace Evolution with Creation
Students attending school in districts that have phased out the teaching of evolution will no longer be forced to answer SAT questions about the controversial theory. Instead, they'll answer questions about the six days in which God created the earth and the great flood that took place 4,300 years ago.
New version of test to be administered in 'red' states of Georgia, Kansas
By Cole Walters
Education Correspondent
NEW YORK, NY—Officials from the College Board, the nonprofit entity that administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test or SAT, have announced that they are producing a new version of the test for students who live in school districts where creationism rather than evolution is taught in science classes.
Students who take the revised test, which will be introduced in school districts in Kansas and Georgia in the fall of 2005, will no longer be tested on their ability to comprehend passages from scientific texts that are based on the controversial theory of evolution. Instead, they will read excerpts from writings on such creation-related topics as the six days in which God created the earth or the great flood, then answer a series of questions to indicate how well they've understood the passages. (Click image, left, to view questions; or download PDF.)
The revision, says College Board spokesman Lester McCue, is a reflection of the changing nature of science content being taught in high schools around the country. "The SAT has to keep up with these changes or risk being left behind. We can't test kids on material that they are not being taught," says McCue. "In the past, we've evaluated students' ability to comprehend passages about historical scientific events, and while we'll continue to do that, the test now assumes that the world is 6,000 years old as opposed to hundreds of millions of years old."
On the eighth day, test
In the aftermath of the election, proponents of science education based on creationism rather than evolution have made headway in school districts across the country. In Kansas, conservatives who want to challenge the teaching of evolution now represent a majority on the state school board. They are expected to change the state science curriculum as early as the spring; the new version of the SAT will be introduced in Kansas soon after that.
In Georgia, school district officials in Cobb County have placed "just a theory" stickers on the covers of high-school science books that contain information on the theory of evolution. While a US district court is currently weighing whether or not the county will be allowed to continue to use the evolution disclaimer stickers, administrators have already approved the use of the modified SAT test.
Testing students on the Truth
"This is exactly what we've been fighting for," says parent Marla DeVries, who has been working with other Cobb County parents to replace atheistic science education in the schools with an approach that credits the role of the Creator. "It doesn't make sense for our kids to have to be tested on something that they don't believe. Would you have them read a passage and answer questions about Santa Claus? I don't think so."
In recent surveys, a majority of Americans indicated that they favor teaching a variety of explanations of human origins and evolution in schools. According to an ABC news poll taken early last year, 61% of Americans believe that the Bible's book of Genesis is "literally true" rather than a story meant as a "lesson."
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Heard it from a pilot who spoke real gooooood! |
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