After hearing on the news about someone possibly being cured of AIDS with stem cell implants… made me wonder if this could be possible for schizophrenia… scientists are working on it:
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“These experiments provide evidence that interneuron transplants may be an effective treatment strategy for schizophrenia. However, before this strategy can move to the clinic, many questions must be answered. For example, the source of the cells will be a major issue. The use of MGE tissue from human fetuses has obvious moral implications; therefore, many labs have begun to develop protocols for generating interneuron precursors from human pluripotent stem cells”
Very interesting…
Im hoping they move fast on this…
I really hope they hit a plateau on more effective treatments really soon!!
Where do they find the human fetuses?
It’s also very scary…
Im not sure what I think about this…
I believe I have to do more research
And reevaluate what I seem to believe…
I understand what you mean… if they could find another source for stem cells other than fetuses…
There are now donation banks for stem cells from newborn baby umbilical cord. I just signed up to donate my baby’s umbilical cord where they can extract stem cells from the blood and the cord tissue itself. It’s very expensive for folks to access the needed stem cells (runs $40k right now I believe) but hospitals are starting to tell all expectant parents about cord banking which you can do to keep for your family in the future or you can donate for other families to use. Donating is free. Hopefully more people will start doing it.
Edited to add that it doesn’t hurt the baby in any way and that there aren’t other sources of stem cells of the same quality as what can be collected from fetuses and babies, unfortunately. There are a few other sources of stem cells like bone marrow for example, but they are less likely to graft successfully in another person than embryonic/cord cells. Basically any type of stem cell other than embryonic stem cells can’t turn into as many different types of other cells as embryonic stem cells can.
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At least using stem cells from umbilical cords are better than those from a fetus
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I really have mixed feelings about the technology of stem cell research… on one hand there is the source of the stem cells, on the other lives could be saved…
I have been pondering this topic since I heard the news story about the person being cured of AIDS…
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