Posted on 11/13/2006 9:28:13 PM PST by Coleus
“After every Diwali, a large number people are blinded while bursting fire crackers. There are others who suffer from blindness due to chemical burns. But there is a ray of hope for such patients,” said Dr Radhika Tandon, Additional Professor, Ophthalmology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at the national symposium on stem cells being held at Panjab University.
“Standard corneal transplant does not work in cases where blindness is due to chemical burning. But stem cell transplant can prove to be effective,” she said, adding that stem cell transplants do not ensure a perfect vision, but the patient can become self-dependent. “In case, the doctors feel that there is scope for further improvement, then corneal transplant can be done,” she said.
Cautioning that stem cells could not do magic, Dr Tandon said, “The treatment is expensive and requires follow-ups. The decision on whether to operate or not is a very sensitive one and stem cell transplant should be used only after assessing the benefits.” “In case one of the eyes is affected, then stem cells can be transferred from the healthy eye. But when both the eyes are affected, stem cells from a relative, mostly mothers, are taken. They can also be taken from a cadaver donor,” she said.
Dr Tandon said stems cells can be directly transferred and made to grow in the eye, but this can make the donor eye weak. The other method is to cultivate them in a laboratory and then transferred to the eye, she added. She, however, emphasised that prevention was the best method of protecting eyes. “No matter how hard we try we cannot match up to what God has given us naturally,” she said. Dr Tandon suggested that the government should invest in a few centres all over the country where stem cells can be cultivated.
Of course in pointing out that this is ADULT stem cell therapy, you will also point out that embryonic stem cell research is so new that it has not yet been approved for human trials... right?
ssshhhhhhh.... nobody tell michael j fox or claire mcCaskill. we wouldn't want them to regret slandering anybody for 'not supporting stem cell research' or 'cures' for people with CNS diseases.
A good post. Adult Stem cells again show promise while embryonic ones create tumors. This isn't about politics folks it is about something that works versus something that doesn't. I'm surprised with some of these stem cell initiatives that the AIDs activists aren't trying the same thing yet. Get funding passed through referendum.
Health and Warfare are always politics these days.
You are not being totally truthful. Yes, ESC created tumors in mice when directly injected into them... but this is not what would be done in human treatments and it is not what is currently done in adult stem cell treatment.
but this is not what would be done in human treatments and it is not what is currently done in adult stem cell treatment. >>>
oh, you know? please explain. In many of the articles I've posted it was reported that the researchers did inject adult stem cells into the patients. How else are the stem cells, embryonic or non-embryonic, introduced into the patient? In most cases they are grown in a culture and then injected into the area.
Thank you for both the posts on adult stem cell treatments.
Entered adult stem cells and blindness.
Bump
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
When did embryonic stem cell research begin?
Instead of just waiting for you to provide me with a date on which embryonic stem cell research began... I've taken a quick look and found this reference...
AU Thiennu H. Vu, Gail R. Martin, Pauline Lee, David Mark, Alice Wang, and Lewis T. Williams; TI "Developmentally Regulated Use of Alternative Promoters Creates a Novel Platelet- Derived Growth Factor Receptor Transcript in Mouse Teratocarcinoma and Embryonic Stem Cells."; SO Mol. Cell. Biol. 9:4563-4567(1989).I suspect embryonic stem cell research began before 1989, but I hate to waste time doing the research on an issue you brought up.
Please let me know what you know. Thank you.
Those who are not being entirely truthful are those who are claiming embroyonic stem cells are the path to enlightenment and health for all. There has yet to my knowledge been any confirmed successful treatment using embroyonic stem cells. There have been some promising uses but they tend to be double edged such as the example below.
"Hans Keirstead and his colleagues in the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UC Irvine have found that a human embryonic stem cell-derived treatment they developed was successful in restoring the insulation tissue for neurons in rats treated seven days after the initial injury, which led to a recovery of motor skills. But the same treatment did not work on rats that had been injured for 10 months. The findings point to the potential of using stem cell-derived therapies for treatment of spinal cord damage in humans during the very early stages of the injury. The study appears in the May 11 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience."
Also there has never been a ban on embryonic stem cell use though we hear every time the issue comes up which is the most dishonest approach to the argument. The absolute worst place to place research dollars in my opinion is with the government while many very good military and space applications have arison from government funded research most assessments would conclude that such research is highly wasteful and for every success millions of dollars go down the tubes. The reason is because of the very structure of government bureaucracy which does not reward efficiency and is likely as not to continue funding a dead end or useless bit of research as they are to fund something substantial and promising. It isn't about the reasearch, it is about the control of funding and the promise of increasing funding.
I strongly support the use of adult stem cells. I don't know why we are even considering embryonic stem cells other than as an attempt to bulwark the empty "moral" argument of the proabortion prodeath left how else do you explain such support for something that has shown so little practical promis? The problem is the facts do not matter not even to conservatives when hope is what is for sale.
There've been 25 years of mammalian embryonic stem cell research.
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