Government Funding Of Embryonic Stem Cell Research Can Continue For Now

 According to the article below, An appeals court ruled Tuesday that government funding of embryonic stem cell research can continue for now. Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Opponents say the research is a form of abortion because human embryos must be destroyed to obtain the stem cells. There really are two sides to this issue. the court will decide.
   . . . June


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 Court OKs US-funded stem cell research for now
Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON – An appeals court ruled Tuesday that government funding of embryonic stem cell research can continue for now.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington granted the Obama administration's request to allow the funding from the National Institutes of Health while it appeals a judge's order blocking the research.

The administration had argued that stopping the research while the case proceeds would irreparably harm scientific progress toward potentially lifesaving medical treatment.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had blocked President Barack Obama's research funding guidelines because he said it's likely they violate the law against federal funding of embryo destruction.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court issued an unusually quick decision, a day after hearing arguments over whether the funding could continue while it considers the case. The court also said it would expedite the case.

Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Opponents say the research is a form of abortion because human embryos must be destroyed to obtain the stem cells.

A 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so batches have been culled using private money. But those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and Obama administration issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to be used in work with the already created batches.

The administration thus expanded the number of stem cell lines created with private money that federally funded scientists could research, up from the 21 that President George W. Bush had allowed to 75 so far.

"President Obama made expansion of stem cell research and the pursuit of groundbreaking treatments and cures a top priority when he took office," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement after the ruling. "We're heartened that the court will allow NIH and their grantees to continue moving forward while the appeal is resolved.

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Balzan prize Won By Japanese Stem Cell Researcher

 If adult cells could take on the characteristics of embryonic stem cells, then the moral issue wouldn't arise. According to the article below, that's what this Japanese researcher has discovered and it won him the Balzan Prize for biology.
   . . . June


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Japanese stem cell researcher wins Balzan prize
COLLEEN BARRY The Associated Press Mon, Sep. 6, 2010

AP | 09/06/2010: "MILAN - A Japanese researcher who found a way to give adults cells certain characteristics of embryonic stem cells, a process scientists say could eventually lead to cures for spinal cord injuries and other ailments, has been awarded the Balzan Prize for biology.

Shinya Yamanaka's prize is one of four , two for sciences, two in humanities , awarded this year by the foundation, with the goal of highlighting new or emerging areas of research and to sustain fields of study that may have been overlooked elsewhere.

Also winning awards were Brazilian mathematician Jacob Palis, who was cited for his contributions to the theory of dynamical systems, which draws from chaos theory and the butterfly effect, or the idea that small differences can create huge changes.

The humanities prizes go to Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, the father of microhistory, the study of the past based on a focus on the small scale, for his contributions to the study of ordinary people in Europe, and to German Manfred Bauneck for his history of the European theater.

Yamanaka has used its finding to treat spinal chord lesions in mice, though the process has not so far been applied in humans, said Nicole Le Douarin, an honorary professor at the College de France who has written a book on stem cells, and who presented the citation.
The process allows adult cells that have already been differentiated into, say, kidney cells or neural cells, be transformed back into cells with the characteristics of embryonic cells , a breakthrough that could provide an alternative to the controversial use of human embryos in stem cell research.

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