Steve,

Sorry for my very sloppy language, that was very misleading of me and I didn't mean to imply "cure" on purpose. Perhaps this statement best summarises what I meant to say
"Based on the published science, there are 72 maladies for which human patients have received some benefit (which is not the same as being ‘cured’) from adult stem cell or umbilical cord blood interventions. Meanwhile, embryonic stem cells have yet to demonstrate any human therapeutic use" by Wesley J. Smith.

Look I'm not against stem cell research, I think adult stem cell research is great and I think embryonic stem cell research, where the embryo is not harmed, is great too. I'm just wary of the idea of all-out embryonic stem cell research on the assumption that one day we'll be able to cure a lot of diseases.

I think the issue of when life begins is complicated, but I personally believe an embryo is a life, so I don't like the idea of terminating one human life on the possibility of saving another.

We can respectfully disagree though.

YngN'

Of course we can agree to disagree. The main issue is of course the termination of human life.

I am sure that embryonic stem cell research and the safety of the embryo are not mutually exclusive. I cannot say the same for IVF where many embryos are stored only to be discarded as medical waste.

I bit from a friend of mine who is having a stem cell transplant next week.


"Non-Myeloablative Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant

Non-myeloablative is a medical term meaning not wiping out your marrow. "Myelo" is from the greek meaning marrow. "Ablate" means to remove or destroy. And of course "non" is from the ancient Hobbit language meaning don't do that.

So put it all together and you have "don't wipe out the bone marrow". Only the hematologists know what hematopoietic really means, and they won't tell anybody.

Then you get some donated stem cells from somebody else. The donated stem cells develop into new types of immune system cells in your body and begin to reproduce. As always, when you get some foreign cells floating around in you, the various cells start a up a violent competition trying to get rid of the unrecognized foreign invaders.

GvHD

Here is where the miracle occurs. In all transplant cases, the donated cells think they are still in their donor's body. They attack everything they can't recognize. So most patients experience what is known as Graft versus Host Disease, or GvHD. It is also known as Graft versus Tumor Effect or Graft versus Leukemia Effect.

While waiting for the new cells to establish a new immune system, the patient must be ever watchful and diligent to avoid infection. The treatment involves immune suppressing drugs to minimize the dangers of GvHD going a little too far and attacking the patient's good cells.

The usual prognosis is that it takes at least a couple of years before things get back to normal and the patient can relax and enjoy activities that are too risky in the beginning. The patient must avoid things like gardening ( too much bacteria in the soil), mingling with crowds ( too many viruses floating around), eating at buffets, and all kinds of other things until the new immune system is up to full strength."

This is why we need more research

Thanks for your posts Steve. I've mentioned before that I'm doing a biomedical science degree, so I find these things very interesting.
Re: what you mentioned about the body attacking the donated stem cells: I've read that getting a person's own stem cells and then reinjecting them into the body as the type of cell sought, can help overcome this problem. Perhaps we should put more research into this sort of thing as well.

YngN

Two reasons for using a matched donor in my kind of leukemia.

1. The GvHD is the reaction that kills the existing cancerous stem cells, it is desireable if it can be controlled (eg not causing death).

2. By the time a decision to transplant stem cells is made the patients bone marrow has usually failed and they are transfusion dependent. There are too few stem cells to harvest.

By the way this is still not a cure, in chronic lymphocytic leukeamia the cancer will return. :(