Politics
Friday June 24, 2005
Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs Exciting Interest from Private Investors
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
June 24, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While research lobbyists pressure governments for access to embryos, more work is being done obtaining stem cells from ethical sources proving that embryonic stem cells are a dead end. This has not been lost on private investors who are now pouring money into adult stem cell research.
In April, at a meeting of the Institute of Physics, Professor Josef Käs and Dr Jochen Guck from the University of Leipzig announced that they had discovered a procedure that can extract and isolate embryo-quality stem cells from adult blood for the first time. In the past, researchers were able to identify adult stem cells from blood by marking them with dye, but this reduced their value for medical uses. The Leipzig group has found a way to identify them from a physical trait – their elasticity, that is characteristic only of stem cells.
Stem cells, because they are not yet differentiated, or specialized, to be specific types of tissue, have not developed a rigid ‘cytoskeleton’ or membrane and are therefore identifiable by being more ‘stretchy’ than other cells in the blood. Käs and Guck’s machine uses a powerful beam of infrared laser light to stretch and measure cells one by one.
This is precisely the kind of breakthrough that has private investors interested in adult stem cells. An example is Osiris Therapeutics Inc., a leader in adult stem cell therapy for tissue regeneration, which has announced it expects to have adult stem cell-based therapies on the market by late 2007. One Osiris project is working to develop a method of combating tissue rejection for leukemia patients undergoing bone marrow transplants.
Investors, excited about the possibilities of adult stem cells – stories about which seem to break into the news almost daily – have raised more than double the expected research funds after the Food and Drug Administration approved the research.
Two other Osiris projects are seeking to replace knee tissue after sports or repetitive motion injuries to prevent the onset of arthritis; and to replace the tissue damaged by heart attack.
This enthusiasm for adult stem cell research on the part of private investors will doubtless prod the more ideologically-driven research lobby to push harder for public funding for embryo research. However, businesses, motivated as they are by the need to pursue what works, have set the tone for the future.
Further coverage on Leipzig research from Science Daily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050619115816.htm
Visit the Osiris Technologies Inc. website:
http://www.biospace.com/b2/company_profile.cfm?CompanyID=1468
HW
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.