Search Results for: personhood

Weekly reads: fibroblasts, gene-editing, Mitalipov, personhood, embryos

NIH 3T3 fibroblasts ATCC

I have a soft spot for fibroblasts, perhaps because one of the first immortalized cell lines I ever grew was NIH3T3. These are mouse fibroblasts that have been immortalized. They are very useful for a variety of experiments. I used them to study an oncogene called E2A-PBX1. Experience with fibroblasts including 3T3s I was amazed …

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Update on stem cell culture war: from Pepsi to Personhood & Romney to rogue clinics

For years now we’ve had a war in the world of stem cells. The war has been primarily centered on embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). The reason I call it a “war” is that opponents of ESCR have declared a “culture war” on ESCR and ESC researchers. I don’t like the term “war”, but if …

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Is a fertilized egg a Californian? Personhood movement brings battle to California

Remember those folks who were pushing an amendment in Mississippi that would have defined the one cell fertilized egg as a full blown person with all the same rights as a living, breathing, thinking Mississippian? Now the new battlefront for their movement is California. They want to get an initiative on the ballot to make …

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Weekly reads: CRISPR, FDA stem cell loss, pioneering AMD study, MS, Verve Therapeutics

FDA stem cell policy flow chart.

The big news of the week was the big FDA stem cell in court by Judge Jesus Bernal here in California, who ruled in favor of a chain of stem cell clinics called Cell Surgical Network. The FDA had been seeking an injunction against the clinics. I believe the ruling was founded in part on …

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Lessons from when embryonic stem cell research was illegal

James-Sherley

We kind of take for granted these days that embryonic stem cell research can proceed without any restrictions, at least at the federal level. However, in the early days of blogging here on The Niche the big debate and battle were over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Things got very complicated and for …

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Why we shouldn’t view the human embryo as a gizmo even in the CRISPR era

human-embryo-modification

My first job in science was as a lab technician at UCSD School of Medicine and a big part of that job was growing cells called HUVECs or human umbilical vein endothelial cells. We isolated and grew the HUVECs from umbilical cords that we retrieved from the maternity ward of the UCSD hospital, which first …

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Why the extreme religious right are turning against iPS cells

Dr.-Oz-told-Oprah-and-Michael-J.-Fox-religious-right

There was a time, not so long ago, when the religious right hailed the discovery of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Headlines blared from the extreme right on the Internet such as, “Embryonic stem cells obsolete”. Even the same kind of thing, saying, “The stem cell debate is dead”. You see opponents of embryonic stem …

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