Harvesting stem cells at the four-cell stage can be easier and safer

Darkfrog submitted, created time 4 months 1 week (blog.wired.com)

Here is a Wired Science writeup of that article I posted yesterday. It's less detailed, but it's easier to read. Again, the top story is that researchers have found a new way to harvest stem cells from embryos without destroying them: taking a cell at the four-cell stage produces cell lines that don't need to be co-cultured. And we already know from fertility treatments that the remaining three cells can grow into healthy children.

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Stem Cell Question Grows Still Gnarlier

Third Gene Copy Is a Charm

sumsung submitted, created time 10 months 2 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Reports stretching back half a century have suggested that people with Down syndrome may have a reduced risk of breast, colon, and other cancers. The reason has been a mystery, but some researchers suspect it has to do with one or more of the genes on chromosome 21.

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Some parents use PGD to select for deafness, dwarfism

Darkfrog submitted, created time 11 months 3 weeks (www.nytimes.com)

I read this one a few months back, but it ties into what some of us were talking about over here on Eric's recommendation: http://discover8.com/article/Should_Fertilized_Eggs_Have_Rights__0#creplyto

It's basically an ethical pondering of parents who are deaf or dwarfs (achondroplasia et al) and use PGD and fertility treatments to deliberately select embryos that share the deficiencies that led to their adult phenotypes.

What I like about this one is that it focuses on whether or not the parents are right to do it AND whether or not the doctors are right to refuse.

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PGD may harm embryonic viability, stem-cell harvesting

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.nytimes.com)

A study presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology shows that embryos grown from post-PGD blastocysts have a lower chance of growing successfully into a baby.

The focus of the article is on older women seeking children, but it also has ramifications for stem cells, which we learned some months ago can be grown from the daughter cells of PGD blastomeres.

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Advanced Cell Technology Researchers Create Embryonic Stem Cells Using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Company Says

gh0706 submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.medicalnewstoday.com)

Robert Lanza, medical director of ACT, and colleagues described a technique that could derive embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo. They removed 91 blastomeres from 16 thawed embryos donated by fertility clinic patients and found that more than half of the blastomeres began to multiply and that in two cases the blastomeres became embryonic stem cells

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