Commentaries

Adult stem cell advances

Father Thomas Berg has an article discussing the importance of studies which show adult cells can be reprogrammed to have the properties of embryonic stem cells.

David Christensen talks about how embryonic stem cell research has yet to treat any human patients while adult stem cell research is working with human patients.

Yuval Levin discusses how some politicians haven't noticed advances in stem cell research which doesn't require the killing of embryos.

James Kelly, an American research advocate who is paralyzed, writes about how some scientists have misrepresented adult stem cells and how impractical it is to give so much money to embryonic stem cells research.

Michael Fumento discusses how breakthroughs in adult stem cell research are too often ignored by the American media

David Prentice shares some breakthroughs in adult stem cell research and discusses the flexibility of adult stem cells

Wesley Smith highlights some amazing things that adult stem cells have done

Challenges with using embryonic stem cells in human patients

Maureen Condic, a professor of neurobiology discusses some of the big challenges that embryonic stem cells must overcome before they can even be tested in human patients.

James Sherley, a MIT adult stem cell researcher, shares some of the problems with human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.

Dr. David Prentice discusses some of the problems with embryonic stem cells and some of the uses of adult stem cells in the Journal of Investigative Medicine

Wesley Smith elaborates on some of the problems with using embryonic stem cells

Human Cloning

Rich Poupard writes about stem cell research, human cloning and deception.

Richard Doerflinger discusses human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.

Patrick Lee and Robert George discuss the South Korean cloning scandal and why embryonic human beings are valuable

Legislation

Wesley Smith reviews legislation from Dianne Feinstein and Orrin Hatch which would legalize human cloning while claiming to ban human cloning.

Eric Cohen shares how the reasons behind the push to provide more federal funding to embryonic stem cell research don't hold up to scrutiny.

Ethical problems with embryonic stem cells

Robert George discusses embryo ethics and human embryos are "undeniably whole living members of the species Homo Sapiens."

Wesley Smith discusses how embryonic stem cell researchers have quickly moved from claiming they just want to use "leftover" IVF embryos to wanting to create human embryos solely for research and hybrid embryos using animal eggs. He also notes how many of these researchers don't appear to be able to tell the difference between what they can do and what they should do.

Father Thomas Berg writes about a company called StemLifeLine which is offering parents of frozen embryos the opportunity to create "personal stem cell lines."

Yuval Levin shares what is at the heart of the stem cell debate.

Mark Blocher discusses some problems with arguments made in favor of embryonic stem cell research.

Patrick Lee and Robert George talk about why killing human embryos is wrong

News Stories

The web site of south Florida's NBC affiliate is featuring a story on how adult stem cells are being used to treat patients with heart ailments at a Miami hospital.

The Vancouver Sun reported on a young woman with multiple sclerosis who was treated in Canada with her own blood stem cells. She is one of 17 patients in Canada who have undergone this experimental treatment.

The Dallas Morning News features a story about a toddler who is returning home after being treated with stem cells from his own umbilical cord blood to help treat neuroblastoma.

The Chicago Tribune reported that scientists were able to use adult stem cells from a kidney donor's bone marrow to help kidney recipients live without taking drugs that suppress their immune system. The scientists discovered the transplanted stem cells multiplied and protected the transplanted organ from the patients' immune systems.

Researchers at Northwestern University have started a clinical trial using a patient's own adult stem cell to help restore circulation in legs of patients with critical limb ischemia. Critical limb ischemia can often lead to amputation.

ABC News shared the story of how adult stem cells from animals are being used to treat dogs and horses suffering from various ailments.

The Associated Press was one of numerous media outlets which reported on two scientific papers which showed adult human cells could be reprogrammed to have the same properties as embryonic stem cells without creating or killing any human embryos.
The Telegraph features an article about how Ian Wilmut is quitting his attempts to create a cloned human embryo. Wilmut is the scientist whose research team created Dolly, a cloned sheep, using the cloning technique somatic cell nuclear transfer. In the article Wilmut notes he quit his attempts at human cloning because the process of reprogramming adult cells to have the same capacities as embryonic stem cells shows more potential.
MercatorNet has an interview with Dr. Alan Moy, an adult stem cell researcher, about his research and the differences between adult and embryonic stem cells.
The Telegraph, a paper in Britain, discusses an ongoing trial at Frenchay Hospital in England where researchers are using adult stem cells in the hopes of treating patients with multiple sclerosis.
The Dallas News carries a story about a man named Joe Woolfolk who received a transplant of his own stem cells to treat his damaged heart.
A man suffering from multiple sclerosis underwent an adult stem cell treatment in August at Frenchay Hospital in England in the hopes that it will benefit him. Stem cells were extracted from his bone marrow and then re-injected into his body.
Theravitae, a biotechnology company, claims to have successfully treated dilated cardiomyopathy with a patient's own stem cells.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have used stem cells from umbilical cord blood to help treat patients suffering from leukemia. They've also been working on a method of growing the umbilical cord stem cells more quickly so patients spend less time being vulnerable to infection.
Scientists at Northwestern University were able to reduce the pain of patients with angina by injecting their own stem cells into their hearts.
Researchers have published results in three separate studies which show mice skin cells can be turned into cells with the same properties as embryonic stem cells without killing embryos. Scientists are hopeful the same process could work with human cells.
James Sherley, a stem cell researcher from MIT, is interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about stem cell research and why he thinks adult stem cells are better for treatment. The link also includes a video interview with Dr. Sherley.
Australian scientists used one stem cell from a patient's healthy eye to grow a group of stem cells which replaced the damaged cornea of his other eye.
Researchers in Brazil have used a patient's own stem cells to help treat juvenile diabetes. One patient has been insulin free for nearly three years.
British scientists have grown heart valves with adult stem cells. The researchers hope they will be able to implant heart valves grown from adult stem cells into heart patients within 3 to 5 years.
German researchers used adult stem cells from the hip bones of liver cancer patients to help grow their livers to a point where they were large enough so doctors could remove the cancerous parts.
Researchers have extracted adult stem cells from the legs of patients suffering from heart failure and then injected them into the patient's heart. The researchers saw improvement in the health of patients who received the adult stem cell treatment while the health of patients who received traditional treatment worsened.
A man from India who was paralyzed from the waist down can now walk after receiving a transplant of stem cells removed from his bone marrow, according to an Indian news service.
Researchers from the University of Bristol and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center discovered that stem cells from pregnant women are passed onto their unborn children if their children have diabetes and some of these cells migrated to the child's pancreas to help them create insulin long after birth. Scientists hope in the future they will be able to use a mother's stem cells to help treat children with type 1 diabetes.
Wake Forest researchers have found that stem cells found in amniotic fluid can be turned into a variety of cell types, survive for long periods of time and don't cause tumors.
Here's a listing of the ailments which adult stem cells have been used in helping treat human patients.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have turned stem cells from umbilical cord blood into lung cells.
Researchers from Newcastle University in the United Kingdom have used stem cells from umbilical cord blood to create "mini-livers." They hope these "mini-livers" could be used to test drugs and think they could be used to treat patients in possibly 10-15 years.
German scientists have used adult stem cells to improve the function of the hearts of patients whom have had heart attacks.
Adult stem cells are being used by researchers in California to see if they can help repair damaged knees.
British researchers have used adult stem cells to help mend broken bones which weren't healing.
Researchers have used adult stem cells from the muscle tissue of patients to treat urinary incontinence.

People with lupus have been treated with adult stem cells.

Adult stem cells have been found in menstrual blood.

Researchers have found a way to multiple adult stem cells found in blood.

President Bush signs umbilical cord stem cell bill