I am currently (and have been intermittently for many months now) looking into the murky ethical waters of companies proposing foetal tissues and RNAs for gene expression research. It seems to me that they could be less picky about ensuring that all appropriate ethical standards are met than about selling their products, and they are only partly forthcoming about answering direct questions, because you can only ask questions of the distributors and not directly of those obtaining the tissues. On the other hand, they do not want to be very easily contacted for fear of drawing militant kooks. I will keep you posted on this but it looks like it will be very interesting.
Personally, I would feel a responsibility to ensure that I know the consent forms have really been obtained under the proper conditions, and do not consider “the distributer told me their supplier had them” as sufficient. Scientists are human in that most, but not all, tend to be self-regulating. But we can also be lazy.
Meanwhile, I received a request from the ISSCR (of the conference I attended back in June) to endorse an open letter supporting stem cell research in all forms, without dictating which subjects should be supported more than others.
As written therein :
The entire biomedical research enterprise is endangered when ideology or politics replace dispassionate investigation. Such ill-considered interventions have led to very serious threats to the entire U.S. government-funded research enterprise, replacing science with ideology, and replacing rational regulation [my emphasis] with restrictions based on ideology that delay the search for truth and for new therapies. Banning research because it doesn’t fit the ideology of political leadership has happened in the past in other countries, with the inevitable outcome of the withdrawal of those countries and their scientists from participation in the biomedical discoveries that dispassionate,regulated, but ideologically free research continually provides.
Well, yes, of course I signed it.
Around 240 or so signatories from this particular professional society; we’ll see how many signatures it garners in the end and what possible effect that will have on anything.
Petitions usually do not do much except draw some attention in this world of distractions. However, more attention to an important issue like political meddling in scientific inquiry can not hurt. Do your part, please, or lie down and take it without complaint.
What do you want out of stem cell reserach?
Funding?
Got some good ideas, Mark?
I must say I particularly enjoyed the end to Stephen’s video and would recommend that sort of
blackmailleverage.It is an interesting question though, isn’t it? I’m not really sure? some clairity about certain diseases? Knowledge about development? Similarities between us and other animals?
What do you want Heather? If you don’t mind me asking?
Personally, I would feel a responsibility to ensure that I know the consent forms have really been obtained under the proper conditions, and do not consider “the distributer told me their supplier had them” as sufficient.
I agree with you, especially in this case when the consent form and how they got the tissues/RNA are crucial since you couldn’t do research otherwise…
I guess I am in the ironic position of being into stem cell research and at the same time, not be part of it.
I actually do stem cell research, but not in the form that attracts media interest.
And maybe that’s the only way to do it. Study the stem cell without having any higher goals in the back of your mind. Forget about curing every disease known to mankind and let the pure interest flame the passion of your research.
I’m going to stop now before I get too excited.
In conclusion: I just seek funding.
I certainly want US researchers to have the possibility of carrying out research on newly derived human ES cell lines if they want to.
I want to understand how cells narrow down the possibilities in order to acquire an appropriate function for their physical and temporal environment.
Mark – nearly every embryologist also does stem cell research. It’s not a separate discipline. It’s a self-definition, like blogger.
I’m not an embryologist. I’m a developmental biologist. I don’t restrict myself to embryos.
Heather: that I can understand. Sound fascinating.
Myself, I’ll stick with bacteria. Much easier to watch them devide (and conquer)…
Sorry, Mark, I was writing about myself. I’m a developmental biologist who happens to work on embryos. What do you do, and how does it relate to stem cell research? (that is, what do you want that funding for?)