Bioethics.net

July 24, 2014

The upcoming debate over “CIRM 2”–CORRECTION

(I made an error about a past video involving the late actor Christopher Reeve in my post yetsterday. I strongly implied, at least, that such a video was used in the 2004 campaign for passage of California Prop. 71.  That would not be correct.  The video in question, easily found on YouTube, was aired [it indicates there] by Nuveen Investments during the 2000 Super Bowl.... // Read More »

July 11, 2014

The Recent Stem Cell News

Last week’s edition of Nature includes developments in the world of stem cell research, also noted in the general press: First: A group from Portland, San Diego, and Stockholm published work (payment required to read article) seeking to define the “best” human pluripotent stem cells on cellular and molecular grounds.  They compared: Stem cells taken from an embryo, created in IVF and destroyed for the... // Read More »

June 12, 2014

Germline Alteration and Defining “Just Research”

Yesterday’s post by Steve Phillips raises a central question for us in the “biotech century”:  are there some sorts of experiments that fundamentally ought not be done because of the potential they will be grossly misapplied by bad actors?  Steve cited research by Lord Robert Winston seeking to create genetically altered pigs—that seem, from the description in the press, to be what scientists call “transgenic”... // Read More »

June 6, 2014

Getting An Earful

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

In the book (and film) Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, dinosaur DNA from in insects that bit the dinosaurs and are now preserved in amber.…

May 1, 2014

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” about Adult Stem Cells?

This week, Nature has an online news article and editorial about a new meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).  The BMJ article addresses discrepancies in published reports of clinical trials of adult stem cells to treat patients with heart disease/heart failure.  For some time now, this has appeared to many to be a particularly promising use of adult stem cells. Well, not so... // Read More »

April 24, 2014

Last Week’s Stem Cell Cloning News

Readers of this blog probably saw last week’s report, as the NPR headline put it, that “First Embryonic Stem Cells Cloned from a Man’s Skin.”  I was able to read the full text of the online publication, by Cell Stem Cell, here. The stated goal of the work is to use somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to clone an embryo that can then be used... // Read More »

August 30, 2013

Faster Than the Speed of Thought

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

In the 1983 comedic film, The Man with Two Brains,”  Steve Martin’s character falls in love with a female brain preserved in a jar.…

October 5, 2011

Happy Stem Cell [Awareness] Day!

There is a day for virtually everything these days. Forget the old school Valentine’s and Sweetest Day, or even Administrative Professional’s or Grandparents’ Day.…

June 2, 2011

Stem Cells and Baseball

When it came to light that New York Yankees pitcher Bartolo Colon had received autologous stem cell therapy from a clinic in the Dominican Republic, an important question came before Major League Baseball: should stem cell “therapies” be banned from big league ball?…

November 10, 2010

Glenn McGee Was Right: It was Leon Kass' "Decision Point"

For those of you who will not be reading former President George W. Bush’s autobiography, Decision Points (I am among them), the National Journal has pulled out some choice selections of those items that might not make the headlines.…