|
|
|
World’s first stem cell bank open
THE world’s first embryonic stem cell bank opened in Britain on Wednesday, breaking new ground in one of the most controversial areas of medical research.
The bank aims to store and supply stem cell lines — strings of identical cells — for research and possible treatment of conditions like diabetes, cancer and Parkinson’s. Its store of cell lines is expected to number tens of thousands. But opponents say such research involves the “wanton creation and destruction of human life’’ and have condemned the bank as a storage site for dead babies.
Stem cells are master cells in the body that have the capability to transform into new cells or tissue. They can be taken from adults and discarded umbilical cords but those from embryos are considered especially powerful because each one has the potential to become any sort of cell or tissue in the body at all.
The bank, in Hertfordshire, southern England, will be funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
“Stem cell research offers real promise for the treatment of currently incurable diseases,’’ Professor Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the MRC, said in a statement. “The bank will ensure that researchers can explore the enormous potential of this exciting science for the future benefit of patients.’’
Anti-abortion groups argue that the bank is unethical because the extraction of stem cells from human embryos violates the human rights of the embryos.
“Our problem is in the marketing and developing of embryonic stem cells, whose existence depend on a massive destruction of early human life,’’ the Pro-Life Party said in a statement.
Patrick Cusworth, spokesman for the LIFE anti-abortion group, argued that stem cell research reduces human life to “little more than a pharmaceutical product’’ and holds out “false hopes of cures for sufferers of debilitating conditions.”
The bank’s first two stem cell lines were developed separately by researchers at King’s College London and the Centre for Life in Newcastle, northern England.
Robots to hunt space rocks
At the movies, the best way to stop an asteroid from wiping out Earth is to lob a few nuclear missiles at the rocky beast or blow it apart from the inside with megaton bombs. While those methods promise some fantastic explosions — and maybe a blockbuster hit — a team of engineers are looking at a more patient approach. Their weapon: a swarm of nuclear-powered robots that could drill into an asteroid and hurl chunks of it into space with enough force to gradually push it into a non-Earth impacting course.
“We’re aiming to examine the whole idea of these robots,” said Matthew Graham, design project manager for the study at SpaceWorks Engineering, (SEI), an engineering consulting and concept analysis firm in Atlanta, Georgia.
SEI researchers have completed a preliminary study into the robots, called Modular Asteroid Deflection Mission Ejector Node (MADMEN) spacecraft, under a grant awarded by the Nasa Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) to come up with new techniques to defend the planet against pesky near-Earth objects (NEOs).
At the heart of the MADMEN concept is a mass driver, which would eject asteroid material as it is drilled out of the rock and sling it out into space using electromagnetic acceleration. The recoil from that ejection would pushes against the robot, and therefore the asteroid, imparting a small amount of force for each shot.
“It’s like throwing rocks from inside a rowboat,” Graham says. “Over time, you end up moving the boat.”
A preliminary design for a MADMEN spacecraft outlines a one-ton robot that would stand about 11 meters high, just slightly taller than Nasa’s Apollo moon lander, on an asteroids surface. The mass driving ejector, a self-assembling tube, would extend out toward space ready to start its slow, steady push against the rock at a rate of one shot a minute or so. A liquid-propellant booster rocket could deliver the lander to its cometary or asteroid target.
But the push would be small, and more than one MADMEN spacecraft would be required to constantly shove a space rock in one, uniform direction.
To build a swarm, MADMEN robots would have to be manufactured well before a potentially Earth-threatening asteroid was discovered. A stockpile of inert MADMEN spacecraft — each with its own fuel reserve — could be gathered into nearby parking orbits where they could be called upon if a stray space rock wandered too close.
Deciding how many MADMEN to send, thousands or maybe just four or so, would depend on the lead-time before a potential impact, researchers said.
There are still a number of technological hurdles facing researchers before the first MADMEN robot could start its Earth-protecting mission. Not the least of which is the mass driver machinery needed to eject asteroid chunks into space.
With the first phase of MADMEN study complete, SEI researchers are awaiting a decision from NIAC on whether to fund a second round of research that would focus, among other things, on the design of a technology-testing precursor mission to be carried out in the next decade.
“Phase two means going into more detail, building a roadmap to develop the enabling technology for these projects,” Casanova said.
Baby born from frozen sperm
A baby boy was born after being conceived with sperm frozen 21 years earlier in what scientists have claimed was a new record.
The case will give hope to young men about to undergo treatment for cancer which may leave them infertile.
The boy’s father had his sperm frozen when he was 17 before starting successful treatment for testicular cancer in the early 1980s.
“I’m 99 per cent sure that it is the oldest frozen sperm sample used (for a live birth),” said Greg Horne, a senior embryologist at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester, England, which treated the baby’s parents.
The man’s sperm was stored in liquid nitrogen nearly two decades ago and was not thawed until he married and decided to start a family.
Scientists injected a single sperm into the mother’s eggs in a technique called intractoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to create embryos. The boy was born two years ago following four attempts at in vitro fertilization (IVF).
“Even after 21 years of storage, the percentage of motile sperm after thawing was high,” said Horne, who reported the case in the journal Human Reproduction.
“This case provides evidence that long-term freezing can successfully preserve sperm quality and fertility. This is important to know because semen stored by young cancer patients is undertaken at a time of great emotional stress when future fertility is unlikely to be an immediate priority,” Horne added. — Sci-tech World Report
|
|
|
|
