Thursday, September 14, 2006

Batteries and stem cells

This is from another blog (probably via somewhere else):

In the world of batteries, Lithium-ion batteries are dominant in laptops, cell phones, and other mobile devices because of their ability to store lots of energy in a small, light package. However, if the batteries are damaged or or experience an internal short, the unstable materials in the battery release oxygen, oxidizing other materials in the battery, which in turn produces more heat. The cycle continues in a process called "thermal runaway," which in some cases can lead to a violent explosion. This is theorized to be the reason for the recent battery recalls for laptop computers.

[more on this later]

This is from californiastemcellreport, giving a quote by Prof. Green of Dartmouth:

Dr. Lanza has already touched on some of the key ethical issues. He has stressed how this research could be conducted in the context of preimplantation genetic diagnosis(PGD) without adding any additional risk of harm to the embryos involved in this procedure.

Dr. Lanza has also shown that the extracted individual cells cannot reasonably be regarded as individual or independent human beings. No cells extracted at this stage of embryonic growth could go on to full term development.


#1. The idea of "without any additional risk of harm" assumes one was going to do PGD anyway. If one is separating a cell from an 8 to 16 cell blastocyst for the purpose of creating a stem cell line, then one has the risk of harm to the remaining cells that exists in PGD. The journal Science already made the point that there is some risk of harm in separating the cell.

#2. I would guess that a cell extracted from an 8 to 16 cell embryo could go on to full term development. [The ACT plan is to divide the one extracted cell to make two cells, one for PGD and one for a stem cell line.] In PGD, one is sacrificing the one cell to do genetic information, but if someone had a different objective [?]






[IPBiz post 1976]

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