Regenerative Medicine - Network For Church Monitoring

Unnatural selection: Is evolving reproductive technology ushering in a new age of eugenics?

Posted by N4CM Features 10 Jan 2012

Source: The Globe and Mail. Humanity has long dreamed of perfection, striving to be faster, stronger and brighter, pushing nature to the limit. Four centuries before people were conceived in a petri dish, Swiss alchemist Paracelsus claimed flawless little beings could be grown in pumpkins filled with urine and horse dung, but there is no record he produced a crop. With the birth of Louise Brown in 1978, the test tube finally succeeded [...]

Print Me a Kidney

Posted by N4CM Features, Futurism 21 Dec 2011

Source: The Burrill Report. More than a decade after the first human bladder was grown from scratch, the successful implantation of a lab-grown human trachea in June 2011 highlights a growing reality: diseased and damaged organs and tissues are increasingly replaceable. The incremental improvements behind this regenerative phenomenon will escalate as a graying population creates greater need for organ replacement [...]

Body of research

Posted by N4CM Features, Futurism 27 Nov 2011

Source: The Guardian. Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroengineer at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, will be watching the opening ceremony of the Brazilian World Cup in 2014 more closely than anyone. Amid the spectacle of the event that will draw millions of viewers around the world will be a very public unveiling of his greatest work. One of the highlights of the ceremony will see the [...]

The Public, Political Parties, and Stem-Cell Research

Posted by N4CM Biotechnology 24 Nov 2011

Source: NEJM.org. Until recently, it seemed as if the question of future federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research had been settled. The Obama administration had lifted President George W. Bush’s previous restrictions on funding, and the legality of that decision was upheld by federal courts. But the 2012 presidential election campaign has once again raised uncertainty about such funding.

Is a fertilized egg a Californian? Personhood movement brings battle to California

Posted by N4CM Biotechnology 23 Nov 2011

Source: Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog. Remember those folks who were pushing an amendment in Mississippi that would have defined the one cell fertilized egg as a full blown person with all the same rights as a living, breathing, thinking Mississippian? Now the new battlefront for their movement is California. They want to get an initiative on the ballot to make it a law that a fertilized egg is a Californian.

Operation marks another step forward in stem cell research

Posted by N4CM Biotechnology 22 Nov 2011

Source: CNN. A 50-year-old man from Trion, Georgia, is the first person to be injected with stem cells in the upper part of the spinal cord, making him yet another pioneer in the scientific quest to use stem cells to heal. Richard Grosjean received the treatment Friday. He is part of an ongoing FDA-approved clinical trial that is testing the safety of injecting stem cells into the spinal cords of patients with [...]

First test of human embryonic stem cell therapy in people discontinued

Posted by N4CM News, Top Stories 15 Nov 2011

Source: The Washington Post. The company conducting the first government-approved tests in people of a therapy developed using human embryonic stem cells abruptly announced Monday that it was halting the study, stunning advocates of the highly contentious field. Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., said the move, which stops one of the most controversial and closely watched medical experiments in the [...]

A Mississippi Victory as the Battle Over Stem Cell Research Rages on

Posted by N4CM Biotechnology 14 Nov 2011

Source: The Burrill Report. Mississippi voters on November 8 rejected initiative 26, an amendment to the state’s constitution that would have declared life begins at fertilization. Though much of the push for the amendment came from opponents of abortion, the legislation would also have ensnared human embryonic stem cell research. We spoke to Bernie Siegel, executive director of the Genetics Policy Institute, [...]

Congressional GOP Pushes Zygote Personhood Bills

Posted by N4CM Reproductive health 11 Nov 2011

Source: Mother Jones. On Tuesday, voters in Mississippi headed to the polls to vote on an amendment to the state Constitution that would designate inseminated human eggs as legal persons from the “moment of fertilization.” (Updated 9:30PT: The measure failed.) Its backers hoped to set up a challenge to Roe v. Wade and push toward outlawing many forms of birth control.

Will Mississippi Ban IVF?

Posted by N4CM Reproductive health 27 Oct 2011

Source: The Daily Beast. In September, Mississippi’s Supreme Court ruled that a ballot initiative to amend the state’s constitution to define embryos as persons could go forward in November. Since then, Dr. Randall Hines, one of four physicians in the state who perform in vitro fertilization, has been fielding panicked calls from women with fertility problems. “We have patients calling us who are extremely anxious,” he says. [...]