From: Extropian Agro Forestry Ventures Inc. (megao@sk.sympatico.ca)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2002 - 19:56:55 MST
Speaking off the top of my head this points to the natural functionality invasive, aggressive cancers show.
It points towards the ability for humans who live very long if not indefinite lifespans being able to still
evolve as a species by continual replacement of tissue with stem cell therapies. The only organ for which
this still seems a possible problem would be the brain. I suspect that unless an intenal lateral
uploading-sideloading of neural information including memory/personality structure/function is maintained
through the regenerative processes there may still be still some tough problems to solve. Way to go for
those down in the trenches in this area.
MJ
"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Jan 2002, John Grigg wrote:
>
> > This is an amazing breakthrough if it turns out to be true!
>
> John, you need to spend a little more time browsing through
> PubMed to *educate* yourself. The evidence that adults probably
> carry totipotent stem cells has been accumulating for several years.
>
> For example the date on:
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11486730&dopt=Abstract
> is *March 2001* and its a *review* article meaning that people
> have been accumulating evidence for quite some time.
>
> > I would love to see a way around the controversy of using aborted baby tissues.
>
> Embryonic stem cells are *not* produced from anything that
> could be *remotely* considered a baby. I strongly suspect
> by the time an embryo begins to remotely take on a human form,
> most of the cells have lost all ability to be "totipotent".
> In fact, I don't believe that any of the current embryonic stem cell
> lines were produced from aborted tissue at all! I believe they
> were manufactured in the lab directly from fertilized eggs.
>
> I'll agree that the article is good news, since the results
> seem to be quite reproducible.
>
> But you *missed* the most interesting part of the article:
>
> > Also, Verfaillie's group has done the tests that are perhaps
> > the gold standard in assessing a cell's plasticity. She placed
> > single MAPCs from humans and mice into very early mouse
> > embryos, when they are just a ball of cells. Analyses of mice
> > born after the experiment reveal that a single MAPC can
> > contribute to all the body's tissues.
>
> If this is written accurately, then it means that human-mouse
> chimeras have been produced. Now *that* I find interesting
> because I was unaware of it. But thinking about it, it would
> seem to me that someone must have done this before. Does anyone
> know how far you can push it (10:1, 5:1, 1:1 Mouse:Human ratio)
> and what happens when you do?
>
> Robert
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