From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Sat May 25 2002 - 11:05:44 MDT
Harvey Newstrom [mailto:mail@HarveyNewstrom.com] wrote:
Skip the zygote all together and go straight to producing
the end
product only. No intermediate steps that look like human
tissue forming.
### But this would severely limit applications - you can't
replace a kidney with a melange of cells, you need an organ with a
complicated macroscale structure. Also, the sequence of developmental steps
needed to imprint a totipotent cell with commitment to a specific stem cell
lineage might be quite difficult to achieve without actual tissue
environments, and it would take additional decades to work out. I wouldn't
like to let victims of polycystic kidney disease come to harm just to
appease the religious crowd.
----------
No offense, but I think you over-estimate our current
abilities. We are
just mapping the genome now. We do not have the ability to
turn genes
on and off, much less totally re-engineer the entire genome
to control
what results from a DNA strand. I would be greatly
interested in any
references that describe such an ability.
### A few years ago, headless frogs were produced
(http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/gene8.html). Gene knock-outs are a routine
technology and I have no doubt that we are already capable of making an
anencephalic mammal.
Rafal
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:21 MST