From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jul 17 2002 - 18:13:00 MDT
Extropes,
At (I think) Extro three, Greg Stock opined re the
doubtful feasibility/extreme difficulty of somatic
cell genetic modification/therapy, compared to
germ-line engineering. The reasons for the
comparative difficulty are obvious: germline mods
require tweaking a single cell; somatic cell mods
require tweaking trillions. After his talk, I gently
suggested that perhaps this view was a bit premature,
an instance of "seeming" rather than "is", and might
later prove an example of "Everything's hard till you
know how to do it."
Marrow stem cells are rapidly being confirmed as the
progenitors of all sorts of tissue types--brain,
liver, and blood, to mention just those I'm sure of.
Tissues in need of more cells, "summon" the stem cells
from the bone marrow.
Now somatic cell genetic modification seems a good
deal easier. Plant a few modified stem cells into the
marrow, and over time, they come to predominate there
(because they're better at repairing themselves), and
then eventually (for the same reason) in all the
tissue types which derive from marrow stem cells.
"Take your pick", Jeff Davis
Aspiring Transhuman / Delusional Ape
(Take your pick)
-Nicq MacDonald
Stem cells could determine how long we live
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-07/ns-scc071702.php
How long we live could depend on how hardy our stem
cells are. American researchers have found that mouse
strains that live the longest have stem cells in their
bone marrow that are particularly good at repairing
DNA.
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