Why can't we just make do with the stem cell lines that already exist, they ask?
BBC: Embryonic stem cells can be turned into any kind of cell
These disease-specific stem cell lines will also be invaluable in testing out new therapies.
BBC: Embryonic stem cells can be turned into any kind of cell
Geron owns patents on and licenses the procedure to make these stem cell lines.
So researchers are looking for ways to make stem cell lines to match individual patients.
How about the moms who gave up the eggs to allow those stem cell lines to exist?
CNN: Reporter: Stem cell decision may open door for lawsuits
Twenty-one of the 60 stem cell lines authorized for research under the Bush policy have proven useful to researchers.
Gothenburg University in Gothenburg, Sweden, owns the most, with 19 stem cell lines.
Never mind Wednesday's presidential veto on expanded federal funding of stem cell lines.
Mr Bush said finance would be restricted to existing stem cell lines from embryos that had already been destroyed.
A. Non-embryonic stem cell lines involve cells that are more differentiated and thus less capable of being programmed into various cell lines.
Mitalipov's team only generated two stem cell lines from 304 monkey eggs.
Advocates argue that in order to truly understand how basic biological processes work, they'll need to compare and contrast how different stem cell lines function.
BBC: Embryonic stem cells can be turned into any kind of cell
And every one of these patients had some disease that theoretically might be cured or they could help cure it with these stem cell lines.
In 2001, President George W. Bush banned all federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, except on a handful of "pre-existing" stem cell lines.
The NIH says it will be meeting with the University of Wisconsin group that holds a patent on five stem cell lines its scientists derived.
The complexities of funding, some say, are even more challenging than access issues to the stem cell lines -- and working out the details could take months.
Why not do this research with non-embryonic stem cell lines?
Doerflinger said his group is in favor of federal funding of research on non-embryonic stem cell lines, using adult tissue, or tissue from fetuses which died of natural causes.
On September 5, the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on stem cell research, to determine more details about where the stem cell lines come from.
Only last year, she said, Egli and Paull and their colleagues demonstrated that the nuclear transfer of eggs cells could generate patient-specific stem cell lines for potential cell replacement therapy to treat diseases like diabetes.
FORBES: Nuclear Transfer Breakthrough Offers A Way To Prevent Mitochondrial Disorders
Instead of generating embryonic stem cell lines via nuclear transfer, Hwang's group produced the stem cells from days-old embryos, a technique that had already been established by James Thomson at University of Wisconsin in 1998.
The deal will allow federally funded researchers access to five stem cell lines created there three years ago at no cost, as long as they use them for teaching research, not for treating disease or developing commercial products.
One possible compromise is to fund only research using the embryonic stem cell lines that already exist, and refuse funding for research that relies on future destruction of embryos, even if the cells are collected in the private sector.
Supporters of ongoing stem cell research -- which is controversial enough on its own because some existing stem cell lines were created from cells extracted from aborted fetuses -- say the field of study holds the promise of reversing or even curing many diseases.
Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, who heads the committee, requested the names of the research groups who have human embryonic stem cell lines, information on where their research has been published, and details about proprietary rights and what ethical standards were used when the stem cells were derived.
They derived the actual stem-cell lines for each of these patients, nine of the 11 patients.
He decreed that no U.S. funding can go to new stem-cell lines ("That cluster of cells is the same way you and I started our lives").
Once you've got them, you don't need to destroy any more embryos, but each time you get a new one of these embryonic stem-cell lines, you need to destroy an embryo.
It barred the National Institutes of Health from funding research on embryonic stem cells beyond using 60 cell lines that existed at that time.
With the help of certain "growth" chemicals, they were able to transform the stem cells into "various cell lines and tissues, including beating human heart cells, " said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a developmental biologist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Ore.
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