it entirely. Consider his reaction if you informed him that blood originated from microscopic cells made inside the bones, and that by means of harvesting and then injecting stem cells, you could alter not just a personâs blood but the life-giving stuff inside their bones. I like to think that Hippocrates would grow wide-eyed, grip the arms of his chair, bone up on life sciences, and apply to a modern medical school.
Bone marrow transplants are about replacing not only the blood but also what manufactures the blood, so that it will become free of disease. The first bone marrow transplants were conducted after the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, effectively ending World War II. Thousands of Japanese citizens died, and thousands more suffered from the fallout of nuclear radiation. Scientists began to look into means of protecting people against the effects of irradiation. The first experiments were conducted on dogs and mice. In 1959, the first bone marrow transplants were attempted in humans, with little success. However, in 1969, the American E. Donnall Thomas â who would later receive the Nobel Prize â demonstrated that it was possible to inject bone marrow cells into the bloodstream to build up the bone marrow and create new blood, and in so doing, to save the life of a person with cancer of the blood.
In the following decades, along with improvements in the science of bone marrow transplants, international registries were developed to assist with the complex process of matching patients to viable stem cell donors. Most bone marrow recipients will not have a family member with compatible blood, so they require a matching service to connect them to millions of potential international donors. Out of the ashes left by the most devastating bomb ever dropped has emerged not just the science of stem cell transplants but also a massive network of international cooperation to assist in locating blood donors for patients who might otherwise perish.
In modern society, although most people accept the need to intervene medically to save the lives of patients with blood cancers, a related issue has proven to be one of the most controversial aspects of contemporary medicine.
The controversy began in 1998, when U.S. researchers discovered human embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stem cells could be derived from the inner cell mass of an early human embryo called a blastocyst. About the size of a period at the end of a sentence, a blastocyst begins to form five days after fertilization in humans. Embryonic stem cells have an additional, nearly miraculous quality called pluripotency, which means that they can transform into any other type of cell or tissue in the body.
Through a process called differentiation, which means maturation, the embryonic stem cell can become a cardiac muscle cell, an islet cell to process insulin, a neuronal cell in the brain, or another cell in the body. But once it has started down the path of differentiation toward becoming, say, a cardiac muscle cell, it can never change course and become a neuronal cell. It has become too specialized, too committed to its future. The ability to control the direction of this maturation, to choose the sort of cell that we need and want them to become, is what excites scientists and makes them believe that the embryonic stem cell could well be tied to major medical advances that could help people overcome diseases and save many lives in the future. Indeed, Science magazine hailed the identification and culturing of embryonic stem cells as the âbreakthrough of the yearâ in 1998.
Even former U.S. president George W. Bush, who introduced rules limiting federal funding of stem cell research in 2001, acknowledged at the time the potential importance of the science. On the day of his announcement of the funding restrictions, President Bush said: âScientists believe further research using stem cells offers great promise that
Bone marrow transplants are about replacing not only the blood but also what manufactures the blood, so that it will become free of disease. The first bone marrow transplants were conducted after the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, effectively ending World War II. Thousands of Japanese citizens died, and thousands more suffered from the fallout of nuclear radiation. Scientists began to look into means of protecting people against the effects of irradiation. The first experiments were conducted on dogs and mice. In 1959, the first bone marrow transplants were attempted in humans, with little success. However, in 1969, the American E. Donnall Thomas â who would later receive the Nobel Prize â demonstrated that it was possible to inject bone marrow cells into the bloodstream to build up the bone marrow and create new blood, and in so doing, to save the life of a person with cancer of the blood.
In the following decades, along with improvements in the science of bone marrow transplants, international registries were developed to assist with the complex process of matching patients to viable stem cell donors. Most bone marrow recipients will not have a family member with compatible blood, so they require a matching service to connect them to millions of potential international donors. Out of the ashes left by the most devastating bomb ever dropped has emerged not just the science of stem cell transplants but also a massive network of international cooperation to assist in locating blood donors for patients who might otherwise perish.
In modern society, although most people accept the need to intervene medically to save the lives of patients with blood cancers, a related issue has proven to be one of the most controversial aspects of contemporary medicine.
The controversy began in 1998, when U.S. researchers discovered human embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stem cells could be derived from the inner cell mass of an early human embryo called a blastocyst. About the size of a period at the end of a sentence, a blastocyst begins to form five days after fertilization in humans. Embryonic stem cells have an additional, nearly miraculous quality called pluripotency, which means that they can transform into any other type of cell or tissue in the body.
Through a process called differentiation, which means maturation, the embryonic stem cell can become a cardiac muscle cell, an islet cell to process insulin, a neuronal cell in the brain, or another cell in the body. But once it has started down the path of differentiation toward becoming, say, a cardiac muscle cell, it can never change course and become a neuronal cell. It has become too specialized, too committed to its future. The ability to control the direction of this maturation, to choose the sort of cell that we need and want them to become, is what excites scientists and makes them believe that the embryonic stem cell could well be tied to major medical advances that could help people overcome diseases and save many lives in the future. Indeed, Science magazine hailed the identification and culturing of embryonic stem cells as the âbreakthrough of the yearâ in 1998.
Even former U.S. president George W. Bush, who introduced rules limiting federal funding of stem cell research in 2001, acknowledged at the time the potential importance of the science. On the day of his announcement of the funding restrictions, President Bush said: âScientists believe further research using stem cells offers great promise that
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