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【bio-news】调查挑战干细胞位置
Survey challenges stem cell stance
About 60 per cent of people with frozen embryos stored at United States fertility clinics would be willing to donate them for use in human stem-cell research, a survey shows.
The survey, made public on the day US President George W. Bush vetoed legislation to expand federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell research, tracked the attitudes of the people in a position to donate these embryos to create stem-cell batches, or lines, for research.
The researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said the findings indicated perhaps 10 times as many embryos might be available for research as previously estimated and that they could yield 2000 to 3000 usable stem celllines.
That would be 100 times the number of these cell lines now available for use in federally funded studies.
The embryos are created at fertility clinics for in vitro fertilisation procedures to help infertile couples have babies.
Typically, more embryos are created than are needed and many are simply discarded after the donors no longer want them.
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AdvertisementAn estimated 400,000 sit in frozen storage at US clinics. But experts say couples who want to donate these embryos for research have few options available.
The researchers questioned 1020 people who have embryos stored at nine fertility centres in California, Colorado, Washington, DC., Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
Sixty per cent said they would be very or somewhat likely to donate their frozen embryos for use in stem cell research - far higher than previous estimates, the researchers reported in the journal Science.
About 28 per cent said they would be similarly willing to donate embryos to improve cloning techniques for medical science.
Only 22 per cent were willing to donate embryos to other couples for adoption to make babies - something Bush has advocated as a better use of the embryos.
"We have a kind of collision course between the public policy at the federal level in the United States and what the people who are responsible legally and ethically for these embryos would like to do with their embryos," Ruth Faden, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, said.
Bush's policy allowed federally funded research on only a small number of cell lines in existence in 2001 that many scientists now see as obsolete or contaminated.
Dr David Grainger, president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, said the study showed that fertility patients had given careful thought to what they wanted to do with their stored embryos.
"The continuing lack of opportunity to donate to embryonic stem cell research forces patients who want that option to keep their embryos in storage indefinitely," Grainger said.
"Unfortunately, some of them may give up and decide to discard them instead."
Supporters of human embryonic stem cell research call it a promising avenue for potential cures for ailments such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries.
Because it involves destroying human embryos, opponents call it unethical and immoral.
Stem cells are a kind of master cell for the body, capable of growing into various tissue and cell types, offering the possibility of repairing tissue damaged by disease or injury.
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Survey challenges stem cell stance
调查挑战干细胞位置
About 60 per cent of people with frozen embryos stored at United States fertility clinics would be willing to donate them for use in human stem-cell research, a survey shows.
一项调查显示，约有60%的人用冷冻胚胎贮存在美国生育诊所，他们将愿意捐赠胚胎用于人类胚胎干细胞研究。
The survey, made public on the day US President George W. Bush vetoed legislation to expand federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell research, tracked the attitudes of the people in a position to donate these embryos to create stem-cell batches, or lines, for research.
美国总统布什否决立法扩大联邦资助人类胚胎干细胞研究的当天，追踪调查人们捐献胚胎用于建立干细胞系研究态度的结果也公布与世。
The researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said the findings indicated perhaps 10 times as many embryos might be available for research as previously estimated and that they could yield 2000 to 3000 usable stem celllines.
美国北卡罗来纳州位于Durham的Duke大学和Baltimore 的Johns Hopkins 大学的研究者说，结果发现可用于研究的胚胎比预想的要多10倍，由此可能建立2千到3千个可用的干细胞系。
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2011-03-04 17:11
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