Stem cells cure blind man

[Kaboose the Moose]

Englishman Russell Thurnbull got attacked with ammonia 15 years ago during a street fight. As a result, he got an extremely painful condition called Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency, which resulted in blindness in one eye. After much medication, he became a lab rat for all kinds of treatments until a team from Newcastle's North East England Stem Cell Institute got the miraculous cure he was waiting for.

First, the team took a minuscule sample of stem cells from his healthy eye's cornea. This millimeter square of cells was placed on a amniotic membrane, which was placed inside a liquid made from his blood, glucose, insulin, and hydrocortisone. The cells will grow in that solution until taking all over the membrane, which then is used to replace the damaged cornea.

The result: He completely gained eyesight after only eight weeks of the operation. It is not Christopher Reeve walking, but if this is not the future ringing the doorbell, right here, right now, I don't know what it is. [Channel 4]

Source [http://gizmodo.com/5433391/stem-cells-cure-blind-man?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29]

This is quite remarkable and while I wonder how far this technology will take us, I can't help but wonder why Stem Cell Research is so controversial again?. Oh that's right..it *edited to keep volatile pants fire free*

Honestly I don't get why most people are against stem cell research. No babies/fetuses were harmed during the making of the patient's eye sight so surely this is a win-win situation right?.

 

[Legion]

Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!.

I suggest you take that part out or else this is just going to descend into a flame-war.

Unless that's what you were aiming for of course.

 

[Icecoldcynic]

I've always been fully behind stem cell research, and this proves that there is something to be gained from it. I wish all the bs controversy would stop, because I can't help feeling it could be moving so much faster if people accepted it.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

With this method, surely we can give blind people the ability to see.
If people hate science and/or stem cell research when it can do things like this, I pity them.
Science will carry us forward.
*ahem*
What? what did I just say?

 

[Distorted Stu]

WOO I LIVE NEAR nEWCASTLE. i am a scientist!
I love hearing stories like this

 

[Baby Tea]

I can't help but wonder why Stem Cell Research is so controversial again?. Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!

Stem cells taken from a fetus is what is controversial.
In this case, stem cells were taken from his own eye, so there is no controversy here.

So try to avoid the flame-bait, please and thank you.

More on topic: That's pretty awesome. I'm sure the guy is just elated, for good reason.
Let's hope it holds up (No unforeseen consequences or anything).

 

[Citrus]

The potential for Stem Cells are amazing. Anybody who is against them should get blinded; maybe they'd change their minds.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!.

And it's the devil's work! Practitioners of this "science" are witches and must be purged!

On a more serious note, I'm fairly sure Jesus would be up for curing the blind and this great leap forward in medical technology will surely make the future a frickin' awesome place to be.

 

[OmegaXIII]

Vague 'playing God' or 'creating mutants from chimeras' arguments are what basically outline the opposition argument. I received a lecture from two people on either side of the argument and despite trying to keep as open of a mind as possible i couldn't help but facepalm throughout the opposition's presentation. I do see the controversy with fetal stem cells but for Christ's sake we are talking about being able to cure the previously incurable here!

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!.

I suggest you take that part out or else this is just going to descend into a flame-war.

Unless that's what you were aiming for of course.

Oh crap!. Yes I forgot I was posting on the Escapist where the average Joe will find something to get offended about.

Will edit that out, if the court pleases.

 

[SilentVirus]

This happened a while ago. It would have been sooner if some people would stop letting religion in the way of this kind of stuff.

 

[Legion]

Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!.

I suggest you take that part out or else this is just going to descend into a flame-war.

Unless that's what you were aiming for of course.

Oh crap!. Yes I forgot I was posting on the Escapist where the average Joe will find something to get offended about.

Will edit that out, if the court pleases.

I'm not offended, I'm not Christian.

That doesn't mean I'm incapable of seeing that insulting someone's personal belief for no damn reason might be something to avoid doing.

I notice how you conveniently didn't give this reply to the Mod who said the same thing though.

 

[Cabisco]

Vague 'playing God' or 'creating mutants from chimeras' arguments are what basically outline the opposition argument.

Strangely these too reason are why i'm totally for it In my eyes we shall one day have puppies which will stay forever puppies. awesome.

 

[Wadders]

With this kind of thing happening now, there is really no excuse at all for people denouncing Stem Cell research.

So yeah, go science!

 

[aruseusx]

WOO I LIVE NEAR nEWCASTLE. i am a scientist!
I love hearing stories like this

Lucky bastard, you can pretend to have credit for it.

OT: Science gets to points for having evidence of healing people. Religion still needs proof to gain credibility.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!.

And it's the devil's work! Practitioners of this "science" are witches and must be purged!

On a more serious note, I'm fairly sure Jesus would be up for curing the blind and this great leap forward in medical technology will surely make the future a frickin' awesome place to be.

I also do believe that curing the blind was something he did gain fame for..among other things.

I can't help but wonder why Stem Cell Research is so controversial again?. Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!

Stem cells taken from a fetus is what is controversial.
In this case, stem cells were taken from his own eye, so there is no controversy here.

So try to avoid the flame-bait, please and thank you.

I understand if this was restricted to just Stem Cells taken from a fetus, but it isn't. Stem Cell research as a field is universally frowned upon and capped to only specific areas of study. As far as I know stem cell research using epidermal tissue from adults and bone marrow from growing adults (which are both fetus free) is still marginalized. It's a guilty by proxy treatment that is going around here and as a result not many people want to tread into this field of work.

It just annoys me that some people object to something that is not violating their prime belief but are against it merely by it's nomenclature.

Also this isn't a flame bait thread. It never was and it never will be my intention to flame or troll anyone. Some people should just not look for an excuse to yell fire when there is none.

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

Oh that's right..it makes the baby Jesus cry!.

I suggest you take that part out or else this is just going to descend into a flame-war.

Unless that's what you were aiming for of course.

Oh crap!. Yes I forgot I was posting on the Escapist where the average Joe will find something to get offended about.

Will edit that out, if the court pleases.

I'm not offended, I'm not Christian.

That doesn't mean I'm incapable of seeing that insulting someone's personal belief for no damn reason might be something to avoid doing.

I notice how you conveniently didn't give this reply to the Mod who said the same thing though.

Sorry I was typing a response to you when he posted. As you can see, I did too.

Insults take many forms. I would have though sarcasm to be the lesser of the evils.

Believe me, even if I wanted to insult someone's personal belief or the church I would have done so tactfully. The very reason I used a satirical term was because it was satirical statement. If I genuinely had ill intentions then I would have said so directly.

I am merely saying that I believe religion to be an obstacle in this particular field of science. So considering the fact that even if I had said this instead of 'a crying baby Jesus', people would take it as an offense or an insult, I chose the satirical route.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Stemcells are amazing, if they can make peoples lives better, why the hell not.

 

[thepj]

I've always been fully behind stem cell research, and this proves that there is something to be gained from it. I wish all the bs controversy would stop, because I can't help feeling it could be moving so much faster if people accepted it.

i'm with the ridiculously cute seal/otter thing, cause he makes a good point ^_^

 

[Baby Tea]

I understand if this was restricted to just Stem Cells taken from a fetus, but it isn't. Stem Cell research as a field is universally frowned upon and capped to only specific areas of study. As far as I know stem cell research using epidermal tissue from adults and bone marrow from growing adults (which are both fetus free) is still marginalized. It's a guilty by proxy treatment that is going around here and as a result not many people want to tread into this field of work.

It just annoys me that some people object to something that is not violating their prime belief but are against is merely by it's nomenclature.

As a Christian, everyone I know who is against stem cell research is against stem cells taken from a fetus (Like myself). If stem cells can be taken from a consenting adult's bone, eye, nose, cheek, or rear end, then I don't care, and neither does any other Christian I know. If stem cell research is indeed being marginalized in general because of that (I confess I don't follow the news of such research), then I agree that that's not right.

Also this isn't a flame bait thread. It never was and it never will be my intention to flame or troll anyone. Some people should just not look for an excuse to yell fire when there is none.

Don't play dumb, Skarin. Not once did I call this a flame-bait thread, but that statement is absolutely flame-bait, and you know good and well it is. You used a sarcastic turn-of-phrase to specifically target a religious group (Since referring to 'Baby Jesus' obviously isn't talking about Hindus). You could have made your point without it, but you did it anyways.

I'm watching the thread, and if I see too many more 'Yeah! This is great and religion is stupid' posts, then it'll be locked.