Saturday, March 14, 2009

Again, questions

Do you think it would be possible to grow organs? Like if someone's loosing function or lost an eye or whatever, would stem cells cultured to grow into that organ work? Not the "put stem cells in and watch it grow back" bit, but rather "put stem cells and some liver/eye/kidney/whatever cells together into a liquid culture and grow an organ" sort of thing.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Questions, questions that need answering....

So, the more I read on biotechnology and stem cells and cloning, the more I wonder. Would it be possible to take an empty egg cell and insert the nucleus of two gametes to form a genetically identical zygote that would allow for non-rejection of stem cell treatment? And if so, would it be possible to use that technology to combine the genetics of two women, or two men so that lesbian and gay couples could have their own (genetic) children? All that would be needed in the case of the men would be an egg donor and a surrogate. It'd likely be expensive as hell, but could it work? Or, should society be so cruel as to deny them that, a guaranteed match for a patient who damaged their spinal cord or to avoid Graft Versus Host in chemo patients or to combat alzheimers or Parkinson's or Huntington's?

ETA: Er...scratch that last bit. That's what therapeutic cloning is for. *headdesk* Duh. But still, the question stands.