Abstract
Human embryonic stem-cell (hESC) research faces opposition from those who object to the destruction of human embryos. Over the past few years, a series of new approaches have been proposed for deriving hESC lines without injuring a living embryo. Each of these presents scientific challenges and raises ethical and political questions. Do any of these methods have the potential to provide a source of hESCs that will be acceptable to those who oppose the current approaches?
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High quality clinical grade human embryonic stem cell lines derived from fresh discarded embryos
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Acknowledgements
I dedicate this to the memory of J. Cohen. His commitment to ethics at Dartmouth College made possible the research that underlies this discussion.
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FURTHER INFORMATION
Glossary
- Adult stem cell
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An undifferentiated cell that exists among differentiated cells in a tissue or organ, and that can renew itself and differentiate to yield the main specialized cell types of that tissue or organ.
- Aneuploidy
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The presence of extra copies, or fewer copies, of some chromosomes.
- Blastocyst
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A preimplantation embryo that contains a fluid-filled cavity called a blastocoel.
- Blastomere
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A cell that results from embryonic cleavage.
- Inner cell mass
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A small group of undifferentiated cells that are present in the blastocyst.
- Major histocompatibility complex
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A group of genes in mammals that help determine the histocompatibility antigens that are found on cell surfaces and that modulate immune responses.
- Paternal imprinting
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The selective switching on or off of genes caused by factors that are inherited from the paternal chromosomes.
- Pluripotent
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Able to give rise to a range of, but not all, cell lineages (usually all fetal lineages and a subset of extraembryonic lineages).
- Somatic-cell nuclear transfer
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The process by which the nucleus from an adult cell is transferred into a previously enucleated egg cell; the reconstructed oocyte is then activated, which initiates subsequent development.
- Totipotency
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The capacity of an undifferentiated cell to develop into any type of cell.
- Trophoblast
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An extraembryonic lineage that is derived from the trophectoderm of the blastocyst, which gives rise to the fetal portion of the placenta.
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Green, R. Can we develop ethically universal embryonic stem-cell lines?. Nat Rev Genet 8, 480–485 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2066
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2066
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