{"id":121,"date":"2002-12-11T08:08:51","date_gmt":"2002-12-11T16:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2002\/12\/11\/stanford-hits-the-headlines-over-genetic-research\/"},"modified":"2002-12-11T08:08:51","modified_gmt":"2002-12-11T16:08:51","slug":"stanford-hits-the-headlines-over-genetic-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2002\/12\/11\/stanford-hits-the-headlines-over-genetic-research","title":{"rendered":"Stanford Hits the Headlines Over Genetic Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow. I woke up this morn\u00ading and saw all sorts of news arti\u00adcles<\/a> that sug\u00adgest Stan\u00adford is about to engage in human cloning.<\/p>\n

For exam\u00adple, there\u2019s this sto\u00adry from the San Fran\u00adcis\u00adco Chron\u00adi\u00adcle: Stan\u00adford Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty announced plans Tues\u00adday to cre\u00adate a $120 mil\u00adlion insti\u00adtute to study the over\u00adlap\u00adping biol\u00ado\u00adgy of can\u00adcer and stem cells, includ\u00ading a plan to start cloning new stem cells from human embryos.<\/i> (source<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Stan\u00adford has to say: Stan\u00adford Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty Med\u00adical Cen\u00adter is not engaged in human repro\u00adduc\u00adtive cloning. A sto\u00adry pub\u00adlished Dec. 10 by the Asso\u00adci\u00adat\u00aded Press incor\u00adrect\u00adly char\u00adac\u00adter\u00adized the nature of research that would take place at the new\u00adly announced Insti\u00adtute for Cancer\/Stem Cell Biol\u00ado\u00adgy and Med\u00adi\u00adcine at the Stan\u00adford Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty School of Med\u00adi\u00adcine.<\/i><\/p>\n

Cre\u00adat\u00ading human stem cell lines is not equiv\u00ada\u00adlent to repro\u00adduc\u00adtive cloning. The first step in the process of cre\u00adat\u00ading a stem cell line involves trans\u00adfer\u00adring the nucle\u00adus from a cell to an egg and allow\u00ading the egg to divide. This is the same first step as in repro\u00adduc\u00adtive cloning. How\u00adev\u00ader in cre\u00adat\u00ading a stem cell line, cells are removed from the devel\u00adop\u00ading clus\u00adter. These cells can go on to form many types of tis\u00adsues, but can\u00adnot on their own devel\u00adop into a human. Future research in this field, which will also be pur\u00adsued at Stan\u00adford, will attempt to pro\u00adduce stem cell lines by trans\u00adfer\u00adring the nucle\u00adus into oth\u00ader embry\u00adon\u00adic stem cells rather than into eggs. (source<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It looks like the human cloning angle of the sto\u00adry was a lit\u00adtle over-hyped in the news, and as far as I can tell, they\u2019re going to be work\u00ading exclu\u00adsive\u00adly with non-fer\u00adtil\u00adized eggs (although I guess in one sense they\u2019ll be cre\u00adat\u00ading their own).<\/p>\n

I found this quote par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly inter\u00adest\u00ading: \u201cOur avowed goal is to advance sci\u00adence,\u201d said Stan\u00adford med\u00adical pro\u00adfes\u00adsor Dr. Irv\u00ading Weiss\u00adman, who will direct the school\u2019s stem cell effort. \u201cFor any group to stay out of the action and wait for some\u00adone else to do it because of polit\u00adi\u00adcal rea\u00adsons<\/b> is wrong.\u201d<\/i> (news source<\/a>, empha\u00adsis added). <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t pre\u00adtend to real\u00adly under\u00adstand all the sci\u00adence, and so I don\u2019t know how to eval\u00adu\u00adate what they\u2019re plan\u00adning to do from a moral stand\u00adpoint. I do know that polit\u00adi\u00adcal rea\u00adsons<\/b> and moral rea\u00adsons<\/b> aren\u2019t the same thing at all, although the two cat\u00ade\u00adgories fre\u00adquent\u00adly over\u00adlap. <\/p>\n

In fact, Weiss\u00adman inter\u00admin\u00adgles pol\u00adi\u00adtics and moral\u00adi\u00adty in his own com\u00adment: the rea\u00adsons for stay\u00ading out of the research would be polit\u00adi\u00adcal, but the rea\u00adsons for engag\u00ading in it are moral. That seems a lit\u00adtle convenient\u2013almost by def\u00adi\u00adn\u00adi\u00adtion if doing one thing is polit\u00adi\u00adcal then doing the oppo\u00adsite is polit\u00adi\u00adcal as well. By and large the same obser\u00adva\u00adtion holds true with respect to moral\u00adi\u00adty.<\/p>\n

I know that it\u2019s dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to choose the right words when you\u2019re being inter\u00adviewed and don\u2019t have time to craft the per\u00adfect response, but I found his word\u00ading reveal\u00ading. It does\u00adn\u2019t reas\u00adsure me that peo\u00adple are think\u00ading through the eth\u00adi\u00adcal issues as rig\u00ador\u00adous\u00adly as they are the sci\u00aden\u00adtif\u00adic angles.<\/p>\n

The news arti\u00adcles I read were pret\u00adty super\u00adfi\u00adcial, and so I hope I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stan\u00adford pur\u00adsues human cloning?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stanfordministry-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}