Friday, December 14, 2007

Skins Cells to Stem Cells (vocab quiz)

In Kyoto, Japan, a man by the name of Shinya Yamanaka and his team had fabricated a way to turn adult skin cells into into an equivalent to an embryonic stem cells,without the embryo. Dr. Yamanaka is credited for being able to make true of the idea of being able to reprogram adult cells. He was able to do this with his work with mice, when his idea of adding genes called master regulators that were able to reprogram genes blossomed. Because of this, the divisive line between republicans and democrats that are arguing over whether or not stem cells should be use is finally gone. This is considered Japan's pinnacle finding because Japan has been doing not as well with basic science.
If Dr. Yamanaka's idea works, then stem cell research would be a go. I think that stem cells are good, because the fix the atrophy of the body, but I don't support it because using them would mean destroying embryos, which is not nice. If Dr. Yamanaka's idea works, then American scientists won't have to be scrupulous about doing stem cell research in secret. Their is only one thing that stand in the way of making this idea work, though. Right now, master regulators are retrovirus, which cause cancer. If Dr. Yamanaka can find a way for his master regulators to not use retroviruses, capacious space is needed for the new possibilities that might come.

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