HAMBURG: Faced with strict German laws banning the use of human
embryos, a team of German scientists came up with a radical new
“ethical” source for stem cells – men’s testicles.
The scientists believe their breakthrough may offer a whole new
range of treatments for diseases like Parkinson’s and diabetes and for
spinal cord injuries involving use of men’s own stem cells to replace
damaged or diseased cells in their own bodies.
The researchers from the Universities of Tuebingen and Cologne in
Germany, and King’s College London, say routine biopsies of men’s
testicles could provide a new source of stem cells which could be as
good as embryonic stem cells for researching and developing treatments
for a range of diseases, but without the ethical and legal problems of
embryonic stem cells.
Writing in the online edition of Nature, Professor Thomas Skutella, who
leads an experimental embryology group at Tuebingen University, says,
“Thegeneration of human adult germline stem cells from testicular
biopsies may provide simple and non-controversial access to individual
cell-based therapy without the ethical and immunological problems
associated with human embryonic stem cells.”
Stem cells are the new hope for treatment development because they
carry the potential of personalised therapy – using a person’s own
cells to create stem cells that can then repair and replace damaged
tissue, such as in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancers.
This way the big problem of immune system rejection is overcome
because the implants have the same DNA as the host. The drawback,
however, is that using stem cells from male testes,the treatment would
only work on men. Stem cells from embryos have the potential to become
any cell in the body, after all, a whole person grows from a single
fertilised egg.
But getting stem cells from embryos is fraught with ethical problems
since it involves the destruction of embryos. In Germany, stem cell
research involving embryos is prohibited by federal law.
For years, scientists in Germany have been working to find legal
alternative ways to make stem cells with the same ability to become any
cell in the body as the embryonic stem cell. – dpa
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