Etchevers:Notebook/Genomics of hNCC/2008/09/23

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 * style="background-color: #EEE"|[[Image:C14.jpg|128px]] Genomics of human neural crest cells
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 * style="background-color: #F2F2F2" align="center"|  |Main project page


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Media reception
Received Millipore order for SCM020-100 HEscGro Medium for hES cells, 100 ml. Frozen (bFGF in there). No package insert, very little information on Millipore website. Bulletin 77763299-1 du 22-9-08.

Also received the Collagen Type I (rat tail) 100 mg. Bulletin 77696424-1 du 22-9-08 ref FR 15744208-Eur for both. Ref client 2008009943.

Wrote to George Daley after brainstorming live to Rick Finnell with even more links. The text:

Dear Dr. Daley,

I am a member of ISSCR and am trying to find information about how to best assess the potentiality of a stem cell population we study.

We plan to attempt a teratoma assay, to answer the most obvious question, but I was wondering about two sentences that came up in your recent commentary article, Teratoma Formation Assays with Human Embryonic Stem Cells: A Rationale for One Type of Human-Animal Chimera.

"For murine ES cells, the truest demonstration of cellular pluripotency is assayed in vivo via blastocyst chimerism or tetraploid aggregation followed by gestation (refs). When considering human ES cells, such experiments are clearly ethically proscribed."

"Pluripotency is demonstrated when the progeny of the input cells are found in all tissues, including the germline. Obvious ethical prohibitions preclude similar work with hES cells."

Could you tell me what your thinking was, here? The ethical prohibitions do not seem so obvious to me, especially in light of the arguments presented in these opinion pieces. An explicit reference to a current U.S. law prohibiting such mosaics would be fine, too.

Article 1

and

Article 2

"Thank you so much for taking the time to look this over and either refer me on to someone else, or to respond yourself."

Attempt at formatting. Dr. Daley did answer, see tomorrow's entry.
 * Heather 09:14, 24 September 2008 (EDT):


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