The relationship between stem cells and cloning is that stem cells are undifferentiated cells. There is a little funky piece of DNA known as the homeobox which is the control center for how cells express themselves. If you knew what you were doing, the idea is that you could then take these stem cells and switch on the 'make more stem cells' switch, or the 'make a pancreas switch'. You could then have this switch-grown pancreas inserted into your body without the normal fears of rejection, as there will be no proteins that the body would read as different resulting in rejection. As far as your scenario, I'm unfamiliar with it. I do know that there have been efforts to encorporate drugs into some portion of animal cells in order to get them into the body with mixed degrees of success. I would find it intresting to know how your destructive drug would differentiate between the target cells and the normal cells. Also, it is my impression that that is the general problem with all cancer treatments is killing the bad cells without killing the good. Further, technicaly in your description it wouldn't be exclusively 'drug' therapy, as the injection would have to involve the targeted injection or surgical insertion of cells into their growth location. Also, it is important to note that the stem cells that are completly undifferentiated are not avalable at all in adults. In adults, the cells are 'pancreas stem cells' or 'lung stem cells'. One of the original attempts to use stem cells involved injecting them into the 'substansia nigera', a little dark series of cells where dopamine is produced for the brain. What initialy seemed to be amazing results helped fuel practical stem cell research. Unfortunately, it turns out that these results wern't quite so great as it first appeared. As far as I'm aware, there haven't to date been any successes in practical aplications, though I could be wrong.
there are too many people as it is. . . why do we need more? I really think its going to become a pride thing. . . Its kinda like sneaking out for the first time, sure you think its going to be cool and their will be so much to do and learn but you soon find out that it pretty much sucks and is pointless
Ottomaton: I'm aware of what stem cells are and how they operate... Killing cancerous cells is easy; that's never been a problem. The hard part is killing cancerous cells without destroying surrounding healthy tissue. With the proposed treatments, that would not be a concern, as the drug theoretically causes any dead tissue to be regrown. It literally clones a new organ as the old one is being destroyed without the need for surgery. The drugs would be tailor-made for each individual's DNA sequence; the trick as I understand it is of course telling the stem cells to become a pancreas, heart, etc. At least, that's my understanding of it... My brother's an internal medicine doctor; he brightens up when talking about this issue. I don't understand half of what he's talking about, of course. On the ethical side, I don't see any problem with this. I personally don't see anything unethical about the dramatic extension of life spans this would entail. Philisophically and practically speaking, though, this will have to raise the level of debate on issues such as population control, abortion/birth control, health care availability, food supply, environmental responsibility, etc...
If nothing else, cloning will probably be expensive, so at least we should be able to get a lot more Republicans out of the deal, assuming it becomes accepted by the mainstream.
