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[tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

This happens when religious idiots interfere with scientific 
research---fortunately the States are ignoring this particular bit of 
idiocy.





Bush stem cell lines all contaminatedPremium

   * 29 January 2005
   * Andy Coghlan
   * Magazine issue 2484

Researchers around the world are facing the nightmare possibility that 
their experiments have been ruined by contamination from animal cells

STEM cell researchers around the world are facing the nightmare 
possibility that their experiments have been messed up by contamination 
from animal cells. The contaminant is an animal sugar already known to 
find its way into cultures of ordinary human cells. It has now been 
found in a Bush-approved stem cell line, and leads to rejection of the 
stem cells by the human immune system.

This means the cells cannot be used in therapies and also calls into 
question all scientific work carried out using the cells. "If you were 
seeing a phenomenon in a dish, you need to ask yourself if it's inherent 
to human biology, or whether it's the effect of a mouse or animal factor 
that alters the system," says Evan Snyder, director of the stem cell and 
regeneration programme at The Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California.