Also, you can shoot your minions with it. The stem cells cause them to gradually morph into clones of you, their master.
I have a flesh gun that sprays stem cells all overā¦ Looks like it is lawsuit time!
I came in to make a similar tasteless joke. Well played!
Waitā¦
Doesnāt stem cell research of any kind make the baby jesus cry? Wasnāt that the republican war cry about 10 years ago? This sounds like it could potentially be a good thing, saving people from additional suffering, and lowering the risk of infection. Iām confuse!
Every cell in your body contains DNA outlining a way to build more yous. So obviously every cell you grow is murder. Clearly the only way to save unborn children is the genocide of all human beings before they grow any more cells. #sarcasm #FundieLogic
Technically spermatozoa arenāt stems cells, theyāve already differentiated into a specialty cell. Though they did originate from stem cells.
Was waiting for thatā¦
By extracting pluripotent stem cells from the Holy Prepuce, we can ultimately make lots of Baby Jesi cry.
Also lens fibre cells.
Somewhere a fundie just spontaneously burst into flames!
Based on the prices in the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook these should also be much more affordable than conventional treatments!
This is a term of art meaning āWe have anecdotes but no actual dataā. The whole thing has all the hallmarks of Stem Cell Scam #173.
Iāll need to go back and take a longer look if / when I have time. I looked at the board of directors, and Iām not happy with how the one PHD among them is touting his acquisitions over any scientific skill. Maybe thatās the kind of BS you need to get venture capital these days, but it doesnāt breed confidence.
Note that the initial press release and video providing Markās quotes have since been taken down and replaced by a new version.
New version says nothing about case studies, or regeneration, or clinical observationsā¦ focussing instead on the fine-drop quality of the SkinGun (āa well-dispersed mist of wound care and/or irrigation fluidsā), which would apparently make a good airbrush.
To be charitable, perhaps the RenovaCare press releases really mean āfibroblastsā and only talk about āstem cellsā because those are Worship Words for investors
Iāll have to check the wayback, as I didnāt read the initial post. (Maybe itās there, maybe not?)
Aside from the (certainly present; but rarer and less influential) āzOMG any science that sounds freaky to me obviously offends god!!ā squad (who, in fairness, have wholly secular counterparts who just couch their āit squicks me, ergo it is evilā claims in different terms); itās fetal stem cells that get them worked up; because those are produced by the Abortion-Industrial Complex in their satanic fetus-grinder mills.
Fetal stem cells are valuable for a lot of research purposes(since they havenāt differentiated yet, itās a lot easier to get pluripotent stem cells from embryos; and embryology is conveniently pretty much the study of how stem cells structure themselves into assorted organs and tissues); but for clinical applications the ideal is being able to derive the stem cells from the patient because that dodges the various ugly issues that arise when transplanting foreign tissue and having the hostās immune system get touchy about it.
Given that we do run these risks anyway, since the alternative to most organ transplants is either death or severely degraded quality of life, I assume that weād be willing to run them if somebody figures out how to grow new livers from fetal cells or the like; but for an application like wound healing āand then you take immunosuppressants forever, or your immune system re-opens those wounds with prejudiceā is not a terribly pleasant prospect.
So, yeah, some stem cells get people really worked up(and some people donāt the difference and just freak out at all of them to be on the safe side); but the most serious backlash is with embryonic and fetal tissue, not with cells sourced from the patient.
There is probably a really good ābiopunkā story involving Italy reduced by some sort of apocalypse to a schizotech collection of squabbling city states, with lots of da Vinci-style pre-steampunk, some used-future bits and pieces salvaged from the before times; and a running battle between the Papal States and their definitely-more-than-ceremonial Swiss Guard and Inquisition and underground biohackers who use crude Galenic medical techniques and a highly illicit cell line derived from the Holy Prepuce to provide augmentations that grant their recipients limited supernatural power; or cure illnesses beyond any conventional treatment.
(If one wishes to bring the Reformation into it, there could also be a variety of radical protestant sects, some seeking to hasten the return of the messiah and the end of days by particularly radical fertility treatments, others seeking to stamp them out, and maybe a mad plague-doctor or two attempting to study the properties of the divine-made-flesh in order to engineer a plague that will even up the body count if the heavenly host actually comes down and tries any of the Book of Revelations stuff on us)
Naturally, these practitioners are against every law of god and man; but there is no shortage of corrupt and/or desperate princelings, merchant lords, Condottieri and so on who need an heir despite being impotent, who hope that money really can buy health and life, who need an edge in battle or recovery from grievous and crippling wounds, and so on, who are willing to look the other way.
Iām not the one to do it justice; but Iād definitely read it and/or play the RPG.
(Oh, and while nobody knows how to build, repair, or operate the automated hardware from the Before Times, kabbalists understand that highly advanced machines that were built to be able to serve purely through technology, while they canāt be fixed technologically, are far better materials than clay for the production of Golems. All very likely to make the inquisition unhappy;and surviving hardware in good condition is scarce; but you simply canāt get capabilities like that anywhere elseā¦ The risks arenāt just confined to the inquisition, though, mixing high tech and ritualism requires skill and precision; and thereās that one aircraft carrier that has been autonomously wandering the atlantic in obedience to the unfortunately flawed words of command inscribed on its nuclear core.)
