What Cures have come from stem cell research?

I read that stem cell research is "promising", but has anything been cured using this yet? It is talked about like it will cure everything, so I was wondering if there were any usable cures.
And why does the government need to invest in this? If this is so promising (and therefore would be profitable for the discovering company), why do we need to spend government money to fund it?
Answers:
Allow me to address your questions in a different order than you have asked:First of all, there is a reason why it seems like they're saying stem cells might cure just about anything. The reason is that it seems that way to scientists too! Let's put it this way - given the right set of stimuli, we KNOW a stem cell can grow into any cell in your body. We know this because that is what stem cells already do on their own. The potential for medicine is staggering.Imagine what repairing a car would be like if all you could use were whatever parts happened to be in the nearest junkyard. You might be able to use duct tape to hold things together a little longer, or if you're lucky you'll have exactly the right part available, but otherwise mostly you're making do and hoping. That's kind of where medicine is now with major problems.If some of the promise of stem cells pan out, however, the potential exists that any time something goes wrong, doctors could produce a new part and replace the old one. Like having a catalogue of custom car parts at your fingertips. Lost your arm in a car accident? Your pancreas stopped producing insulin and now you're diabetic? You don't like that old, wrinkly skin you have and want something new? NO PROBLEM. (You can see, I hope, why that might make people excited)But it's not easy. There HAS been some success with stem cells of various types. An experimentor in Asia caused some stem cells to grow into new capillary tissue in a patient, replacing something which medicine is otherwise completely incapable of fixing right now (those capillaries are just too small). Some isolated tisue has also been grown from stem cells such as cartilage and heart tissue, demonstrating the possibility of growing just one organ for a graft.Major diseases are still in the works, however. in large part because we still have a lot to learn! One study just recently started injecting stem cells into the brains of terminally ill children - not intending to cure them, but just intending to learn how many they have to use, how and where they will implant, and what risks they pose to the patients. As you can see, we're still kind of at the beginning of this whole thing, even though there has been some very promising work.As to why the government has to pay for it. it actually is the case that the government pays for MOST scientific research that goes on. Who else is going to pay in a capitalistic society? Companies only want to fund things that are going to pay off directly for them; in this field they ARE competing with other countries and applicable results are probably still a ways off for things that would be massively profitable. Private citizens don't usually have the resources to fund research much themselves, though Howard Hughes' vast monetary legacy would be one notable exception.The bottom line, really, is that if researchers can't find money to do their work here, they will go someplace where they can. That is why Missouri was trying to pass a law explicitly allowing such research - biotech companies in that state found that they were completely incapable of attracting scientists to work for them at any price that they could afford. Some countries DO have different research structures: in Japan the government can get all affected companies to pool resources and share the resulting technology, for example. And perhaps for humanity as a whole it hardly matters whether Sweden, South Africa, or America makes all these discoveries. but it CERTAINLY matters for the economies of those specific countries!

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1. the government does not have to fund it. Read Mo Amendment 2.2. We have gotten no cures yet from embryonic stem cell research b/c it is a new field. We've been using adult stem cell research for 50 years and only have about 10 cures from it. 3. embryonic stem cells can be "directed" to become other kinds of cells, like nerve, cardiac, skin, etc. If we can figure out how to use that safely can't you imagine the benefits to the human race.

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"Instant gratification" does not apply to scientific research.It could take years, and even then there might not be a simple "cure".No mater what tangible advances we see, what is more valuable is what we learn from experimenting on stem cells.

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It depends on the type of stem cell. There are 2 types of stem cell: "adult" and embryonic."Adult" stem cells can be derived from cord blood and bone marrow. They are widely used in the treatment of some cancers (e.g leukaemia, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma), aplastic anaemia, radiation sickness and some congenital conditions (e.g. thalassaemia, Adrenoleukodystrophy) to help regenerate the immune system or replace defective blood cells.There is ongoing research into whether bone marrow or cord blood stem cells can be applied to the treatment of other conditions.The problem with "adult" stem cells is that they can only differentiate (turn into) a limited number of types of cells, their use in other unrelated tissues is easy.(BTW it is easy to become a bone marrow donor. For more info go to http://www.blood.co.uk (in England) or www.http://www.abmdr.org/ (in the US). You could save a life.)Therapies using embryonic stem cells are in their infancy, as the technology to use them has not been around very long. Embryonic stem cells pluripotent and hence are able to differentiate into any type of cell.Most potential treatments are still in animal testing phase. Recent results from animal trials have included the complete regrowing of a excised section of spinal cord, resulting in complete cure of paralysis, the repair of damaged heart tissue by injecting embryonic stem cells into the site and promising work on the treatment of neuro-degenerative conditions. However as yet there are no embryonic stem cell therapies in clinical use.

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