4 ms·

Tracking the sex of cell lines used in the lab (2014)

16 points by freemint 4y ago

Metacelsus 4y ago
Even cell banks such as ATCC don't know the sex of their cells! I wanted to order some female mouse ESCs but they told me they didn't know the sex. (I ended up getting some from RIKEN.)
efitz 4y ago
- baldeagle 4y ago
  You’re looking to mock ‘gender’, how people choose to view their natural state. Sex is the biologically based one, which includes male, female, and a couple other ones such as intersex. Disclaimer: I’m only about 80% sure of this comment, but thought it would be helpful to make the distinction known.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - corrral 4y ago
    Widespread (widespread) use of this distinction between sex and gender (those words in particular, and in the "West" [EDIT: the Anglosphere, rather]—yes, I'm sure a bunch of other cultures have had the distinction for millennia or something) is pretty new, so it's gonna take some folks a little while to catch up, I expect.
  - implements 4y ago
    - thomasfedb 4y ago
      Whether they are "normal" is an interesting philosophical question. There are lots of things that are unusual or rare but which we still think are "normal variants" - red hair, left-handedness, coronary artery location, the location of the appendix. My rule of thumb is that it's not a medical problem unless it causes a problem for you.
  - txsoftwaredev 4y ago
    - txsoftwaredev 4y ago
      - implements 4y ago
        Lots of people are gender critical, but Hacker News isn’t the place for strident soap-boxing - it’s against the guidelines as it doesn’t create informative or enriching content. (Not having a go - I’ve had to learn not to ‘bite’ on issues I feel strongly about, too)
        txsoftwaredev 4y ago
      - thomasfedb 4y ago
        It's not "a scientific fact". There's almost nothing in medicine that you can reduce to a strict binary, it's always more complicated than that. It's always fascinatingly and amazingly complicated. In medical school a lecturer once began to ask me "Is it possible for..." - to which I already knew the answer was "Yes".
        txsoftwaredev 4y ago
        hamball 4y ago
    - pondlife 4y ago
fastaguy88 4y ago
It's really not difficult to determine the sex of any cell line. Every common cell line has been sequenced (if not the genome then through RNAseq), so Y-specific sequences can easily be detected.

16 points by freemint 4y ago

Even cell banks such as ATCC don't know the sex of their cells! I wanted to order some female mouse ESCs but they told me they didn't know the sex. (I ended up getting some from RIKEN.)

efitz 4y ago

baldeagle 4y ago
You’re looking to mock ‘gender’, how people choose to view their natural state. Sex is the biologically based one, which includes male, female, and a couple other ones such as intersex. Disclaimer: I’m only about 80% sure of this comment, but thought it would be helpful to make the distinction known.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- corrral 4y ago
  Widespread (widespread) use of this distinction between sex and gender (those words in particular, and in the "West" [EDIT: the Anglosphere, rather]—yes, I'm sure a bunch of other cultures have had the distinction for millennia or something) is pretty new, so it's gonna take some folks a little while to catch up, I expect.
- implements 4y ago
  - thomasfedb 4y ago
    Whether they are "normal" is an interesting philosophical question. There are lots of things that are unusual or rare but which we still think are "normal variants" - red hair, left-handedness, coronary artery location, the location of the appendix. My rule of thumb is that it's not a medical problem unless it causes a problem for you.
- txsoftwaredev 4y ago
  - txsoftwaredev 4y ago
    - implements 4y ago
      Lots of people are gender critical, but Hacker News isn’t the place for strident soap-boxing - it’s against the guidelines as it doesn’t create informative or enriching content. (Not having a go - I’ve had to learn not to ‘bite’ on issues I feel strongly about, too)
      - txsoftwaredev 4y ago
    - thomasfedb 4y ago
      It's not "a scientific fact". There's almost nothing in medicine that you can reduce to a strict binary, it's always more complicated than that. It's always fascinatingly and amazingly complicated. In medical school a lecturer once began to ask me "Is it possible for..." - to which I already knew the answer was "Yes".
      - txsoftwaredev 4y ago
      - hamball 4y ago
  - pondlife 4y ago

fastaguy88 4y ago

It's really not difficult to determine the sex of any cell line. Every common cell line has been sequenced (if not the genome then through RNAseq), so Y-specific sequences can easily be detected.