Stem Cell Research

[Lorenzo]

(no wars, please)

I've been reading up a little on the latest, re stem cell research. Lots of confusion. DoNoHarm claims the Ron Reagan speech, at the NDC last week, was shrouded in tricky language. On the other hand, FuturePundit reports that a pregnant woman receives an infusion of stem cells back from the embryo. How ethical is that?

Lots of new developments though. Some of it sounds too good to be true. Embryonic vs. adult stem cells. Not even sure we need stem cells from the unborn child. Some experts are saying adult cells work better. Hard to believe, but they say you can collect cells from bone marrow that will grow new hair on a balding man (or woman). Same with missing teeth. Same with a defective heart muscle. Same with an inflamed shrinking brain...as in Alzheimers.

I guess what bothers me is that the regular power-players--the clergy and politicians--are so quick to take sides so early and make bold strong statements. We really know very little about this exciting regenerative medical phenomena.

There seems to be several sources available for collecting useful stem cells. Much of the research is being done in China and Australia since our gov't has put a ban on stem cell research. It's difficult to understand the complete philosophical dynamics going on here.

[Walden]

One of the primary ethical concerns is just that none be killed to acquire the cells. The ultimate possibility of harvesting human parts is a road that goes against the grain. Most, on all sides of the issue, don't want a Soylent Green scenario.

[Wombat]

Just a few quick comments. I'll actually be doing this topic with my bioethics class in a few weeks, so this this is quite timely for me.

First, the technology is an extension of the fetal-tissue therapy movement which never really got beyond the experimental stage. In this method, fetal tissue was injected into the brains of patients in the hope that undifferentiated cells would take on the characteristics and roles of the cells the patient was missing. I've seen reports of some success—temprary symptomatic relief—with this method at least some of which were credible, but there was very little movement in this direction and it has now pretty much given way to stem-cell techniques which are much more precisie and which don't require abortuses for 'raw materials.' Since the safest method of abortion is suction curette which, to put it as gently as I can, means that it is very hard to tell which cells are which afterwards, stem-cell therapy would stand to fetal tissue therapy as a rapier to a sledgehammer.

For those not familiar with the science behind these techniques, stem cells can potentially assume the functions of differentiated cells so the research we hear about is designed to 'trick' them into becoming precisely the cells we want them to become and then to use them for therapeutic purposes to replace the cells that the patient no longer has. So the research has two aspects, one involving culturing and human-directed differentiation and the other involving experimenting with therapeutic applications.

Embryonic stem cells typically come from discarded IVF embryos. To increase the available material without creating embryos specially to be experimented on or used therapeutically, there is a temptation to clone early embryos. Opponents then have two major concerns. First, there is the concern that early embryos are already human beings with a right to life, although it is a bit unclear what one can do with unimplanted spare embryos which would normally be destroyed if one may not use them for medical purposes. Second, many critics fear the use of cloning to create clones not for medical uses but for ordinary life—the cloned child to 'replace' the child killed in an accident, the lunatic who clones himself in the delusion that this is a way of living forever. I find this objection a bit mystifying—identical twins are genetic clones and only a few societies find this fact sufficiently anomalous to cause enough concern to act on—in some premodern societies twins are put to death at birth.

I can only think of one possible reason that someone might have for thinking that adult cells would be better than stem cells for therapeutic purposes. With any transplanted tissue, the chances of rejection are much more slender the more closely related the donor is to the recipient. Obviously if you use stem cells of your own, the chances of rejection are presumably zero. Actually, probably what was moving Lorenzo to scepticism was that the chance of rejection with early cells is pretty low anyway so how could the chances be better with adult cells. Even relatively undifferentiated adult cells are somewhat differentiated so harder to manipulate to do the job you want them to do than embryonic stem cells. Even with cells from a close relative, and this might be the only adult source for some tissues, it is hard to see why the chances of rejection would be lower rather than higher than with stem cells. If they are lower, this is more likely to be due to temporary technical difficulties than to matters of scientific principle.

[brewerpaul]

Embryonic stem cells typically come from discarded IVF embryos.... there is the concern that early embryos are already human beings with a right to life, although it is a bit unclear what one can do with unimplanted spare embryos which would normally be destroyed if one may not use them for medical purposes. .

(the underlining above is mine)
This is one part of the whole debate which amazes me... the stem cell research opponents only seem to be against the medical research using these embryos from in-vitro fertilization (IVF), but don't seem to have many qualms about destroying these same embryos if they are not needed for producing a baby. If these embryos are "human beings", isn't it just as wrong to destroy them as it is to use them for medical research? I'm sure(although I have no statistics) that many anti-stem cell folks have availed themselves of the opportunity for in vitro fertilization without a second thought

[chas]

Another source of stem cells is umbilical cords. I would think these would have characteristics closer to those of fetal stem cells but wouldn't be subject to the same ethical concerns.

One possible concern with adult stem cells could be DNA replication errors. The ends of strands of DNA tend to be dropped or mis-replicated; this is the reason that cloned animals age prematurely.

[Walden]

If these embryos are "human beings", isn't it just as wrong to destroy them as it is to use them for medical research?

Yes.

I'm sure(although I have no statistics) that many anti-stem cell folks have availed themselves of the opportunity for in vitro fertilization without a second thought

Yeah. I've wondered about this too.

[rkottke]

Another point that should be mentioned besides the additions of new cell lines is all the hype about how big a thing stem cell research will be. From what I have read, stem cell research has been successful in rodents but not at all in primates. This research may turn out to be a dead end or a lot slower than some would believe.

This makes me believe that most of the hype on this is not the benefits, and I hope there will be, but on erecting political fences to round up supporters and votes. Unfortunately political fences means that either you are for or against without any sane or logical discussion.

[chas]

Hmm -- As with Paul, I don't know the statistics, but all the anti-abortion people I know are against destroying IVF embryos for any reason. In fact, there is an emerging industry that's preserving discarded embryos for implantation into women who need them donated.

[Lorenzo]

Eighty Nobel laureates were among those who signed a letter to President Bush urging funding for research on human embryo cells.

("Pluripotent" is a term describing stem cells that can eventually specialize in any bodily tissue, but cannot themselves develop into a human being.)

************

Washington Post
2001

To the Honorable George W. Bush,
President of the United States

We the undersigned urge you to support Federal funding for research using human pluripotent stem cells. We join with other research institutions and patient groups in our belief that the current National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines, which enable scientists to conduct stem cell research within the rigorous constraints of federal oversight and standards, should be permitted to remain in effect. The discovery of human pluripotent stem cells is a significant milestone in medical research. Federal support for the enormous creativity of the US biomedical community is essential to translate this discovery into novel therapies for a range of serious and currently intractable diseases.

The therapeutic potential of pluripotent stem-cells is remarkably broad. The cells have the unique potential to differentiate into any human cell type. Insulin-producing cells could be used to treat - or perhaps even cure - patients with diabetes, cardiomyocytes could be used to replace damaged heart tissue, chondrocytes could be used for arthritis, and neurons for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS and spinal cord injuries to name a few examples. There is also the possibility that these cells could be used to create more complex, vital organs, such as kidneys, livers, or even entire hearts.

Some have suggested that adult stem cells may be sufficient to pursue all treatments for human disease. It is premature to conclude that adult stem cells have the same potential as embryonic stem cells -- and that potential will almost certainly vary from disease to disease. Current evidence suggests that adult stem cells have markedly restricted differentiation potential. Therefore, for disorders that prove not to be treatable with adult stem cells, impeding human pluripotent stem cell research risks unnecessary delay for millions of patients who may die or endure needless suffering while the effectiveness of adult stem cells is evaluated.

The therapeutic promise of pluripotent stem cells is based on more than two decades of research in mice and other animal models. This research confirms that pluripotent stem cells are capable of generating all of the cell types of the body. Most importantly, the therapeutic potential of these cells has already been demonstrated. Cardiomyocytes generated in the laboratory from these cells have been transplanted into the hearts of dystrophic mice where they formed stable intracardiac grafts. Nerve cells have successfully reversed the progression of the equivalent of multiple sclerosis in mice and have restored function to the limbs of partially paralyzed rats; and insulin-secreting cells have normalized blood glucose in diabetic mice. These findings suggest that therapies using these cells may one day provide important new strategies for the treatment for a host of currently untreatable disorders.

While we recognize the legitimate ethical issues raised by this research, it is important to understand that the cells being used in this research were destined to be discarded in any case. Under these circumstances, it would be tragic to waste this opportunity to pursue the work that could potentially alleviate human suffering. For the past 35 years many of the common human virus vaccines -- such as measles, rubella, hepatitis A, rabies and poliovirus -- have been produced in cells derived from a human fetus to the benefit of tens of millions of Americans. Thus precedent has been established for the use of fetal tissue that would otherwise be discarded.

We urge you to allow research on pluripotent stem cells to continue with Federal support, so that the tremendous scientific and medical benefits of their use may one day become available to the millions of American patients who so desperately need them.

Yours respectfully,
Kenneth J. Arrow*, Stanford University
Julius Axelrod*, National Institute of Mental Health, Education & Welfare
Baruj Benacerraf*, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Paul Berg*, Stanford University
J. Michael Bishop*, University of California, San Francisco
Nicolaas Bloembergen*, Harvard University
Herbert C. Brown*, Purdue University
Jose Cibelli, Advanced Cell Technology
Stanley Cohen*, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Leon N. Cooper*, Brown University
E. J. Corey*, Harvard University
James W. Cronin*, University of Chicago
Robert Curl, Jr.*, Rice University
Peter Doherty*, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Johann Deisenhofer*, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Reneto Dulbecco*, Salk Institute
Edmond H. Fischer*, University of Washington
Val L. Fitch*, Princeton University
Robert Fogel*, University of Chicago
Jerome I. Friedman*, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Milton Friedman*, Hoover Institute

Robert F. Furchgott*, State University of New York Health Sciences Center
Murray Gell-Mann*, Santa Fe, NM
Walter Gilbert*, Harvard University
Alfred Gilman*, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center
Donald Glaser*, University of California, Berkeley
Sheldon Lee Glashow*, Boston University
Ronald M. Green, Dartmouth College
Paul Greengard*, The Rockefeller University
Roger Guillemin*, The Salk Institute
Leonard Hayflick, University of California, San Francisco
Herbert A. Hauptman*, Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research
James J. Heckman*, University of Chicago
Alan Heeger*, University of California, Santa Barbara
Dudley Herschbach*, Harvard Medical School
David H. Hubel*, Harvard Medical School
Russell Hulse*, Plasma Physics Laboratory
Eric Kandel*, Columbia University
Jerome Karle*, Washington, D.C.
Lawrence R. Klein*, University of Pennsylvania
Walter Kohn*, University of California, Santa Barbara
Arthur Kornberg*, Stanford University School of Medicine
Edwin G. Krebs*, University of Washington
Robert P. Lanza+, Advanced Cell Technology
Robert Laughlin*, Stanford University
Leon Lederman*, Illinois Institute of Technology
David M. Lee*, Cornell University
Edward Lewis*, California Institute of Technology
William Lipscomb, Jr.*, Harvard University
Rudolph A. Marcus*, California Institute of Technology
Daniel McFadden*, University of California, Berkeley
R. Bruce Merrifield*, The Rockefeller University
Robert Merton*, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration
Franco Modigliani*, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mario J. Molina*, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ferid Murad*, University of Texas Medical School
Marshall W. Nirenberg*, NIH National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute
Douglass C. North*, Washington University
George A. Olah*, University of Southern California
Douglas Osheroff*, Stanford University
George E. Palade*, University of California, San Diego
Martin Perl*, Stanford University
Norman F. Ramsey*, Harvard University
Burton Richter*, Stanford University
Richard J. Roberts*, New England Biolabs
Paul A. Samuelson*, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Melvin Schwartz*, Columbia University
Phillip A. Sharp*, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Richard E. Smalley*, Rice University
Hamilton O. Smith*, Celera Genomics
Robert M. Solow*, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Horst Stormer*, Columbia University
Henry Taube*, Stanford University
Richard Taylor*, Stanford University
E. Donnall Thomas*, University of Washington
James Tobin*, Yale University
Susumu Tonegawa*, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Charles Townes*, University of California, Berkeley
James D. Watson*, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Steven Weinberg*, University of Texas
Thomas H. Weller*, Harvard School of Public Health
Michael D. West+, Advanced Cell Technology
Eric F. Wieschaus*, Princeton University
Torsten N. Wiesel*, The Rockefeller University
Robert W. Wilson*, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

* Nobel Laureate
+ Corresponding Author

[glauber]

This is one part of the whole debate which amazes me... the stem cell research opponents only seem to be against the medical research using these embryos from in-vitro fertilization (IVF), but don't seem to have many qualms about destroying these same embryos if they are not needed for producing a baby. If these embryos are "human beings", isn't it just as wrong to destroy them as it is to use them for medical research? I'm sure(although I have no statistics) that many anti-stem cell folks have availed themselves of the opportunity for in vitro fertilization without a second thought

OK, here's where i think the fear lies: say in the process of IVF you have to create 10 embryos in the hope that one or two will implant. The other eight die, and that's too bad, but we can't do any better.

Now imagine that there is something we can do with those eight, instead of destroying them... how long would it take before IFV clinics would start producing 100 embryos at a time instead of 10, so they'd have more material to sell?

This may be exaggeration, but that's where the fear is, i think.

g

[IDAwHOa]

This is one part of the whole debate which amazes me... the stem cell research opponents only seem to be against the medical research using these embryos from in-vitro fertilization (IVF), but don't seem to have many qualms about destroying these same embryos if they are not needed for producing a baby. If these embryos are "human beings", isn't it just as wrong to destroy them as it is to use them for medical research? I'm sure(although I have no statistics) that many anti-stem cell folks have availed themselves of the opportunity for in vitro fertilization without a second thought

OK, here's where i think the fear lies: say in the process of IVF you have to create 10 embryos in the hope that one or two will implant. The other eight die, and that's too bad, but we can't do any better.

Now imagine that there is something we can do with those eight, instead of destroying them... how long would it take before IFV clinics would start producing 100 embryos at a time instead of 10, so they'd have more material to sell?

This may be exaggeration, but that's where the fear is, i think.

g

Blood Bank....


Sperm Bank....


Embyo bank....???


Like the first two mentioned services, I am guessing this would be developed as a nonprofit sort of enterprise, but we all know that SOMEONE usually profits from these orgs. No one will work for free!!!!

The company I work for has a device developed for precise site delivery of therapeutics, mainly to the heart.

[SirNick]

This doesn't deal directly with the original post. But, In talking about fertility issues. I personally don't agree with the huge amount of effort some people put into becoming pregnant when there are millions of orphaned and discarded children that need families.

Now, on topic. Someone being an organ donor after they expire is noble. Having someone come and take your organs before you expire (ala Monty Python) doesn't seem like the right thing to do, to me that is. There's always going to be strong feelings on both sides because we will never be able to agree on when a person becomes a person.

[vomitbunny]

The two kinds of stem cells work differently. The stem cells from a fetus (only a few cells wide at the time) can be put into place and can become any kind of cell themselves. The adult stem cells (adult meaning older than a fetus, and including umbilical cord cells) can be put in place and they bind to the cells that are already there, but do not become that kind of cell.
The two kinds will wind up being used for different things most likely. One will work better in different situations.
Don't worry. Even if (I mean when) the United States enters a new Religious Dark Age, the rest of the world will continue research. Unfortunatly, US citizens may be prohibited from using products developed by such technology. God doesn't like technology. Sorry we can't cure your grandma's cancer. She should have been born in Canada or something.
Oh, and don't forget, when we bend and break the rules of science or physics in order to adhere to some religiouse principal, we arn't being religious fanatics. Now, when people in ANOTHER country of a different religion do that, yes, then they ARE religious fanatics, and of course dangerous.
Is there anyone I havn't insulted in here yet? Can I see a show of hands?

There was once a time when it was illegal to diasect dead bodies because of religious principals. Some religions require thier members to not give or accept blood. Some require thier members to not use doctors.
Birth control was (and still is amoung some) considered blasphemous and illegal at one time in this country.

Now, uh, why was it that those people over there are dangerous terrorist types? Because they are religious fanatics?

Ok, a show of hands. NOW how many people havn't been insulted yet.

[IDAwHOa]

This doesn't deal directly with the original post. But, In talking about fertility issues. I personally don't agree with the huge amount of effort some people put into becoming pregnant when there are millions of orphaned and discarded children that need families.

Although it is debateable as to the desire of certain gene pools to reproduce, it is a fact that we are programmed to accomplish that goal. Very tough to fight it.

[Lorenzo]

Ok, a show of hands. NOW how many people havn't been insulted yet.