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Want to know about bone marrow transplant programs in Morocco or Pakistan or just about anywhere else in Africa, Asia or the Pacific? What about such programs for graft-vs-host disease, leukemia, anemia, or immunodeficiencies?
A special issue of Bone Marrow Transplantation has long summaries of all this and more, based on proceeding of a meeting last November
The National Institute for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases will be starting its own transplant center to investigate the potential of bone marrow stem cells for muscle and bone diseases, according to a recent article in Wired News.
The NIH is already investigating embryonic stem cells as well as mesenchymal stem cells (a type of stem cell found in the bone marrow) to see if they can make cartilage and ligaments in laboratory dishes. Wired News reports that damaged joints in race horses are currently being aided through injections of mesenchymal stem cells.
What the article doesn’t mention is that there’s already a company doing something similar in humans, and it just got a letter from the FDA stating that the company’s therapeutic claims violated regulations and asking for a written response of how the company, Regenerative Sciences, will address them. I could not find any other such letter to another stem cell company.
Continue reading "Stem cells for joints: NIH studies, FDA worries, horses run" »
Scientific American is running a long interview with Representative Diana DeGette, who has worked on legislation to overturn the federal ban on funding for embryonic stem cell research. Her book Sex, Science and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason, has just been released.
Reading the interview reminded me how frequently European scientists are surprised that debates in the US link research on embryonic stem cells with contraception and sex education.
(For the record: no embryos being used for research on embryonic stem cells came from sex. These are embryos that formed outside a woman's body and have never been in a womb. A survey last year found that couples who have extra embryos left over after fertility treatment are much more willing to donate them for research or to have them destroyed than to give these embryos to other couples seeking fertility treatment.)
The scientists who read this blog will probably be more interested in a role for the NIH to provide ethical oversight at the federal level for cell-based research.
Continue reading "Sex, science, stem cells, and federal oversight " »
Here’s this from the Korea Times.
Just after pet-cloning company RNL Bio announced that it had cloned five puppies from a beloved pit bull named Booger, another cloning company is preparing to sue it. The second company, Start Licensing, a Texas-based, holds licenses for the patents surrounding Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal.
Patent wars are plenty common in this field (See Perfect storm in patents ). The patents held by WARF and licensed to Geron have drawn protest from the research community (See A patent challenge for stem cell research ). And the intellectual property over the techniques for reprogramming cells is playing out. (See Japan ramps up patent effort to keep iPS lead )
So, it is a bit surprising to learn that Harvard plans to distribute over 20 iPS cell lines representing more than 10 disease conditions for free, and additional lines will also be deposited in the ‘iPS core’ facility, dedicated to improving, curating, and distributing lines. These first-generation iPS cells are made through a genetic engineering that renders them unsuitable for therapy and causes unwanted variation between cell lines. Even two cell lines made from the same person are genetically different. But the Harvard folks say they are going to keep making the cell lines available even as production techniques improve to make cells more valuable.
New Scientist is reporting that South Korea has refused disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk request to resume work to make stem cells from cloned embryos. Nature's Asia correspondent tells me no Korean institute has been approved to do human nuclear transfer (human cloning to make embryonic stem cells but not new people) since the Korean health ministry revoked Hwang's license in early 2006.
Once featured on the country’s postage stamps, Hwang has been on trial for over two years for misusing funds and for obtaining eggs from junior female lab members in ethically shady ways.
Nature previously reported rumours that Hwang was attempting work in Thailand, and both Hwang and former colleagues are working with start-up companies to clone dogs that would serve both pet owners and industries that rely on canines for drug-sniffing.
Related articles:
Dog cloners baring their teeth
Disgraced cloner Woo-suk Hwang attempts a comeback
Hwang’s “clone” was really a parthenote, Daley reports
A collection of stories on the rise, fall, and fraud of the scientist who claimed to be the first to clone human embryonic stem cells
