The Niche

We are sad to announce that Nature Reports Stem Cells is closing down.

When we launched in June 2007, we wanted to support the stem cell field and the interested public by providing freely available content. Stem cell research was then - and is still - exciting and expanding. It requires highly varied experts to think and work together, and it requires the support and understanding of non-scientists. We believe we have been successful in creating a venue that highlights and explores the many facets and implications of stem cell science. It is now time for us to move on to fresh publishing challenges.

We have been helped by many contributors and experts who have generously given their time and insight. We give a heartfelt thanks to everyone who wrote articles or gave interviews, advice, and words of encouragement.

NRSC and this blog will continue to remain online as an archive. Nature and its sister titles remain committed, as ever, to publishing new research and news about stem cells.

Monya Baker, Editor
Natalie DeWitt, Editor at Large

Posted by Monya Baker on October 22, 2009
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Students from the law and medical schools at Stanford University brought together an impressive group of world-class experts last week to discuss stem cell policy. I’ll describe some (very select) highlights over the next few blogs. Check the site for the Stanford Journal of Law Science & Policy over the next few weeks for powerpoints presentations and audiorecordings.

The people who will assess which human embryonic stem cell lines should be eligible for U.S. federal funding will meet next week, said Story Landis, head of the Stem Cell Task Force at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. In March this year, President Barack Obama charged the NIH with crafting policy to allow the funding of responsible embryonic stem cell research. In July, the NIH declared that this would include cell lines created from embryos made for reproductive purposes and donated without financial inducements and with proper informed consent. Determining proper informed consent is a bit of a minefield, particularly for embryos donated in the 1990s, before much of the debate and consensus-building around the issue occurred. See Stem cell vetting raises concerns, confusion

Continue reading "Stanford conference: stem cells, the new NIH, and delimiting embryo research" »

Posted by Monya Baker on October 09, 2009
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Earlier this month, the NIH assembled a working group to decide whether currently existing human embryonic stem cell lines confirm with the spirit of guidelines released on July 7. (See Let the vetting begin ) Much of the assessment will center on informed consent procedures.

Today, Bernard Lo well-known member of that working group has correspondence in Nature regarding how informed consent should be obtained for collecting tissue for creating human induced pluripotent stem cells. In it, Lo and Bruce Conklin, both at the University of California, San Francisco call for scientists to develop basic rules that donors should agree to. Other correspondence from scholars at the University of Sydney calls for informed consent to be local.

Elsewhere, Lee Buckler of the Cell Therapy Blog laments a poll showing that many science-savvy readers (and, apparently writers at Genetic Engineering News) are unaware that adult stem cells are being tested in clinical trials.

In an interview with The Scientist, Arthur Lawler argues that researchers will not be able to home in on a single molecular network of stemness, and so the concept of cells could be more profitably pursued in the context of their own tissues rather than overarching ideas. “It's a system level property,” Lander says, “so we need to have information about a whole system.”

For more on that see Nature Reports' commentary, Stem cell: what’s in a name?, and our interview with Irv Weissman, in which he calls for the creation of stem cell departments. Ironically, I’m not sure anyone is fundamentally disagreeing so much as using different words to grope at similar ideas.

Posted by Monya Baker on October 01, 2009
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Cross-posted from In the Field for Elie Dolgin

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has convened a new committee tasked with weeding out companies that offer unapproved stem cell 'therapies', the ISSCR's new president Irving Weissman announced today at the World Stem Cell Summit in Baltimore, Maryland.

See also an analysis of why unproven, risky stem-cell procedures elude legal restrictions in countries like China, India, Thailand, and the United States.

Last month, Weissman, who also directs the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Palo Alto, California, wrote an opinion article in Cell Stem Cell calling for stem cell purveyors to be judged on three criteria. First, the company should be able to cite peer-reviewed papers from third party investigators showing that the therapy is possible. Second, there should be institutional review board oversight of the treatment. Third, the US Food and Drug Administration or an equivalent agency should give the final green light. "That's the minimum beginning," he said at the meeting.

Weissman revealed that he had convened an 18-member panel of lawyers, FDA regulators, medical ethicists, and stem cell scientists last week to look into the feasibility of establishing an online registry of wayward companies. His idea is for the ISSCR supervisory body to request documentation of the three requirements from all known global stem cell providers. Companies that don't comply would get blacklisted.

Weissman expects the committee to issue a preliminary report in December, with final guidelines published next March.

Image of Weissman by Kris Novak

See an interview Irving Weissman: culturing the unorthodox

Posted by Monya Baker on September 23, 2009
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The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine has collected a sixth country for its international collaborations. German and Californian scientists will be able to submit joint grants for collaborative projects that focus on immunology. Researchers would, however, be funded by their respective governments.

(See CIRM’s melting pot of collaborators)

At a signing ceremony in CIRM’s office in San Francisco, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Freider Meyer-Krahmer described the new memorandum of understanding as opening up “totally new ways of collaboration” with perhaps three or more countries coming together. “Not just the researchers but also the funders collaborate.”

CIRM president Alan Trounson said the agreement grew out of past meetings between German and Californian scientists who had identified ways that they wanted to work together, particularly on ways to understand how transplanted cells will interact with patients’ immune system. Officials declined to state the amount of funds that would be involved, but Trounson said that governments must commit a certain minimum amount of funds, on the order of $1 million to $2 million dollars to “make the paperwork worthwhile.”

The officials said that the collaboration would avoid duplication and allow researchers to capitalize on advantages within both jurisdictions. Both Trounson and CIRM chair Robert Klein praised German work conducting large clinical trials in adult stem cells.

Each government will conduct their own ratings of the submitted grants, said officials, but they would establish a mechanism to make sure that both CIRM and German granting agencies would be awarding grants to the same teams.

CIRM plans to pursue additional agreements in the near future, particularly with U.S. state governments that have allocated funds to stem cell research. Agreements are already in place with Australia, Canada, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Posted by Monya Baker on September 17, 2009
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Listening to scientific talks makes me nervous; it's so easy to conflate and confuse fast-flowing information. At the most recent meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) this July in Barcelona, I frequently found myself wishing for the slower pace of reading the relevant source material. Others must also want such a list, I reasoned. So, with a great deal of help, and no little cutting and pasting, Nature Reports Stem Cells put it together.

It necessarily lacks all the as-yet-unpublished work presented, but I hope it still provides a valuable snapshot of the work going on in July 2009. the link to the formatted list is below, and I hope that people in the stem cell community will round out what is missing via comments. Thanks for your work.

The 7th ISSCR reading list compiles work that has been published and accepted (and whose scientists told me about it)

Here are the Niche’s own blogs from the ISSCR meeting

Last thoughts on ISSCR: thanks to guest bloggers and congrats to poster winners

p53 at ISSCR: not just for cancer anymore

ISSCR 2009 meeting: what’s changed from last year?

ISSCR sessions from Barrandon and Mikkola: thymus makes skin, SCL starts up HSCs

ISSCR Friday posters: cell-penetrators, differentiators, memory-storers, and more

Business round-up: pluripotent products, all-star academics and headlines everywhere

ISSCR plenaries: how to repair 1) a salamander leg and 2) a human airway

ISSCR posters: In vitro stem cell culture: are we doing enough to make the cells feel at home?

ISSCR session: Consistent differences in ES and iPS cells

Why Yamanaka’s new results don’t (necessarily) spell doom for most human iPS cells

Thursday at ISSCR

Posted by Monya Baker on September 14, 2009
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http://www.genengnews.com/specialreports/sritem.aspx?oid=62812927John Gurdon of Cambridge University and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University have been awarded the Lasker prize, also called the American Nobel. (I imagine anyone reading this blog already knows who they are.: frog cloner and cell reprogrammer)

See the report in Bloomberg
Genetic Engineering News has a special report
See a profile of Shinya Yamanaka from the Nature Reports.

Posted by Monya Baker on September 14, 2009
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Alexey Bersenev, whom many of you know from his blog Hematopoiesis, had this additional info on the Russian stem cell IPO reported yesterday by Reuters and blogged by me in the previous post. (Thanks Alexey!)

I know Dr. Isaev in person very well. He is a businessmen, but not a scientist. That's why he has no PubMed record. He also has a medical degree (MD). He is a pioneer of private cord blood baking in Russia. For scientific part of Institute you can look at PubMed for "Kiselev SL" Dr. Kiselev is a scientific director.

The Institute is a publisher of russian scientific journal dedicated to stem cell research and regenerative medicine. The Institute organize conferences for professionals in cord blood banking and also have a research laboratory, dedicated to develop of "cord blood-based cell products" for clinical trials and gene therapy technologies.

I think IPO for his company (aka institute) is a huge leap in commercialization of stem cell and regenerative medicine technologies in Russia and Eastern Europe regions.

Posted by Monya Baker on August 26, 2009
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Under former US president George W. Bush, fewer than two dozen human embryonic stem cell lines could be studied with federal funding. That number could soon extend into the hundreds, pending ethical review by the US National Institutes of Health. However, research led by Christopher Scott of Stanford University in California shows that of the 20-odd lines available for funding, researchers have so far depended primarily on just 2 of the oldest human embryonic stem cell lines1.

Scott and colleagues collected data from two major repositories of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Of 1,217 requests made to the National Stem Cell Bank in Madison, Wisconsin, between March 1999 and December 2008, 1,052 were for just 3 of the approximately 17 lines available and eligible for funding; of those requests, 941, or 77%, were for just 2 lines (H1 and H9). The research didn’t examine informal lab-to-lab transfers, which might show up as acknowledgements or coauthorship, says study coauthor Jason Owen-Smith of the University of Michigan. “The work we have done, though, suggests that if a lot of folks are avoiding the banks, they are still using the lines that are most requested from the banks. The pattern of concentration we report for publication is even more striking than for cell-line requests.” An analysis of over 500 peer-reviewed articles on research using hESC lines and published between 1999 and 2008 found that roughly two-thirds used just the three most popular lines from the National Stem Cell Bank.

Continue reading "Human embryonic stem cell research stuck on two early lines" »

Posted by Monya Baker on August 10, 2009
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At a board meeting for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine yesterday, President Alan Trounson said the organization needed to prepare to move laboratory research into clinical trials within four years. That, he said, means hiring a new vice president with corporate experience to work closely with industry and regulatory agencies and shepherd the work of the soon-to-be-funded disease teams.

The new vice president will replace the position of chief scientific officer, which is vacant since CSO Marie Csete resigned last month, saying that her opinions had been sidelined. (See the news story from Nature ) When Csete, who had previously worked on both embryonic stem cells and liver transplantation at Emory University, was hired, CIRM leadership emphasized her clinical and scientific expertise as important for translating basic research to human trials.

Continue reading "CIRM to look for Vice President of Research and Development to Replace Chief Scientific Officer" »

Posted by Monya Baker on August 07, 2009
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Here are descriptions of papers that caught my eye over the last couple weeks. Some of these will be covered in more depth over the next week or two as research highlights. I’ll make a list of those later in the week.

Stem cells need special cell-cycling protein; amino acid makes mESC grow speedily
Harvard’s Piotr Sicinski finds that fibroblasts can proliferate just fine without cyclin A (they compensate with another cyclin, cyclin E). However, both hematopoietic and embryonic stem cells get stuck in the cell cycle. Cyclins are the regulatory subunits of a class of kinases that regulate cell division.
(See the paper in Cell Cyclin A is redundant in fibroblasts but essential in hematopoietic and embryonic stem cells. )
Steven McKnight at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that cultured mouse embryonic stem cells were making lots and lots of threonine dehydrogenase an enzyme necessary for breaking down the amino acid threonine, essential for energy production in the mitochondria. The researchers tried growing ES cells in different culture media, each lacking one of the 20 amino acids. The mouse ES cells were just fine, except when threonine was missing. (After 36 hours, all of the other cultures had about 1000 colonies; the one lacking threonine had less than 50!) In contrast, human cells seem to lack a functioning gene for threonine dehydrogrenase. And as anyone who has worked on both mouse and human cells will tell you, human cells are SLOOOOW. Maybe, just maybe, the researchers speculate, activating the gene in human cells can make their doubling just a big more speedy.
(See the paper in Science Dependence of mouse embryonic stem cells on threonine catabolism .)

New and better bone-makers
Circulating blood cells seem able to home to injury and form new bone in both humans and animals, according to work published in Stem Cells by Robert Pignolo at the University of Pennsylvania, College of Medicine.
(See Circulating Osteogenic Precursor Cells in Heterotopic Bone Formation.)

Also, some sources of cells are better than others when it comes to growing bone for tissue replacement. In Nature Materials, Molly Stevens and colleagues at Imperial College London report that bone made by the normal bone-forming cells found in adults produce strong bone nodules, normal in terms of its mineral composition. In contrast, the bone made from cells differentiated from embryonic stem cells is more like bone that is weakened with age. (See Comparative materials differences revealed in engineered bone as a function of cell-specific differentiation)

Cancer spawns in a latent niche
Working in the worm C. elegans, researchers led by Jane Hubbard at the New York University School of Medicine, find that differentiated cells that normally have no contact with stem cells can, under the wrong circumstances, allow the wrong cells to self-renew and proliferate. This works through aberrant signaling of that ubiquitous protein Notch and need not require genetic changes to sustain itself. (See A "latent niche" mechanism for tumor initiation in PNAS.)

Leukemia cells say ‘don’t eat me’ to the immune system
Stanford’s Irv Weissman has two papers in Cell The show that the marker CD47 is transiently activated in hematopoietic stem cells constitutively on in mouse cell leukemias and also that CD47 is an adverse prognostic factor in human malignancies.

Bioengineered tooth really works
Takashi Tsuji of the Tokyo University of Science and colleagues had combined mesenchymal stem cells and epithelial cells into "tooth germ". Transplnated into a mouse, it developed into a tooth that really chews. The researchers, affiliated with the company Organ Technologies, says it is a harbinger for more functional bioengineered organs. (See Fully functional bioengineered tooth replacement as organ therapy in PNAS)

Posted by Monya Baker on August 03, 2009
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Hungarian police have detained four people for planning to carry out untested, illegal stem cell treatments, according to Reuters.

It is unclear what diseases were being treated, but one Hungarian, two Ukranians, and an American were detained just as they were about to treat a new patient. The American had reportedly been running the clinic in Hungary since 2007. A Ukranian prepared the stem cell injections, and patients generally paid $25,000.

Continue reading "Hungary detains four for illegal stem-cell treatments in private clinic" »

Posted by Monya Baker on July 29, 2009
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Italian court sidesteps challenge
Three Italian scientists who sued their government over the mysterious insertion of language banning human embryonic stem cell research have been told that individuals cannot challenge funding policy. (For descriptions of the administrative court’s decision see Nature’s News in Brief or ScienceInsider)
See Nature’s news story on the scientists’ decision to sue

Latest Australian stem cell plan revealed

The Australian Stem Cell Centre has not had an easy time, but it’s just announced its plan going forward. According to the Australian newspaper, its board resigned en masse in September last year, shortly after sacking its chief executive officer for favoring commercial activities over more basic research.

The new board was announced this spring.

Now the Centre has announced plans to fund large collaborations with a focus on four areas:
1. Ways to propagate stem cells (i.e. bioreactors and growing surfaces)
2. Ways to make pluripotent stem cells
3. Ways to differentiate pluripotent stem cells
4. Studying adult stem cells and applying insights gleaned from one organ to other organs

The Centre, which was founded in 2002, has been awarded AU$111 in state and federal funding, to be paid in installments over that time.

Posted by Monya Baker on July 23, 2009
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I'm at the ISSCR meeting in Barcelona, taking notes on talks and conversations. Writing that up is on the to-do list for tonight. Meanwhile, here's a quick plug for NPG. The 2 July issue of Nature is packed with stem cell content. The two stacks of free copies disappeared from the venue's literature tables before the first set of talks finished. For those of you who didn't arrive early enough, here's what was in that issue, along with a few stories that appeared online since then.

News stories
Sperm-like cells made from human embryonic stem cells
But results are only preliminary, researchers caution.

US stem-cell research expands
Biomedical agency announces new funding policy for cell lines.

Chief scientist quits California stem-cell agency
Departure raises questions over leadership at flagship centre.

Italians sue over stem cells: someone inserted a phrase to exclude human embryonic stem cell work from funding

Letter to the editor
We must reverse the Bush legacy of stem-cell problems
US researchers rely on very few lines; the NIH should consider what diversity is desired

Review by Shinya Yamanaka
Elite and stochastic models for induced pluripotent stem cell generation Can any cell be reprogrammed to pluripotency?

Research papers
miR-145 and miR-143 regulate smooth muscle cell fate and plasticity

Disease-corrected haematopoietic progenitors from Fanconi anaemia induced pluripotent stem cells
See related Nature Reports story:Gene therapy combined with reprogramming makes disease-free cells

Cells keep a memory of their tissue origin during axolotl limb regeneration
See related Nature Reports story: Regenerating limb tissue may not dedifferentiate

Human ISL1 heart progenitors generate diverse multipotent cardiovascular cell lineages
Nature Reports provides a peek into peer review for this paper
A Nature news story on the cells being studied in clinical trials for heart disease

A parallel circuit of LIF signalling pathways maintains pluripotency of mouse ES cells
See a related Nature Reports story: A tale of two LIFs

NatureJobs article
Multiple fates: Despite the economic downturn, US universities are seeking faculty members with stem-cell expertise. That doesn't mean times are easy.

Posted by Monya Baker on July 08, 2009
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Here's a quick note to say that I won't be posting for the few days before the big stem cell conference, as I'm taking a few insufficient days to see Spain. I've seen a glmipse of some of the announcements and journal articles set to come out as the conference opens, and it's going to be a very busy time in the beautiful city of Barcelona. Hope to meet a lot of you there.

Posted by Monya Baker on June 30, 2009
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Marie Csete will resign her post from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine as of Aug 1st, according to the California Stem Cell Report, Consumer Watchdog and the Silicon Valley Business Journal. The resignation comes just before a huge round of grants aiming to push stem cells toward clinical trials is due to be awarded. No word on where Csete, who moved to San Francisco for the job, will go now.

Former CIRM President Zach Hall and his chief scientific officer Arlene Chiu previously resigned their posts after widely reported conflicts with Bob Klein, the businessman who spearheaded the legislation that gave birth to CIRM. Marie Csete is very widely respected for having both clinical science and basic research expertise. I interviewed her shortly after her arrival at CIRM, and was impressed with her very practical approach to the unglamorous parts of helping move stem cells into human testing (See Prepping stem cells for the clinic)
Just over a week ago, California Stem Cell Report had reported that CIRM had pulled at least one grant for apparent lack of progress. I recall that when I had spoken to Csete last year, she had said that she would ask grantees to set and meet goals. Such monitoring was not something basic scientists were used to, she'd said.

CIRM's governance and staffing is unusual and many would say a hindrance. (See CIRM's search for a president goes on which describes the time between Zach Hall's resignation and the hiring of eminent Australian scientist Alan Trounson)

According to the press release announcing her arrival at CIRM in March 2008: Prior to joining the CIRM, Dr. Csete was John E. Steinhaus Professor of Anesthesiology at Emory University, with adjunct appointment in Cell Biology, and program faculty appointments in Biochemistry, Cell and Developmental Biology, Neurosciences, and the Emory/Georgia Tech Biomedical Engineering Program. She was also the director of Liver Transplant Anesthesiology at the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and director of the Emory/Georgia Tech Human Embryonic Stem Cell Core, and co-Director of the Emory MD/PhD Program.

Posted by Monya Baker on June 25, 2009
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Every time I’ve gone to an ISSCR meeting, I'm really busy trying to consolidate my note and get blogs up. All the sleep-deprived while, I'm feeling guilty about the stuff I don’t cover. This year, I’d like to ask you for your help. Are you willing to send me 50-200 words on the talks and posters you find most interesting?

If so, let me know before ISSCR starts (It starts July 8, but let me know by June 29). Describe your scientific or professional background in ten words or less. In four sentences or so, describe a paper or development that you think is exciting in stem cell biology or business. At the conference, you’ll write up what you like and send it to me for a quick edit. I’ll send it back to you so you can check for accuracy, and it will go up on the Niche with your name. I might be able to pay some grad students or postdocs (be forewarned: it won’t be much)

I’m not going to bar people from writing about whatever they think is the most interesting, but I may not put up every submission. Also, I encourage you to avoid perceived conflicts of interest. By agreeing to write for the Niche, you agree to disclose potential conflicts such as but not limited to the following: writing about researchers who have worked with or for you, writing about researchers you’ve slept with or reasonably plan to sleep with, writing about organizations or companies with which you have a financial relationship, etc. Also, if you hope to quote someone and you're not wearing a press badge, let the person know at the beginning of the conversation that you might be looking for information for quotation.

If this sounds fun, send an email to theniche[at]nature.com with the subject line “covering ISSCR” by June 29th. In any case, I'm looking forward to meeting many members of the stem cell community in Barcelona this year.

Posted by Monya Baker on June 22, 2009
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Those of you who've met me know I'm constantly trying to figure out how to split my time between research highlights, summarizing news on the Niche, getting commentaries, Q&As, news features, etc. Now I've got a formal way to find out. Please take our brief survey. This link is only going to be live for a short while (I think it goes down on June 11th)

Posted by Monya Baker on June 08, 2009
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The European Stem Cell Group is looking for new members. This group is funded by the EU Framework 7, and the goal is to set up some work groups to discuss prepublication work, figure out ways to analyze and manage data, and provide training. There will be an annual closed meeting. There are 20 spots available this year, and applications for associate principal investigators are due on May 29.

If you scan through the list of principal investigators, you will see some very familiar names. There are nine from the UK, 4 from Germany, 3 from the Netherlands, 2 each from France, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland, and 1 from Austria.

Independent group leaders from EU and EEA countries with active stem cell research programs and recent publications are eligible to apply. Member information and application forms are available here. It’s a short form to fill out.

Speaking of Europe, the International Society of Stem Cell Research is having its annual meeting in Barcelona this July. You can learn about membership and the meeting here.

If you have an event to announce, you can email theniche[at]nature.com. We try to post upcoming meetings of interest on our events page.

Posted by Monya Baker on May 06, 2009
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Science is going even more global, and that means more face-to-face and online get together. Here’s some help with both.

Travel grants to UK
It seems every American scientist is busy writing a grant right now. U.S. stem cell scientists looking for funds to go to the UK may want to gear up for another, very short grant A small travel grant program allows UK and US researchers to meet face-to-face and discuss potential collaborations. In this latest round, the program is inviting applications from academic researchers who want to visit industry partners.

Applications are due by May 8. Get more information here.

New online cell characterization tool
A new online resource allows the storage and analysis of various kinds of data associated with cell, cell line and tissue characterization across different species The Characterization Tool , housed at the Charité University Medicine Berlin, is now available; it is linked with the European Embryonic Stem Cell Registry but also includes mesenchymal stem cell lines and non-stem cell lines.

A recent feature profiled what it takes to turn data sets into information. Obviously, a big set is having the information.

Here are some other online tools and registries. If I’ve left out some of your favorites, please email me at theniche[at]nature.com

Continue reading "A new stem-cell online resource; upcoming deadline for short travel grant to UK" »

Posted by Monya Baker on April 27, 2009
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With the U.S. National Institute of Health poised to fund more grants in both non-embryonic and embryonic stem cell research, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine hopes to focus on the research that can move the science to treating patients. But it’s set to run out of cash. Both Science and the LA Times have written about this recently (links below)

Last Friday’s issue of Science, described the agency’s quest to sell private bonds so that the Institute could pay out grant funds it has already awarded. As things stands now, CIRM is set to go broke in September.

Constance Holden describes the plans of CIRM leader Robert Klein to sell private bonds, noting that he is more optimistic than several others about the possibilities of success.

The article also quotes James Kovach, head of the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, California as saying that he expects state initiatives such as CIRM to survive.

Given California’s financial crisis, an editorial in Monday’s Los Angeles Times questions whether the spending is a good use of money, particularly given the agency’s leadership by Klein.

The leadership and governing structure of CIRM have come under a lot of criticism. Its 29-member board is politically appointed and must include patient advocates as well as high-ranking officials from the institutions most likely to receive CIRM funds. Its plans to give loans and grants to companies have been called both essential and overambitious. The agency has also been praised for taking a leadership role in drafting guidelines and for helping to maintain a U.S. pipeline of stem-cell scientists.
Stem-cells the $3 billion dollar question (subscription required)
US policies on human embryonic stem cells (subscription required)
California against cronyism (subscription required)
CIRM’s search for a president (free online access)
CIRM training grants approved, but awards uncertain (free online access, with links to relevant news stories)

Advocates of state funds point out that, even if NIH is allowed to fund more types of research, it is only able to award a small fraction of the grant applications it receives. They also point out states can still fund research that the federal government cannot, particularly research that creates or destroys embryos. The Dickey-Wicker amendment prohibits funds for deriving new lines from early (about 2-5 day-old) embryos no longer needed by fertility clinics as well as for trying to generate new embryonic stem cell lines genetically matched to an existing individual. (See Embryonic education)

For people without subscriptions, there are more excerpts from the Science article on the California Stem Cell Report.

Posted by Monya Baker on March 30, 2009
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Members of the scientific community should lobby regulatory authorities to regulate bogus stem-cell clinics, according to the latest policy forum in Science this week (subscription required). The piece calls out the claims and (lack of) evidence put forward by stem-cell clinics in countries “not known as leaders in biomedical research.”

The forum also urges the World Health Organisation to create a consensus statement on the clinical application of stem cell research. Individual scientists should help provide non-English translations of existing information, such as the patient handbook developed by the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which includes questions would-be stem cell tourists should ask clinics and physicians.

The authors of the forum, Doug Sipp of Japan’s RIKEN and Kyoto University and physician Sorapop Kiatpongsan of Chulalongkorn University of Bangkok and Harvard, published an earlier commentary with Nature Reports, in which they analysed the duties and motivations of patients, physicians, scientists, governments, and other stakeholders that act in this arena.

Though stem cell tourism operates outside the scientific mainstream, stem-cell scientists should care about it not just because patients can be harmed but because mishaps can cause mistrust of those clinicians who are struggling to meet regulatory requirements and established guidelines to move stem cell research to the clinic.

Here are some of our articles reporting on stem cell tourism and the scientific community’s actions and reactions toward it.

Stem cell researchers face down stem cell tourism
A variety of international efforts hope to warn patients off unregulated treatments

Stick to the guidelines and fewer get hurt
The ISSCR hopes its handbook will prompt regulators and governments to shut shady clinics

Unregulated stem cell transplant causes tumours
Researchers say cells were poorly characterized prior to transplantation

Stem cell clinical trials must be closely monitored
Results of unregulated stem cell transplant were predictable and avoidable

Posted by Monya Baker on March 21, 2009
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Enthusiasm was more apparent than scepticism at the 4th Annual Stem Cell Summit, organized by investor, analyst and stem cell fan Robin Young, head of RRY Publications. This conference brought together a motley collection of companies, both well-known and obscure, and each was given ten minutes to tout themselves to potential investors and partners. Business models included cell banking, services, therapies, medical devices and tools; even the smallest companies were often relying on multiple business models.

Several attendees were also planning on going to the Stem Cell Partnering Series, a separate conference put on in cooperation with the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which is going on at the University of California, San Diego on 26 and 27 February. I unfortunately won’t be able to attend that one, but you can get more information here.

In New York on Tuesday, Young himself acknowledged the dizzying diversity of companies represented, speculating whether the term 'stem cell' had become an inadequate term for business models applying to many things. Companies at the conference were funded by their own sales revenues, private investors, government grants, venture capital and big pharma partners. Several of the more established companies were recently discussed in an upbeat article in Crain’s Cleveland Business.

Continue reading "Investors ♥ stem cells" »

Posted by Monya Baker on February 19, 2009
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I’ve just read with sadness that Xiangzhong “Jerry” Yang of the University of Connecticut has died of cancer. Here are articles from the Associated Press and the Contra Costa Times. The most extensive piece is this excellent one in the Hartford Courant.

Jerry Yang was one of the first scientists that I spoke with after Nature Reports was launched just over a year and a half ago. His enthusiasm and advice were important in organizing the meeting where the leaders of what was to become the Stem Cell Network of the Asia-Pacific Region (SNAP) first publicly proposed its formation. I remember his patience as I struggled to understand some distinctions that are obvious to me now, and how valuable his review on therapeutic reprogramming of cloned embryos was to me as I wrote my first features for Nature Reports. I remember how passionately he worked to convince governments in China and Connecticut to support stem cell research.

His family, friends and colleagues have my warmest sympathies. The stem cell community will miss him.

Posted by Monya Baker on February 09, 2009
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Here are a couple papers just out in Nature. One, from Mike Clarke of Stanford, shows how human breast cancers resist treatment. I talked to him about how the paper came to be. The other, from Tannishtha Reyes of Duke, finds an alternative pathway to attack resistant leukemia in mice.

How breast cancer resists treatment
Self-renewing blood and leukaemia cells need hedgehog

Also, this week, a lovely feature about how getting interoperability between computational biologists and stem cell biologists.

Plus, a way to make mesenchymal turn into bone via physical stimulus.
Nanotubes guide mesenchymal stem cells toward becoming bone

Posted by Monya Baker on February 06, 2009
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A documentary chronicling stem-cell research advocacy is screening at theaters around the United States this week. Actually, the film is a story of how a family coping with tragedy begins to explore what it takes to turn scientific ideas into medical procedures. For a schedule of screenings in various cities, you can go to the film’s website.

Continue reading "Independent film-makers for stem cells" »

Posted by Monya Baker on January 12, 2009
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The New York Times has a Q&A with Stanford’s Renee Reijo Pera, who “works at ground zero of the controversy over human embryonic stem cells.” It is a nice summary of relevant scientific questions, with a surprising take on Bush’s stem cell policy, plus a portrait of a scientist as a caring, curious individual.

The journal Stem Cells has also published a more technical series of interviews for the ten-year anniversary of human embryonic stem cell lines. Read interviews with Peter Andrews, Alan Trounson, and Rudolf Jaenisch
Also, see an interview with John Gearhart in Embo Reports.

Posted by Monya Baker on December 16, 2008
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Two papers show how ES cells change in culture, and the head of NovoCell heads to a nonprofit.

First, the gossip, actually a news article from the San Diego Union Tribune. The head of Novocell, Alan Lewis, has headed over to the deep-pocketed non-profit Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which has become a leading force in stem cell research. ( Bob Klein, head of CIRM, is on its board of directors, and the agency, along with NIH and CIRM, are American members of the International Stem Cell Initiative.) Alan Lewis is featured in our article on stem-cell start up companies, In search of a viable business model.

Next, one more thing for those culturing stem cells to worry about.

A paper in PNAS shows that mouse ES cells pick up copy number variants after just a few passages in routine culture. Here is a link to the research highlight. (We reported on CNVs in human ES cells several months ago and also ran a commentary about how to assess a stem cell genome).

More recently, two Nature Biotech papers show amplifications of sections of chromosomes containing several genes. Here’s the draft of that, as reported by excellent freelancer Simone Alves.

Continue reading "ES cells change chromosomes; stem-cell CEO changes jobs" »

Posted by Monya Baker on November 26, 2008
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The University of Massachusetts has launched its international stem cell registry, which supports searches of particular cell lines. The full application should be launched within a month. The team decided to use an iterative approach for incorporating more data and functionality because the field is changing so quickly. See the press release.

As more and more researchers move into stem cells, researchers are trying to find optimal systems to share data and cell lines, and from what I can tell efforts have been cooperative. The European Human Embryonic Registry is a database of more than 175 hESC lines. Funding for the UK Stem Cell Bank was first allocated in 2002, and it is currently distributing 8 cell lines. WiCell distributes most of the cell lines approved for federal funding in the U.S., and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute recently announced that it would ship iPS cell lines created at its facilities.

See related articles:

Thickets and gaps blocking stem cell science
Banking on the future of stem cells
The European Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry — a personal view from Germany

After a delay of a couple months, a subcommittee of the International Stem Cell Research Committee has posted draft guidelines for clinical translation of stem cells , and is accepting comment until the beginning of October.

See related articles:
Stem cell society condemns unproven treatments
Stem cell researchers face down stem cell tourism
Doctors Promote Offshore Stem Cell Shots, but Some Patients Cry Foul

Posted by Monya Baker on September 16, 2008
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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

Posted by Monya Baker on August 18, 2008
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We are pleased to offer free multimedia presentations on stem cells to our site. This feature sould be live in the next few days. For a list, see or Basics page.

Posted by Monya Baker on July 31, 2008
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In our write-up of the last ISSCR meeting, Natalie DeWitt and I described Thomas Graf’s, Doug Melton’s, and others’ work to change cell fate. We asked people to weigh in on preferred terms.

Graf sent us this thoughtful response:

Dear Monya, Dear Natalie,

I would like to comment on the issue that you brought up in the last edition of Nature Report Stem Cells.
‘Are the terms reprogramming or trans-differentiation appropriate in describing the transition from one differentiated cell type into another? Should another term be used instead? ‘

In my opinion, this discussion comes too early. We simply don't know enough about what happens when a differentiated cells acquires a new fate. If, unlike during induction of iPS cell formation, the cells directly transit from one phenotype into another probably a term other than 'reprogramming' would be more appropriate. Indeed, the frequency and timing by which transcription factor induced lineage conversions can be observed makes it unlikely that the cells transiently acquire an ES like state. However, it is still possible that when one lineage turns into another the cells go back to the stage of a common precursor before they re-commit. If this would be the case- should it be called 'reprogramming'? The other possibility is that we will increasingly see induced cell fate conversions in which the new phenotypes generated only partially recapitulate known stages of differentiation. Would it make sense to coin different terms to distinguish these diverse processes?

For the time being the non committal term 'conversion' seems appropriate in all instances that do not involve iPS cell reprogramming.

Thomas Graf
Center for Genomic Regulation, CRG
Carrer Dr. Aiguader 88
E 08003 Barcelona
Spain

Posted by Monya Baker on July 28, 2008
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I received this comment from my post on the Cold Spring Harbor Conference on controlling stem cells.

Monya wrote: Toward the end of the conference, I had started classifying talks. That way, even if I couldn’t remember what HUH1.1 stood for, I didn’t feel completely lost. The most common type slots individual components into networks. Many conclusion slides exclaimed triumphantly “X targets Y in cell Z under conditions of W”
Perhaps the next most common type of talk identified or characterized cell types. “Cell A makes molecules B,C, and D but not E”. This was often, but still too infrequently, followed by “Cell A does action Y in environment Z.”

One of the challenges and opportunities that exist within the stem cell research community is to organize such information into a computable formulation that can be used to build reasoning from sparse resources of data by combining results from different reports in a structured and annotated format. To accomplish this task effectively, the most cutting-edge and farsighted approach is to use Ontologies.

Posted by Monya Baker on June 11, 2008
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The Cold Spring Harbor Symposium this year explored how stem cells are regulated. Five days, over 450 scientists and manuscript editors, and me. I’m drowning in acronyms, my brain is bursting, but I can’t wait for more. Philadelphia, here I come!

Below is my outsider’s notion of trends based on this meeting and two days of visiting scientists in the Big Apple. (It’s a closed meeting, soI’ve included only generalities. I may be able to go back over this in a couple weeks and get more specific)

Here’s the take-home:
There are more niches than we thought, more cell types than we thought, they are regulated in more ways than we thought, and we shouldn’t have been surprised.

Here are more specifics:

Continue reading "Hoping to control stem cells at Cold Spring Harbor" »

Posted by Monya Baker on June 05, 2008
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If you don’t have time to read all the reviews in Nature’s Regenerative Medicine Insight published May 15 or you want a preview before delving in, read these Q&As with several of the reviewers.

Ken Chien: the road ahead for regenerative medicine
Human models of human disease are likely to be the first benefits of stem cells to medicine

Sheng Ding: small molecules for stem cells
A chemical approach to regenerative medicine provides practical solutions and scientific insight.

Christine Mummery: regenerating the heart
Scientists search for the best ways to make therapies from embryonic stem cells and adult tissues.

Timm Schroeder: stem cell tracking and imaging technology
Visualization techniques are improving, but stem cells are still tough to watch

Richard Boyd and Ann Chidgey: protecting cells from immune attack
Inducing tolerance to transplanted cells could make stem-cell therapy more enduring and versatile.

Geoff Gurtner: learning healing from scars
For its power to be harnessed, wound repair must reveal its molecular secrets

Leonard Zon: unlocking stemness in haematopoiesis
After decades of study, blood still holds secrets and lessons of self-renewal

One of the best things about my job is the chance to have long conversations with enthusiastic scientists. One of the most frustrating is only being able to use one or a couple quotes from those conversations.

Posted by Monya Baker on May 22, 2008
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In a world where space is equated with prestige, California stem-cell researchers are going to be getting a lot more of it. The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine has just awarded $270 million dollars for buildings to institutions all over the state. These funds will be matched by even more than that amount by other donors.

Here is some coverage of this boon to scientific buildings.
The San Diego Tribune consistently does a nice job; this article focuses on the $43 million coming in locally. Another is more general.
The San Francisco Chronicle splashed it over much of its front page and seemed to me to do the best job of covering the impact on California.
The New York Times gave it a mere 600 words, and I couldn’t find it in the LA Times.
And of course, Nature had a full article on CIRM and the national impact on stem-cell science last week. ( See my ramblings and links )

I’d pulled clips on government investment in infrastructure several weeks ago (I thought I’d have time to write in-depth on this but haven’t), and I was surprised to discover that government really doesn’t traditionally invest that much in infrastructure. CIRM is limited to spending 10% of its funds for construction.

I found a lot of skepticism on academic construction in general but haven’t done much reporting. CIRM quotes Paul Berg saying that the hardest problem for people getting into stem cell research is the lack of facilities. Back in February, the head of the Buck told me that if they got the funds to construct a new building for stem cell research, they’d have little trouble filling it with scientists. ( The Buck got $20.5 million to fund the $41 million building.)

Here’s an article from the Economist on whether better facilities for universities are a good idea. (It does not address stem cells particularly, and you’ll need a subscription.) Journalist Dan Greenburg has also written on the unprecedented era of laboratory construction going on. Here’s a recent, statistics filled pdf on college construction.

Posted by Monya Baker on May 08, 2008
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Nature has just posted a thoroughly reported feature on how the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and its billions of dollars will change the shape of stem-cell science and infrastructure. (For a more personal view from a Texas scientist, see our commentary by Peggy Goodell .)

One point the feature makes is that CIRM’s board members also serve the institutions that receive funding from the institute. There are, of course, a welter of rules aimed at avoiding conflicts of interest, but CIRM has still found itself subject to strong criticism. One retired journalist has even started a blog devoted to the institute’s scrutiny. An editorial accompanying the Nature feature calls for strong governance.

Still, CIRM is not the only stem-cell agency facing such charges. A report this week from Integrity in Science reports that “at least 11 of the 25 voting-members of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Council of Blood Stem Cell Transplantation have financial ties to cord blood-banking and transplantation industry despite a committee charter stating that such conflicts should be limited.”

What does seem unique to CIRM are the multiple sources of “two-masters” tension: it must support basic science and clinical applications ( see my interview with Marie Csete) ; it must succor biotech companies but make sure that patients and other scientists can access their technology (see my article on CIRM grants to businesses ). Even its organizational structure is split. (See my article on CIRM’s search for a president .)

I’ve asked CIRM officials about this before. I’m told that such strains are indeed difficult to balance, but done right they are a source of strength. I’ve asked non-CIRM experts about it too. They tell me it’s easy to make bad investments in hot new fields, but good ideas often wither early because they can’t prove their worth. And I've asked everyone whether CIRM’s funds are a good use of money, and they say what journalists hate to hear: time will tell.

Posted by Monya Baker on April 30, 2008
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The entrepreneurial spirit may boost efforts to turn stem cells into fried chicken. It has already expanded the ability to clone dogs. If ideas like these could be tweaked just a bit, they could help spawn research tools the biomedical community really needs.

An idea that might boost cutting edge research (and save animal lives) is coming from a surprising source, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Saying that stem cell science could make in vitro meat possible, PETA has just put up a $1 million prize for the first candidate to make a palatable in vitro chicken product and sell at least 2,000 pounds of it over 10 states.

If PETA had picked pork instead, the research might have had some benefit for the biomedical research community (though it may also have facilitated more experiments using pigs.) No one has worked out a way to get robust pluripotent stem cells in sufficient quantities from species besides mice, monkeys, and men.
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Continue reading "Of in vitro meat and cloned drug-sniffers" »

Posted by Monya Baker on April 29, 2008
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An article in Tuesday’s LA Times patiently explains that expensive bottles of skin cream sold in doctors’ offices and online do not actually contain stem cells. They don’t have much science either. Other companies are marketing services to store stem cells in menstrual blood. The uterine lining is highly regenerative, but the science is early.

In San Diego, four independent institutions are planning to build a common $115-million facility for stem cell science. Teri Somers covers it well, and some commentators are passionately against. The California Stem Cell Report has comments on this, plus a lively discussion on the meaning of “trivial” in terms of the contribution the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine claimed to have made and actually made to research leading to clinical trials. (The posts are on April 17 and April 15) Back in August, Nature Reports Stem Cells conducted a survey on how recipients of innovation grants intended to use them, noting that the Institute had been kept from disbursing most of the funds it had been awarded)

Keep reading for most posts that caught my eye

Continue reading "Stem-cell skin creams, a San Diego collaboratory, and legal blogs" »

Posted by Monya Baker on April 22, 2008
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This Thursday and Friday, the FDA deliberates on how to decide that cells derived from embryonic stem cells are ready to be tested in humans. On Saturday and Sunday, patient advocates and stem-cell researchers meet in San Francisco to talk about how to accelerate discoveries and therapies.

Both indicate a growing momentum for moving stem cells into applications. I wrote a preview article on the FDA discussions. The FDA’s got a difficult job to do. It has to make sure that it doesn’t slow down therapies for horrible, debilitating diseases and that human subjects aren’t exposed to dangerous procedures. This meeting is regarded as a first step for moving embryonic stem cells into well-regulated clinical testing.

I’ve never attended an FDA Advisory Committee meeting before, and I called several people to get a sense of what to expect. One of them was Michele Keane-Moore, a former cell-product reviewer with FDA who is now with the Biologics Consulting Group. She told me that the public forum marks a good learning opportunity for the agency. FDA officials have discussion with many companies, she says, “but all of that work is confidential and can’t be discussed.” Now, she says, “A lot of the questions will be aired in a public forum, so all the stakeholders can say what their concerns are.” the transcripts will eventually be made available for this meeting. Keane-Moore believes the discussion will be similar to the one held in July 13 on stem cells in neurological diseases. You can get to it here.

You can read more in the Nature article, but the FDA is mainly worried that the animal tests used to assess safety problems aren’t good enough and that they won’t know until too late that the transplanted cells are causing harm rather than benefit. The FDA has to make these calls all the time, but there are a couple reasons why these cells are cause for concern. One is that the animal safety tests often require animals to be bred to lack immune responses or to be on immunosuppressive drugs (mouse bodies would attack human cells otherwise), so they want to figure out the limitations of these tests.

Also, stem cells are very different from drugs because cells can multiply and change. That makes them harder to predict. If you put the cells in an environment where they can grow quickly, a low dose of cells could become a high dose. That can’t happen with drugs. Of course, everyone also hopes that these cells can bring about cures for diseases that so far seem intractable to regular drugs.

If you have something you want me to have my eyes out for at either of these meetings, please send me an email or add a comment below.

Posted by Monya Baker on April 08, 2008
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I’ve gotten a couple of emails about an editorial Nature recently ran urging scientists in the iPS field not to rush. It starts by relating an anonymous attack against Shinya Yamanaka for a minor problem. That’s supposed to get folks’ attention, but it is absolutely not the point of the article, which is to urge caution to everyone who is in and rushing into a very hot, very young field that is also politically charged.

The article is not questioning Shinya Yamanaka as a scientist. (It’s common for mistakes to slip through, and there are mechanisms to correct that.) The editorial is about what happens (confusion) and can sometimes happen (fraud) in hot, new fields, and this is going to be even worse for stem cell scientists because the field is politically charged as well. Shinya Yamanaka has already dealt with the accusations in a way that seems to have satisfied Science, and so delving any more into them would actually elevate the accusations of an anonymous emailer, giving the accusations more attention than they deserve.

The idea for the editorial started after PrimeGen decided to publish its findings on viral-free reprogramming by press release. Here was an accomplishment that the whole community was waiting for, but no one could assess it, and so Nature felt that we needed to say something about how people need to be more patient in a hot field. And then a few days later, the anonymous email got sent to many journalists and journal editors, and it seemed a call for caution was even more necessary.

So again, the editorial is urging caution in a hot, politically charged field. It is not about one of the field’s best-loved and most-respected scientists.

I’ll blog again as I get more feedback and hear more thoughts, but I wanted to get this up quickly. In the meantime, I want to say that much thought went into this editorial. You might be interested in how I think some decisions are made. (I don’t have first-hand knowledge of much of this, but I think I can guess.) Also, I should emphasize that stuff I've written above is just me; I haven't yet weighed in on the collective wisdom of NPG.

Continue reading "Recent editorial is meant to urge caution, not attack a scientist" »

Posted by Monya Baker on March 27, 2008
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Desperate patients need help separating legitimate researchers from quacks, said representatives the biggest organization for stem cell researchers, who announced that they’d decided to draft guidelines for how basic research on stem cells can be responsibly “translated” to research on human patients. The guidelines will cover embryonic stem cells plus those collected from cord blood and adults, as well as stem cells induced from differentiated cells.

At a press conference in Half Moon Bay, California, a panel of highly influential officials and researchers in stem cell science said they were alarmed at “medical tourism” in pursuit of questionable and potentially harmful stem cell procedures. The only established stem-cell treatments are for a handful of blood diseases, they said, but advertisers promise cures for every imaginable disease. Story Landis, head of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and George Daley, president of the International Society for Stem cell Research said their organizations were besieged by patient queries about treatments whose risks and benefits are unknown. The ISSCR plans to produce guidelines to help such patients and their families assess whether practitioners’ claims are credible.

Continue reading "Patients paying for stem cells are probably getting bad science" »

Posted by Monya Baker on March 20, 2008
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Tuesday night and the night before, I went to events designed for scientists and non-scientists to mingle. It made me think about what stem-cell-research activists tell me frustrates them most about stem-cell scientists.

On Monday night, a complete stranger made dinner for me and others he’d identified in the stem-cell field. Peter Kuperman, a hedge fund manager who likes to cook, hosts modern-day salons on topics he finds interesting. And though I had misgivings (surely only psychopaths and pushy salespeople invite strangers into their homes), I went and found that it was exactly what he’d billed it to be.

It was nice to see scientists in their human contexts: sleepy from peer-reviewing a manuscript, worried about finding the best school for their children, excited for their spouses’ careers. It was instructive to see how what has become conventional wisdom to those inside the field is still news to those outside it.

On Tuesday night, I went to San Francisco’s Ask-A-Scientist: free monthly lectures by scientists to standing-room only crowds. As part of a discussion on ancient science, our speaker defined its modern counterpart: a consensus-driven community that cautiously advances hypotheses backed by evidence collected through rigorous methodologies.

I hadn’t considered the consensus-driven aspect, but it’s true. One current scientific controversy is whether certain tumours arise from stem-cell-like progenitors or from differentiated cells. Those in one camp don’t seek to split from those in the other camp; they want to convert them. They want that conversion to be honest, not forced; those in one camp should be drawn to the other not by bullies or charismatic personalities, but through logic and data. That’s why many reviewers want to be anonymous, and why some scientists want authors to be anonymous as well.

Consensus building through logical arguments built on empirical data is much of what makes the scientific community a community. It’s one reason why scientists volunteer to review grants and papers. Perhaps more than in other disciplines, scientists expect their arguments to be heard in full and carefully rebutted. Problems come when they interact beyond the community. Scientists don’t always anticipate that a reporter will sometimes listen to a long, cautious explanation and then use only the most enthusiastic sentence.

This leads to why stem cell researchers and stem-cell research advocates misunderstand each other.

The news that cultured human skin cells had been reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state came in late November of last year. Embryonic stem-cell researchers crowed over the accomplishment: how it advanced understanding of the rules governing cell potential; it promised more-accessible research tools and, maybe, cell therapies. Many embryonic stem-cell-research advocates despaired, fearing that the discovery would give ammunition to those who wish to ban all embryonic stem cell research. Scientists’ enthusiasm went off-message, many advocates chided. Advocates felt betrayed that scientists who reviewed the breakthrough papers hadn’t warned them before publication so they could prepare a media response.

But, for the most part, scientists act to ensure that consensus-building mechanisms are driven by logic; that means saying what they think and taking seriously the promises of confidentiality given during the review process. If advocates convince scientists they must act otherwise to ensure favorable policy, they risk weakening what gives the scientific community, and science, its strength.

Advocates that support scientific research have worked hard and with some success to convince scientists that they must reach out to the general public so that society can value and support their work, but I think lecturing scientists about being “on message” could seed distrust. It would be far, far better and easier for scientists to learn to convey the essential skepticism of their discipline than to learn to convey one particular message.

To me the quintessential scientist is one who says, “I think I’ve found the most exciting thing ever. Now I have to work as hard as I can to see if I can prove it wrong.” Some apparently exciting things really are; some aren't. For most reading this blog, the exciting thing is that cells not derived from embryos can behave like embryonic stem cells; the hard work necessary to know if it’s really true means comparing these cells with embryonic stem cells, that means work with embryonic stem cells to know which cells can answer which questions. That’s not a message; that’s a thought process more people should understand.

I don’t pretend to have any answers for how researchers and research advocates can work together more productively, but I’ve spent the last two nights watching non-specialists and specialists spending their leisure time together, and I think the answer may lie somewhere in that.

Posted by Monya Baker on February 28, 2008
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Posted on behalf of Brendan Maher, locum Nature biology features editor

Last night I went to the Philadelphia public television station WHYY, to see an independent film on stem cell researcher Jack Kessler of Northwestern University and the sharp turn his research took when his daughter lost the use of her legs after a skiing accident. The movie is called “Mapping stem cell research: Terra Incognita”.

Shot in stark video, the piece paints an intimate portrait of Kessler, his family and his “other” family -- the postdoc and student working on a spinal regeneration project under his direction. The movie is positioned to put a human face on the ethics of embryonic stem cell research. Kessler is an outspoken activist for this kind of work – moreso even than his college-aged daughter, who just wants to get on with her life.

I was more compelled by the personal look at his postdoc and student, as they test the effects of injecting a self-assembling gel matrix into severed mouse spinal cords and see if axonal growth is able to cross a crucial barrier. It’s a live animal follow-up to the experiments presented in this Science paper.

In the movie you see tense lab meetings with negative results, time-consuming troubleshooting, and that odd mistrust that junior researchers feel about their results that is overshadowed by the enthusiasm of a PI. Ultimately, their paper is rejected from Science without review. Not your happiest of endings, but certainly appropriate.

The screening was followed by panel discussion including science journalist Marie McCullogh from the Philadelphia Inquirer; Jonathan Epstein, a University of Pennsylvania stem-cell biologist; and two bioethicists, Paul Root Wolpe from Penn and Catholic priest and biologist, Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, who appears in the movie comparing embryonic stem-cell research to slavery. Needless to say, it was a heated discussion about the nature of the embryo and the equivocation between potentiality and identity. The roundtable more or less proved that the recent discovery of reprogrammed, or induced pluripotent stem cells, in no way changes the nature of the debate.

The question was raised, but never adequately answered by the main stem-cell opponent in the room (that would be Fr. Tad) whether it would be acceptable to use treatments, if ever developed from these induced cells, based on the fact that they were made possible by research he finds otherwise abhorrent.

The film starts running on US public television stations on 15 January. A listing of screenings around the country is available here.

Posted by Monya Baker on December 21, 2007
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Shanghai crab is a delicacy available for only a short time each year, and the 20-million-strong href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2D91F3BF937A2575AC0A960948260&sec=travel&spon=&pagewanted=1" > residents of Shanghai devote themselves to its consumption. It was auspicious that the tasty crabs were still available during the first Shanghai International Symposium on Stem Cell Research, attended by around 500 scientists, hundreds of Chinese researchers and close to 100 foreigners. (NOTE: I wrote this on November 10th, but wasn't able to post until today.)

To put that in perspective, the last meeting of International Society for Stem Cell Research, the biggest annual stem cell conference, drew just over 1,900 attendees in June this past year.

China’s government and academies are pouring resources into stem cell research, and Chinese-born researchers trained in the United States are proving a huge asset. Some are returning to China to head up labs in that country; others are remaining in the US but forming collaborations with researchers in China.

Continue reading "Shanghai stem cell conference promises more to come" »

Posted by Monya Baker on December 04, 2007
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Accusations against the chair and another member of California’s stem-cell institute should be referred to the state’s Fair Political Practices Committee, State Controller John Chiang said today at a meeting of the financial committee for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). A public advocacy group had called for Robert Klein and John Reed to resign after learning that Reed, who is also president of the Burnham Institute, asked CIRM to reconsider its decision that the recipient of a previously awarded grant was not, in fact, eligible for funding because he was not an on-site, full-time employee of the Burnham Institute.
UPDATE on 11/28: Here is the letter from Chiang's office to investigate the charges.
Following Klein’s advice, Reed wrote a letter to CIRM staff in charge of administering the grant stating that David Smotrich, a clinician affiliated with Burnham, should be eligible for the award of $638,000. CIRM staff did not consider the request, and the grant was not awarded.

However, John Simpson of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights said that Reed should resign because, as a member of CIRM’s oversight committee, Reed should not have made requests on behalf of his institution. Simpson also called on Klein, who has no affiliation with the Burnham, to resign, saying he demonstrated poor judgment.

Continue reading "State Controller Recommends Inquiry in CIRM Board Conflict of Interest" »

Posted by Monya Baker on November 27, 2007
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A patchwork of stem-cell funders are stepping up to fill the void left by the US NIH, which cannot fund research on new embryonic stem cell lines.

Efforts to cope with this fragmented group are analyzed in a feature by Nature Reports Stem Cells and an analysis by Stanford lawyer Susan Stayn on Chris Scott’s Stem Cell Blog .

Continue reading "Stem-cell policy detanglers" »

Posted by Monya Baker on November 01, 2007
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I've had a number of people tell me personally that they've enjoyed reading Rudolf Jaenisch's account of his visit to a stem cell conference in Tehran hosted by the Royan Institute. Some Iranian scientists in America wrote in to say thanks. Also of interest, the US National Academy of Sciences just announced plans to expand cooperation with Iranian research and education centers.
Here's the link to our article.

Posted by Monya Baker on November 01, 2007
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I wanted to give a quick shout-out to some students today.

William Gunn, at Tulane gives his take on a raft of stem cell papers on his blog, Synthesis.

Raja Anand, in Belgium, has put together an impressive collection of links.

And of course, the frighteningly energetic Attila, whom I've had the pleasure of meeting in person blogs on PIMM.

Now, Red Pill, Chris Scott, California Stem Cell Report, you're all great, but there's a certain energy to students, getting started in a field and sharing what they're learning.

Posted by Monya Baker on October 25, 2007
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The day that President Bush vetoed legislation to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, he also issued an executive order calling for a plan to promote alternate sources of pluripotent stem cells, the details of which were announced today. Like the original executive order, it calls for the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry to be renamed the NIH Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry.

The implication is that existing pluripotent stem cell lines are equivalent to embryonic stem cell lines. That’s not true. Many scientists think it could be true someday if current techniques advance, but many believe advancing pluripotent stem cells cannot be done without continuing to study embryonic stem cells.

The plan released today includes a soon-to-be-formalized program announcement to fund grants for research on alternative sources of human pluripotent stem cells including dead embryos, altered nuclear transfer (putting genetic material into an oocyte that will cause it to divide without forming a viable embryo), single cell embryo biopsy, and reprogramming somatic cells. These areas could all prove extremely valuable in understanding disease and testing therapies. Nonetheless, opponents of embryonic stem cell research must acknowledge that if this work is performed instead of rather than alongside work on embryonic stem cells, science will suffer and its fruits could be delayed.

Continue reading "Renaming the Embyronic Stem Cell Registry recasts debate" »

Posted by Monya Baker on September 18, 2007
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Just a day after the publication of my article wondering whether the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) could capture a big fish as its leader, CIRM announced that it had hooked a big fish.

News reports (links below) hailed the appointment as a coup. Alan Trounson founded the Australian Stem Cell Centre and helped produce the world’s third test-tube baby. He’s also started companies, including the Singapore-based ES Cell International.

One strength that has not been highlighted is Trounson’s potential to link US scientists with those in the Asia-Pacific region. He has been very active in efforts to found an Asian-Pacific Stem Cell Network, and quite vocal about the advantages that that region has for stem cell research. When meeting with leading stem-cell scientists from around the region in June, Trounson was emphatic in discussing the need for political champions.
See our article here.

Continue reading "Australian head of California’s stem-cell institute could help globalize stem-cell research" »

Posted by Monya Baker on September 17, 2007
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After struggling to find someone to fill the seat vacated by Zach Hall, CIRM seems to be taking a bit of a breather. They've found someone to take the job as president for six months, at $50,000 a month. Richard Murphy as been a member of CIRM's board, and the head of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He'll take the reins of the institution set to disburse $3 billion over ten years on September 1.
You can read the CIRM press release here.
I have two initial thoughts. One is that as a former board member of CIRM, Murphy probably has a good idea of how long he can last in that position (juggling peole with different aptitudes and agendas and trying to enthuse without overpromising), which apparently is six months. The other concern is the fact that he will recuse himself from decisions involving San Diego-based institutions, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. I understand the concerns about conflict of interest, but how can the president stay out of decisions for a place so powerful and important in stem cell research, and one he knows well too.. And surely Murphy has friends, colleagues, contacts everywhere and not just the place he's called home? There has to be a more effective way keep corruption amd undue influences out of the public sphere.

Posted by Monya Baker on August 09, 2007
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Recently, I co-chaired a meeting where scientists made a cogent argument for creating a regional stem cell network. A summary of the meeting will be posted on Nature Reports Stem Cells and circulated as an insert in Nature. I hope that the conversation can continue here.

Posted by Monya Baker on June 26, 2007
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“We’ve gone as far away from Boston as possible to go,” Paul Simmons, outgoing head of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, told sparse attendees at an organizational meeting in Cairns, Australia on June.

Continue reading "International stem cell society hopes to expand further from North American roots" »

Posted by Monya Baker on June 20, 2007
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Bob Klein, largely responsible for the legislation that earmarked $3 billion for California stem cell research, has joined the advisory board of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. The announcement came at the end of a tired town hall meeting that capped sessions of scientific talks.
George Daley, incoming president of the society, said that Klein was going to help ISSCR figure out what its mission should be. He wants to give the society more emphasis on research, and he wants to stop fund-raising every time they want to take on a project. He wants a council that will be very philanthropically involved, he says. Well, it’s hard to imagine a better choice.

Continue reading "Prop 71 instigator to advise international stem cell society " »

Posted by Monya Baker on June 19, 2007
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My week in Japan drove home the obvious. English-speaking researchers need one major talent to prove themselves: the ability to do science. Non-English speakers need two: science and English. This will be true for the foreseeable future, but the scientific community should take steps to lessen its impact.

Doing so will benefit both English and non-English speakers. If non-English speakers are able to publish more easily, knowledge will be available more quickly, so advances can be quickly validated and adopted by others.

Continue reading "Benefit Science With English Help" »

Posted by Monya Baker on June 14, 2007
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