The Niche

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 NIH guidelines in effect as of 7 July don’t specify exactly which human embryonic stem cell lines can be studied with federal funding, but researchers are still pleased. Not only will more lines be eligible for funding, now the NIH has said it will make the time-consuming call of whether embryos used to create lines were donated under fundable criteria (appropriate informed consent, creation for reproductive purposes, donated without financial inducements.) That’s a huge relief for ethics committees at individual universities that might otherwise do redundant, difficult work.

Continue reading "NIH stem cell guidelines please scientists" »

Posted by Monya Baker on July 08, 2009
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Both the Washington Post and the New York Times are running articles today on the state's decision to pay women up to $10,000 for donating eggs for stem cell research. (The Post is the stronger article, but most of the nuances are on the second page). This was covered last week in the Niche and the Great Beyond.)

The articles do not mention the pressing scientific question these eggs might answer: how good are iPS cells? Everyone is excited about induced pluripotent stem cells, but no one understands their limitations. Right now, there is anecdotal evidence that iPS cells don't behave exactly like ES cells, but perhaps that's because the best techniques haven't been worked out yet. The best way to learn this is to compare genetically identical stem cells generated by both methods. For one set of stem cells, you'd take a skin biopsy from Patient A, reprogram the cells to pluripotency. That's iPS cells. For the other stem cells, you'd do somatic cell nuclear transfer: put a nucleus from one of Patient A's cells into an enucleated egg, grow that to a hollow-ball embryo, and use it to make embryonic stem cells. Now you've got both ES and iPS cells carrying patient A's genes.

(BTW: This is a tricky situation for career-minded scientists. Find no differences, no one will notice, AND you'll look foolish if someone else comes along later and sees something you overlooked. Find differences, and worry about looking foolish if you've published an artifact.)

Nonetheless, this is a situation in which people really do need more information for informed debate. Unlike for humans, embryonic stem cells have been cloned for monkeys and mice. iPS cells have also been made from these creatures. Those of you who have genetically identical iPS and ES cells for mice and monkeys, we need to see your results!

My guess is that the scientists hoping to use human eggs in stem cell research believe strongly that they will find something interesting (though of course that in itself does not justify research)

Objections to the research in the articles are 1) that paying women for eggs exploits them and 2) that scientists should avoid controversy. The Post article goes on to describe that women are already paid for eggs, but only if the eggs are intended for making babies, not stem cells.

The articles also did not mention the egg-sharing program which is widely accepted in the UK. Women seeking IVF treatment get a discount for donating unfertilized eggs collected. Also, bioethicist Insoo Hyun has argued that oocyte providers should be given the same consideration and compensation as other healthy research subjects. (See that Nature commentary)

It's unclear whether those objecting to egg payments for stem cells also object to egg payments for in vitro fertilization. But it is true that the most sought-after IVF egg donors are college-educated and so have more options to earn more money. If there is a worry that paying poor, oppressed women for eggs exploits them, why not only allow college-educated women to donate eggs for stem cell research? They can already choose to sell eggs to fertility clinics. (There is precedent for this kind of discrimination; I've been paid for participating in scientific research in which all subjects were required to have a biology degree; this was considered necessary for giving informed consent.)

Posted by Monya Baker on June 26, 2009
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Cross-posted from the Great Beyond

The New York Empire State Stem Cell Board (ESSCB) has approved the use of state funds to compensate women who donate eggs for embryonic stem cell research.

The board, which implements New York’s $600 million stem cell research initiative, reached the decision on 11 June. Board members noted that taxpayer funds are already used to compensate some egg donors in state-subsidized in vitro fertilization programs. They also emphasized that researchers in other states that do not allow payment for eggs – including Massachusetts and California -- have largely failed to recruit donors.

Nevertheless, the decision sparked a predictable outcry from activists. The New York State Catholic Conference called it “a grossly unethical, dangerous and exploitative move that treats women’s body parts as commodities,” (Catholic Courier) and Thomas Berg, a Catholic priest and a member of the ESSCB’s ethics committee, criticized the board for not allowing public comment on the issue (Christian News Wire).

See also Nature news: Egg shortage hits race to clone human stem cells

Posted by Monya Baker on June 17, 2009
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Last week, ten members of Bush's Council on Bioethics issued a statement criticizing President Obama's lifting of the funding ban on human embryonic stem cell research.The statement, posted by the Hastings Center, is available here. See also our previous post.

In the rebuttal also posted by the Hasting Center, Case Western bioethicist Insoo yun first commiserates with the council's hard work. Then he takes them to task, particularly for implying that Bush's policy enabled research. "To say that the Bush compromise is good enough for American stem cell science is an insult to the researchers and to our fellow citizens," Hyun writes. He also points out that embryonic stem cell research has been and continues to be essential to furthering work on induced pluripotent stem cells and that banning reproductive cloning does not logically require the banning of therapeutic cloning.

Posted by Monya Baker on March 31, 2009
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Posted on the Great Beyond for Natasha Gilbert

Reports in the British media that grant applications to create hybrid human – animal embryos for research were turned down on moral grounds, have been rejected by the funding bodies and scientists involved.

The story broke in the Independent newspaper on Monday, which claimed Stephen Minger, a leading stem cell scientist at King’s College London, said that the grant applications may have been blocked by scientists on the funding committees who are morally opposed to the creation of cloned hybrid embryos.

But when Nature spoke to Minger he said the Independent misinterpreted his comments, adding he did not have any evidence that moral objections led to his proposal being rejected.

“I was not saying that religious or moral opposition to the proposal led to its rejection,” he said.

Continue reading post on the Great Beyond

See a summary of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences Report describing issues around chimera research.

Also, a Lutheran divinity scholar making a theological case for chimeras

Posted by Monya Baker on January 14, 2009
Categories: Ethics, Funding and Resources, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPCC) decided that Burnham Institute President violated conflict-of-interest rules by writing a letter to the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine appealing a decision that an affiliate of his institute was ineligible for funding.

CIRM did not change its decision, but John Reed was a member of CIRM’s governing board at the time, and the FPCC concluded that Reed violated rules by attempting to use his official position to influence a “prior-made government decision that could not be appealed.”

This ends an investigation that was launched over a year ago at the request of CIRM watchdog, John Simpson. “I hope Dr. Reed and all members of the board have learned from this,” Simpson said in a statement. Though Simpson had previously called on Reed to resign, he says it would now be acceptable for Reed to rejoin the Institute’s 29-member board. Simpson's organization, Consumer Watchdog has posted a copy of the FPCC letter.

Based on its analysis of the situation, the FPCC concluded that “although the matter raises ethical concerns, we are closing the matter with a warning letter.” It also stated that failure to comply with the rules in future could result in fines of $5,000 per violation.

A statement from Robert Klein, head of CIRM’s governing board, said that the FPCC’s decision supported his belief that the violation of rules was inadvertent.

After the complaint became public, both Reed and Klein said that sending the letter was a mistake. At a public hearing in November 2007, Klein attributed the mistake to growing pains of a new agency, and Simpson called on both Klein and Reed to resign, saying they had shown poor judgment.

As usual, Teri Somers has a clear account in the San Diego Tribune.

Posted by Monya Baker on January 12, 2009
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The New York Times has a story out today about highlighting a study that shows that couples who have embryos in storage generally don’t want them to become someone else’s children.

Last year, the lead researcher of this work, published results in Science that surveyed couples who were undergoing fertility treatments and found that 49% of over 1000 couples with stored embryos said they would donate embryos for medical research. Interestingly 60% were willing if a purpose of research, like making stem cells, was given. (See Survey: US couples willing to donate embryos) The lastest publication is in Fertility and Sterility and is summarized in a press release from Duke.

Meanwhile, Geoff Lomax at CIRM told me the Institute is working out a mechanism to figure out if various embryonic stem cell lines as well as induced pluripotent stem cell lines have been acceptably derived. In short, officials there are preparing a very, very carefully thought out registration form about how a line was derived so that CIRM (and presumably other states) can decide that it can be used in research. There are check boxes for whether and how informed consent was obtained for gametes, embryos, and tissue, as well as whether donors received any sort of payment. The goal of a single, simple form is to take some of the paperwork and guesswork out of deciding what lines researchers can use in experiments. (Lomax said he’s happy to read suggestions sent to Glomax[at]cirm.ca.gov; please send them in by Friday, December 12th; this Fri.)

A related discussion(free after registration) is underway in response to an article by University of Wisconsin-Madison bioethicist Robert Streiffer, which made headlines (subscription) for his analysis that some lines on the NIH Stem Cell Registry (those that the President declared eligible for federal funding) were obtained without informed consent.
This kind of work Lomax is doing reminds me of what Streiffer told me when I interviewed him months ago: it’s not just science that advances in response to experience, so do standards of informed consent. (See When the past catches up with the present for reaction to worries that the NIH did not properly evaluate informed consent.)

Posted by Monya Baker on December 05, 2008
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A study in Cell Stem Cell finds that web sites that offer stem cell treatments over the Internet make lots of bogus claims, and the leading organization of stem cell scientists has issued a patient handbook of questions to ask potential providers, plus guidelines for the clinical translation of stem cells.

We have an excellent commentary that explores the issue from the view of various stakeholders including patients, providers, regulators, and scientists. It’s written by Doug Sipp of RIKEN in Japan and Sorapop Kiatpongsan of Harvard and Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University. Here is the NatureNews story.

This feature charts dilemmas faced by practitioners and patient advocates.
Stem cell researchers face down stem cell tourism

This news story includes opinions from diverse members of the task force and others in the community.
Stem cell society condemns unproven treatments

Links to a story in the popular press and a draft of a news story is below.

Continue reading "Stopping snake-oil stem cell treatments" »

Posted by Monya Baker on December 03, 2008
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Stem cell researchers have a new worry. What happens if the cell-based therapies actually work? “We could have a cure, but there might be a backlash, because we aren’t ready to the economic impact of that ability.” That’s the question that John Wagner asked the 900 or so attendees at a stem cell meeting in Madison, Wisconsin.

It’s a problem that I’d heard before, but from social equality activists who did not feed cells or treat patients. Now, that worry is being posed by practicing scientists. The argument that the World Stem Cell Summit is about research advocacy and infrastructure simply doesn’t hold. The topic came just last week at a meeting designed for scientists to address other scientists.

I hadn’t seen it coming. I was moderating a panel of prominent scientists (Alan Trounson, Arnold Kriegstein, Christine Mummery, Larry Goldstein), and as a soft-ball final question I asked what issues the field would have to address in the future. How society could pay for therapies came up again and again.

I’m puzzled. Is this a sign that scientists and social activists are interacting in new ways. Funding from patient advocacy groups is now essential for many scientists to run their own labs. Is this a sign that researchers believe the therapies can work? Certainly the hurdles are getting more and more detailed, and we’re hearing more emphasis on more-immediate applications of stem cells, such as disease modeling and patient screening.

It’s becoming a truism that for stem cell therapies to work, there will need to be more collaboration between academics, clinicians, patients, regulators, and industry. Now, health care payers and activists may get added to that list.

Here are all three blogs from the conference

Companies have company

Stem cell trials balancing hope and harm

Stem cell therapies, ready for success?

Posted by Monya Baker on September 22, 2008
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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

Posted by Monya Baker on August 02, 2008
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UPDATE: When reporting this last week, I was told that Stanford had made a decision to disallow certain lines but had not announced it. On Monday, I received a note that Stanford had not reached a final decision. Please see the end of the blog for this full notice.

Research oversight committees across the country will need to rethink what experiments they will allow on human embryonic stem cell lines, following revelations that several lines eligible for federal funding do not meet standards of informed consent. Stanford University has decided not to allow experiments to be conducted on five of the 21 lines approved for federal funding, according to some prvy to the school's oversight committee. The official announcement should come once affected scientists have been notified.

The analysis follows research by University of Wisconsin bioethicist Robert Strieffer, who published his analysis of informed consent forms in the Hastings Center Report this May. In 2001, President George Bush declared that federal monies could only be used to support research on embryonic stem cell lines that had been derived before his declaration and that came from donated embryos originally created for reproduction.

Continue reading "Some NIH Registry Lines Fall Outside Informed Consent Guidelines" »

Posted by Monya Baker on July 25, 2008
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The scientist that helped clone Dolly the sheep has moved away from cloning and toward making embryonic-like stem cells without eggs. The shift is described in an article and interview in Scientific American. Wilmut (and others) think that iPS cells might one day replace ES cells for clinical applications and drug-testing applications, but no one thinks that day is now here. Bits of the SciAm articles are floating around the blogosphere, but these (willfully?) strip away some of the nuances, so it’s worth reading the full articles from the source. I also think that the article conflated and neglected a few ideas, which I’ll outline below.

Continue reading "Ian Wilmut's move from cloning: getting practical with iPS" »

Posted by Monya Baker on July 23, 2008
Categories: Ethics, Reprogramming/Pluripotency | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The California scientists most likely to receive state grants for making new cell lines were those who proposed comparing embryonic stem cell lines and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines. Overall, thirty-two percent of all grant applications (16 of 50) were funded. Four of the five grants that proposed comparisons got funds. The unfunded grant application crossed into less favored categories, as it also proposed making lines from parthenotes and through nuclear transfer. None of the grant applications that sought to make cell lines using human oocytes were funded. Two proposed cloning through nuclear transfer, one proposed stimulating unfertilized eggs to divide into parthenotes, and one application proposed using both methods.

Success rates for grants proposing the derivation of only ES or only iPS cells were each 33%, but there were twice as many grants for iPS cells. That’s astounding considering that the grant program was announced in October 2007, a month before the first publications that human cells could be successfully reprogrammed.

Four proposals to make pluripotent lines using cells derived from the placenta, testes, or amniotic fluid were rejected. But a proposal to make spermatagonial stem cells, ES cells, and iPS cells was funded and highly praised, with reviewers particularly keen to see a comparison of iPS and spermatagonial stem cells from the same individual.

Continue reading "What got funded: statistics on California’s new stem cell line grants" »

Posted by Monya Baker on July 02, 2008
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The ISSCR today condemned unproven stem-cell treatments that are not designed to learn and report information and that are conducted without oversight, particularly if patients are charged for advertised medical services. Originally a task force within the ISSCR was supposed to release a draft of guidelines on Thursday. After disagreements about how specific the guidelines should be and how stringent a tone to take, the group decided instead to announce over-arching principles at its annual meeting.
The ISSCR particularly condemns giving unproven treatments that are advertised as medical services for paying patients. In fact, instead of stem-cell treatment, the preferred term is “stem-cell based intervention” because the term “treatment” denotes benefit.
See Stem cell scientists face down stem cell tourism
The guidelines will be very broad, basically laying out how to decide when stem-cell product is ready to be tested in people. They will cover how cells should be processed and characterized, what pre-clinical evidence should be collected, how strong the case against risk and for benefit should be, how patients should be informed. They should also consider who research stands to benefit society as a whole.

Continue reading "Stem-cell society condemns undocumented human treatments without oversight" »

Posted by Monya Baker on June 12, 2008
Categories: Clinical trials, Ethics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“Now we have the technology that can make a cloned child” reads the headline of the most-read article in the Independent right now. But the article does not actually break any news, nor does it use the common method of cloning; rather it discusses a well-understood implication of that recent reprogramming breakthroughs might yield yet another weird way of making a baby.

If a technician wanted to do this, here’s how it would work: First, cells would be gathered from an existing human, probably through a skin biopsy. Second, these cells would be reprogrammed to an embryonic like state. (Current techniques to do this require engineered viruses to insert copies of genes into the reprogrammed cells. This makes the cells’ behavior less predictable and more prone to form tumours, but many scientists believe that new reprogramming techniques will soon be available that don’t require genetic modification.) Next, the reprogrammed cells would be merged with an early stage embryo, created by sperm fusing with egg in a laboratory dish. The “chimeric” embryo would be cultured for a few days and then implanted into a woman. If a baby was born, he or she would contain cells from two genetic individuals: the embryo and the human who supplied the cells. The baby would have three parents: two who gave the gametes for the embryo, one who gave the cells from a biopsy. (Such an individual would not be a clone. However, it is feasible that the chimeric embryo could be manipulated such that the original embryo only forms placenta and the reprogrammed cells form the body. This has been accomplished with mixtures mouse embryonic stem cells and mouse embryos, but not with mixtures of reprogrammed mouse cells and mouse embryos. )

The results of some quick internet research suggests that using human iPS cells this way would not be allowed: In the UK, creating or using embryos outside the body requires a special license from the government, so I’d guess that permission would need to happen proactively. The US lacks legislation on reproductive cloning, though some individual states ban it. Australia distinguishes between research embryos (created through technical manipulation or by mixing genes from three or more people) and reproductive embryos (created through fusion of sperm and egg) and allows only reproductive embryos to used to create an embryo. A document dated to 2004 from Japan banned, among other things, the creation of chimeric human-human embryos for research.

Continue reading "Cloning by reprogramming?" »

Posted by Monya Baker on April 15, 2008
Categories: Cloning, Ethics, Reprogramming/Pluripotency | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Newcastle University says researchers led by Lyle Armstrong have made hybrid embryos containing material from cows and humans. The announcement comes just as the government gears up on whether or not the creation of such embryos should be legal. Newcastle University, which already had approval for the research from UK regulatory authorities, decided to push forward so the research would not risk being stalled by an upcoming vote in the House of Commons, reports the BBC.

The embryos lived for three days, and were not used to make embryonic stem cells, according to that report. They were made by putting human DNA into cow eggs after the cow chromosomes had been removed. Scientists argue that such procedures are valuable both to understand how embryos develop, to develop better techniques for making embryonic stem cell lines, and to develop more useful embryonic stem cells. The hybrid embryos cannot, by law, be allowed to develop for more than two weeks, when some precursors of nerve tissue develops. The first reported human-animal chimeras combined human nuclei with rabbit eggs; other chimeric animals have been made as well. Here’s an old summary. Here’s a newer one.

See Nature Reports Stem Cells commentary on a scientific argument for chimeras by Ian Wilmut , a theological argument for chimeras by Ted Peters, and an argument against creating and destroying embryos for research by Markus Grompe. We also summarized the UK Academy of Medical Sciences’ report on this issue.

The UK press has been roiling with accusations by the Catholic Church that the work is monstrous. Scientists have responded that the Church is misrepresenting the science and have offered to meet with religious officials. For a recent example, see the New Stateman.

Newcastle has a history of dramatically announcing accomplishments before work appears in the peer-reviewed literature. In February, they announced the creation of embryos using material from three people. See Erika Check Hayden’s article in Nature News.

The Science Media Centre has already released statements of scientists’ responding to the news, all saying that they lack data to assess research. Here are those statements:

Continue reading "Brits report making hybrid cow-human embryo" »

Posted by Monya Baker on April 01, 2008
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The former head of President Bush’s council on bioethics, now says there shouldn’t be a ban against cloning human embryos for research. Instead, there should be a five-year moratorium against the process. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Leon Kass decries the fact that the US Congress did not pass a law blocking all forms of human cloning, and then says that this stricter form of the law is unnecessary now that researchers can turn to alternate ways of reprogramming.

Instead, he argues for a law that would ban “all attempts to conceive a child save by the union of egg and sperm (both taken from adults).” That’s because the new reprogramming techniques mean that a skin cell could generate egg and sperm cells, whether taken from a man or a woman (or a boy or a girl, for that matter).

Embryos created for the purposes of research would not be outlawed, but instead banned for four or five years as researchers are given more funds to perfect the reprogramming techniques. He does not rebut, because he does not raise, the argument that stopping work the creation of embryos for research through somatic cell nuclear transfer will delay efforts to prefect reprogramming techniques.

Kass writes “Cloning for the purpose of biomedical research has lost its chief scientific raison d'être” (i.e. making a pluripotent cell line genetically matched to a patient.) That’s because it will probably be much easier to reprogram whole cells from adult biopsies than it will be to pull out an adult cell’s nucleus, plop it into a donated egg, grow that “reconstituted embryo” to a blastocyst and make embryonic stem cells.

Kass is probably right, but he fails to mention two caveats.

First, while many scientists are hopeful that so-called induced pluripotent stem cells will really behave like embryonic stem cells, they still aren’t sure. Possibly, a reprogrammed skin cell could be coaxed into a pancreas cell or a heart cell, transplanted, and then “remember” that it started out as a skin cell. Also, no one wants to use the current technique (using viruses to insert genes at random places in the cells’ chromosomes) to make cells that would actually get put into people. Those are serious problems, but most scientists think they can be overcome.

Second, and more important, many scientists think that to understand how reprogramming works with viruses, they have to understand how reprogramming works in an egg. Most people think that requires transferring adult nuclei into eggs or early embryos, and trying to figure out what happens.

Just a little quibble: Kass says that recent success by Stemagen in cloning a human blastocyst depended on the technique that Shoukhrat Mitalipov’s team in Oregon used to clone monkey blastocysts to make embryonic stem cells . Actually, Stemagen did not use this technique but credits its success not with a new technique but with a supply of high quality eggs.

Posted by Monya Baker on February 21, 2008
Categories: Cloning, Ethics, Policy, Reprogramming/Pluripotency | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My post on Inconsistent Christianity prompted this reply from Jessica Kolman, our office manager and art researcher:

In reading your entry about inconsistent Christian views on reprogramming, I can’t help thinking that one reason for the inconsistencies is that so few people actually know what the facts are. Your entry cites the garbling of facts, but it may be that the facts are more garbled in the mind of the average American than this small example indicates. I’m not saying I’m any better—I don’t have a scientific background or claim to understand an iota of technical detail. I only recently learned that an embryo is a bundle of cells that haven’t become tissues of the body yet, and until then, I thought “embryo” was a little dude with a big head and spots where the eyes will go. I’m increasingly convinced that a large segment of the public thinks that, too. Even Richard Dawkins, in his book “The God Delusion,” constantly refers to “embryos” in the context of abortions. I suspect the renowned biologist does know the difference between an embryo and a fetus, but he is pro-choice, so he disingenuously uses “embryo” to make abortion seem less distressing. Similarly, there may be ES cell research opponents who subtly conflate the two, in order to make embryonic research seem more distressing.

Continue reading "Blurring embryo-fetus distinctions disingenuous" »

Posted by Monya Baker on January 28, 2008
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In the wake of UK’s green light to create human-animal embryos, scientists are protesting a bulletin from a Catholics Bishops Conference. The accusations hurled include “blatant inaccuracy” and “a radical violation of the truth.”

The technique that the Catholic Church highlights in its objections--combining human sperm and animal eggs—has nothing to do with using animal eggs to make human embryonic stem cells. (For that you swap out the nucleus in an animal egg with a human nucleus so that the elixir in the egg can elicit reprogramming.)

What both sides failed to say is that making sperm-egg chimeric embryos has actually been around and legal for decades as a means of assessing sperm’s viability, though it’s not done much now. Any fertilized eggs must be destroyed by the two-cell stage. (Try googling “hamster egg test”) The use of this test has been used to argue that making other sorts of human-animal embryos is ethical.

When the accusations are flying, everyone should still set out the facts.

Kudos to the Anglicans, who seem to me to have done a pretty good job of both explaining the science and their objections to the research. On the Lutheran side, a theological argument for chimeras also does an accurate job with the science.

Posted by Monya Baker on January 25, 2008
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I’ve been reading the coverage on making embryonic-like stem cells without embryos in the religious press, and two quotes going through my mind, both sarcastic. One is “Shocked! Shocked!” (from Casablanca) and the other is “Oh, Lord! Make me pure, but not just yet.” (from St. Augustine).

Continue reading "Inconsistent Christian views on reprogramming" »

Posted by Monya Baker on January 22, 2008
Categories: Ethics, Reprogramming/Pluripotency | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The regulatory body that approves all research on human eggs has just been given the green light for the production of chimeras.
Here is the article from the AP. The idea is that, with human eggs in short supply, researchers should be allowed to practice techniques on more readily available animal eggs. Also, several researchers believe the process can answer questions about how and to what extent an egg resets a nucleus from an adult cell into an embryonic state.

Ian Wilmut (who cloned Dolly the Sheep) put for the scientific rationale for chimeras last year. It’s called Man or beast? Man and beast!

Nature Reports has several related articles.

A summary of the UK Academy of Medical Science’s position paper on human-animal chimeras

In a research highlight, the scientist who cloned frogs has studied how nuclei in cloned embryos remember the differentiated cells they came from.

Following the finding that, at least in mice, fertilized eggs could be used for cloning, we looked at the implications for humans and at the power of the egg to reprogram.

Also, an article on successful monkey cloning showed the necessity of good technique.

And recent news coverage describes advances in cloning human embryos from adult cells.

Posted by Monya Baker on January 18, 2008
Categories: Cloning, Ethics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A front-page story in the San Francisco Chronicle describes a new service parents can opt for when getting in vitro fertilization services. Instead of storing, donating, or discarding unimplanted embryos, would-be parents can pay to have these embryos used to make stem cell lines.
This would create stem cell lines that would be the genetic siblings to any of a couple’s children.

The company offering this service, StemLifeLine, says over a dozen families have participated as subjects or paying customers.

Continue reading "My sister, the stem-cell line" »

Posted by Monya Baker on October 29, 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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Bob Lanza, scientific head of ACT, says he's generated three embryonic stem cell lines without destroying embryos. These would be the first embryonic stem cell lines ever made where an embryo wasn't destroyed. In fact, he's waiting to see if the NIH will fund research on these lines on the grounds that, since no embryo was destroyed, these lines should be eligible for federal grants. Other scientists at the meeting are skeptical. They say they need to see data.

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Posted by Monya Baker on June 20, 2007
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