Judge denies lawsuit to stop embryo destruction

Citing other legal rulings that embryos aren't "persons" under the law, a Federal judge (report, here ) denied the right of others to sue on their behalf or to sue to save them from being destroyed under new rules at the National Institutes of Health.

I've said it before: "law" does not a person make. "Person" is an artificial designation, made up by people who want to decrease the numbers of humans who have the right to live and by lawyers who want to control which entities (such as corporations) have "rights" bequeathed by law. Females are not "persons" in Arab nations like Saudi Arabia.

Texas Legislators Seek to Limit Funds for Human Embryo Destruction

Senator Steve Ogden is a Texas Hero!

Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, though, said critics exaggerate what his 24-word "budget rider" would do. He said it simply assures that the budget's $700 million for research doesn't underwrite destruction of embryos.

"There is a significant moral concern amongst many Texans that a human embryo really meets every scientific definition of human life that's out there and that we shouldn't be using human embryos for scientific experiments," Ogden said.

The dispute flared early last week. The Senate Finance Committee, which Ogden heads, took only two minutes late Monday to consider his rider. It says, "No funds appropriated under this act shall be used in conjunction with or to support research which involves the destruction of a human embryo."

The provision was adopted, 6-5, with Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, joining four Democrats against.

The Dallas Morning News reports (free registration required) that some Texas embryonic research advocates claim this move will "embarrass" Texas. Of course, they also claim that embryonic stem cell research only involves "embryos that would be discarded, any way" Since we know that much of the research involves specially created, "disease specific" embryos, the latter is false.

And so is the first objection. Every week, we are reading about new ways to reprogram adult cells to achieve the stem cells that are needed to study and treat disease without ever going near an embryo. Former proponents of embryonic research and producers of new embryos for stem cell research like George Daley are switching their focus toward non-embryonic research. Texas researchers have been early stars in this research, among the first to using umbilical cord blood for stem cell research.

Texas doesn't need to waste our money following the false trail of embryonic stem cell research when there is so much promise in more treatments, sooner, from non-destructive and non-embryonic research.

Human-animal embryos don't work for stem cell production

The New Scientist has a good review article that explains a new research report from Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, that attempts with "thousands" of embryos created by placing human DNA into the oocytes or eggs of animals have failed to produce stem cells. NatureNews, the news arm of the journal, Nature discusses the report, here.

The abstract of the article, "Reprogramming of Human Somatic Cells Using Human and Animal Oocytes" published in Cloning and Stem Cells, is available here. The list of researchers is very long and they are from several different laboratories.

Each of the news articles above includes statements from researchers who do not believe that human-animal cloned embryos are a dead-end for stem cell researchers. However, the confirmation of the outcome from several labs, with different researchers, is strong evidence that it is unlikely that this technique is a reasonable way to produce "patient specific" stem cells - those that are an exact match for the donor of the DNA.

I have not read the actual article, yet, but from the news articles and the abstract, it appears that the "cybrids" do express the genes of the donor DNA and are clones of the donor. However, while enucleated human oocytes are able to reprogram the DNA of the donor to result in embryos that divide to the stage at which it is possible to harvest embryonic stem cells, the emptied eggs of cows and rabbits do not. The cybrids only divide to about the 16 cell stage and do not turn on the genes responsible for pleuripotency, or "stem-cell-ness."

See my Update, written after I read the report.

The Stem Cell Debate Heats Up

Here's a great review about those new "induced pleuripotent stem cells" (iPS) we've been hearing about. iPS's are truly "patient specific stem cells" since they come from the patient himself or herself. The cells are manipulated in the lab, using viral particles and specific environments to make the able to become many different types of cells.

It would be very difficult, in my opinion, to make these cells become embryos, with all the structures that would allow them to function as individual organisms. From what I understand, the cells return to a state that allows them to become tissues with several different types of cells and cell groups, but they are never organized.

In my opinion (again), the induction process can't be more of a problem than the risk of immune rejection and the manipulations that embryos derived from In Vitro fertilization go through or the changes that are bound to be inherent with cloned cells derived through Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. On the other hand, volunteers and tissue samples for IPC experiments ought to be abundant.

And no one has to die for it.

Stem cell video collection

Here's a video featuring Scotland's Dr. Colin McGuckin, who has been doing research on cord blood stem cells. Dr. McGuckin has worked with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and NASA to produce embryonic-like stem cells from umbilical cord blood cells. His lab has gone on to stimulate those embryonic-like stem cells - that no one had to die for - into functional liver cells, masses of liver cells and pancreatic cells that produce insulin and the other hormones vital to the regulation of diabetes.

The video is part of a collection on YouTube, by "Stem cells that work." Visit the YouTube page with great collection of videos about stem cells, including the excellent 50 minute "Google" video, "Everything you wanted to know about stem cells."

Lee Silver: iPCs named due to politics

Lee Silver, author of is someone that I've read about on the 'net and about whom Robert George and Patrick Lee said, "He hides his ideology under a veneer of science."


He was the guest on Carl Zimmerman's Bloggingheads.tv November 30, discussing reprogrammed skin cells.

Dr. Lee is convinced that if a couple of more labs reproduce the reprogramming (and others have since, Jaenisch and Yamanaka's lab have already published follow-up results), then reprogramming will probably be the way we get embryonic stem cells, rather than by destruction of embryos.

However, he claims that the naming of the cells "induced Pluripotent Stem cells" or iPC's is a political move to hide either the fact that the opponents of embryo-destructive research are being fooled or being hypocrites.

From the thread following the interview:

Actually, human ES cells (unlike mouse ES cells) are perfectly capable of differentiating into trophoblast (Nature Biotech 20:1261; 2002). Why do you think this isn't common knowledge? (Hint: politics) And mouse ES cells can be turned into whole mice quite efficiently with a technique that does NOT involve blastocyst injection or tetraploid embryos (Nature Biotech 25:91; 2007). Concerning your next post, how do you know what the intent was behind naming these cells iPS cells?

. . .

The question is whether continued research will soon get us to the point where fibroblasts cells can be transformed into cells that are completely indistinguishable from human ES cells, with the potential to form every human cell type (including, eventually, blastomeres which could, in theory, develop into babies without any further "tinkering"). With all of the accomplishments of the last ten years, it is very hard to imagine that this won't be possible. The ONLY reason to doubt it is based on a religious-inspired faith that there is something FUNDAMENTALLY different between blastomeres and ES cells.

So now, it's a religious opinion that there's some difference between blastomeres and ESCs?

Hat Tip to The Daily Transcript at ScienceBlogs.

Embryonic Stem Cells in humans?

There are stories about embryonic stem cells being used by a doctor in India, Dr. Geeta Shroff who works at in vitro fertilization clinic. Dr. Shroff has not published her work at Nu Tech Mediworld, will not allow other researchers to examine her cells, cultures or techniques, and the research was rejected by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). According to this article from the UK's Guardian, Dr. Shroff is a fertility specialist who became famous for a technique allowing the determination of a baby's sex without a scan or amniocentesis. (It's illegal to check on the baby's sex in India, now, because of the numbers of baby girls who were aborted in that country.)

Wise Young, M.D., Ph.D. is an expert from the W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgersin treatment and research on Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and he is my hero because he runs a bulletin board for people from all over the world who are looking for hope for their SCI. Dr. Wise and I disagree on embryonic stem cell research, but we do agree on this woman's methods:

1. There is no evidence that Dr. Schroff is injecting embryonic stem cells. The fact that she is so secretive about the cells after having done 150 patients suggests that she in fact is not injecting embryonic stem cells. Why not show the cells and describe them? She does not describe how she pre-differentiates the cells, if at all, before transplantation. The lack of such information is very suspicious.

2. I wonder how much Dr. Shroff knows about spinal cord injury and how rigorous she has been in examining the patients, whether the patients were incomplete or complete before the surgery. She probably assumes that no patients walk after spinal cord injury.

3. The fact that this "works" on every disease that she has tried it on is also very suspicious. There is no such thing as a universal treatment.

There's this long thread at "Care Cures" concerning young people who have had the doctor's "shots" over the last two years. Look at the last 5 pages, with stories from people who believe the treatment is a scam.

Dr. Shroff says that she experimented on embryos donated to her by patients at her IVF clinic and that one of those embryos yielded what she calls a very successful line that she has been using in patients. The patients say that they receive shots of the stem cells over months, while they undergo therapy at the clinic.

There's not much information on the Web, nothing at all at the National Library of Medicine listing of scientific and medical research, the National Biotechnology Information Center, Pub Med, and no listed articles by Dr. Schroff or clinic websites that can be found with a Google search, just a few stories from individuals and a few news articles.


Here's the website of a woman, Amanda, who received treatment in India in August, 2007. one from the Skye news service about a woman from Australia. This article from the Australian "60 minutes," has a discussion with another researcher, Hans Keirstead, Ph.D., who is described as a "wiz-kid" associated with the Christopher Reeve Foundation at the University of California-Irving, who has published quite a bit of basic research in animals with embryonic stem cells and who claims that Dr. Shroff is unethical for using humans as her "guinea pigs."

Translation of "Induced Pluripotent (Human) Stem Cells"

Please see the revised version of this post, published November 30, 2007.

A brief history of cloning

Steve Connor of the The Independent, from Britain, tells us the history of cloning.

But first, the "good news:"

A technical breakthrough has enabled scientists to create for the first time dozens of cloned embryos from adult monkeys, raising the prospect of the same procedure being used to make cloned human embryos.

Attempts to clone human embryos for research have been dogged by technical problems and controversies over fraudulent research and questionable ethics. But the new technique promises to revolutionise the efficiency by which scientists can turn human eggs into cloned embryos.

It is the first time that scientists have been able to create viable cloned embryos from an adult primate – in this case a 10-year-old male rhesus macaque monkey – and they are scheduled to report their findings later this month.

The scientists will also demonstrate that they have been able to extract stem cells from some of the cloned embryos and that they have managed to encourage these embryonic cells to develop in the laboratory into mature heart cells and brain neurons.

Scientists who know of the research said it was the breakthrough that they had all been waiting for because, until now, there was a growing feeling that there might be some insuperable barrier to creating cloned embryos from adult primates – including humans.
*****

The Oregon team, working with a group in China, has so far produced about 100 cloned embryos that have been transferred into around 50 female macaques, but none has resulted in a full-term pregnancy, he said.

"It's possible that we're still just having bad luck. We're producing may be one in 20 or one in 30 cloned blastocysts that are 'normal' and capable of producing a pregnancy and we just haven't got them into the animal recipient at the right time to allow implantation and pregnancy to occur," Professor Wolf said.

"The focus now is going to be on therapeutic cloning and using the non-human primate as a paradigm for therapeutic cloning for what you might be able to do clinically," he said.

"We're the first to do it, although it's a tainted subject because of the fraudulent research that came out of South Korea. One can never be sure but there may be some validity to what the South Koreans did. But this would now be the first documented therapeutic cloning in a primate," he added.

A brief history of cloning

The monkey-cloning technique is the same basic procedure that resulted in Dolly the sheep. The nucleus of a healthy, unfertilised egg is removed and another nucleus from the mature skin cell of an adult animal is placed inside the egg. With careful timing and the use of electrical pulses, an embryo can be created which is a genetic clone of the skin tissue donor. It is possible to implant embryos created in this way into the womb to produce cloned animals. This so-called 'reproductive cloning' of humans is illegal in Britain and many other countries. However it has been applied to a range of animal species, including:

* Cow: Many domestic cattle have been successfully cloned. First attempt to clone an endangered species was Noah, a rare gaur ox, which was cloned in the US in 2001 but died 48 hours after birth

* Mouse: Cumulina was a common brown house mouse, cloned from adult cells at the University of Hawaii in 1997. She survived to adulthood and produced two litters, before dying in May 2000

* Horse: Called Prometea, the first cloned horse, born in Italy in May 2003

* Cat: A kitten called CopyCat was born in 2002 in Texas, and gave birth to three kittens by a natural father in September 2006

* Dog: Snuppy, born in South Korea. Doubts about its authenticity were dispelled by DNA tests. The group has also cloned two wolf cubs, called Snuwolf and Snuwolffy using the same procedure. Cloned Afghan hounds named Bona, Peace and Hope have also been born.

Saletan stirs up bioethics, blog

Wesley Smith's "Secondhand Smoke" and Science Blog's "Denialism Blog" both comment on William Saletan's latest Slate column, "Rights and Wrongs: Liberals, progressives, and biotechnology."

I have to admit, that while I find Saletan slightly disorganized at times, he manages to make quite a few people disagree with him, and does it so well.

You need to read the actual Saletan piece, as well as the comments on the two blogs.

For what it's worth, here's part of my contribution to the conversation at the "Denialism Blog," where Mark Hoofnagle, an MD/Ph.D student, proves that we shouldn't "mistake denialism for debate:"

You obviously feel very strongly that there's some quality in humanity that can be diminished, but you continue to mix "defining life" with a request to define the characteristics that you personally believe constitute "humanity" or a "person."

Let's begin from the assumption that whatever it is that you feel can be diminished in humanity or that can cause you moral repugnance doesn't come from a religious belief. Perhaps it's empathy, imagination or simple learning from the history of humanity.

There's a distinction between the cell produced by fertilization (a more accurate term than "conception"), parthenogenesis, or the various ways to reprogram somatic cells and other cells or groups of cells. It's the same organization and integrated functioning that is lost at whole brain death with current technology. That's why you work with embryos rather than gametes, and why Lee Silver's comment about teratomas is incorrect.

History tells us - this thread reinforces - that when we begin with one point of discrimination allowing intentional acts that disrupt the life span of an individual or groups of individuals, the lines of demarcation are "fuzzy."

By the way, is that "William" who posted a comment, the William, Saletan himself?

Non-destructive embryonic stem cells

It's all over the web (here and here, at the "news@nature.com" site,for instance), three separate labs have been able to reproduce embryonic stem cells by "reprogramming" adult cells from skin.

Much of the commentary is like Art Caplan's comments quoted in the first (Blog.bioethics.net) link above. Paraphrased, the bulk of the "mainstream remarks include, "It's only in mice, and they had to used viral vectors." Well, if you will look at all the much-hyped embryonic "break-throughs," you will see that they are "only in mice" and many of them "used viral vectors."


Caplan, who notes the coincidental timing with legislation in Washington and who chronically sees bioethics through a political lens, couldn't pass up the chance for a rant on "embryos are not people." When I was an embryo, it was close enough for me - and my Mama. I actually agree with Art Caplan's comment that ". . . ditching embryos and jumping to fund alternatives is not the right response to this fascinating news about mouse cells." The reason we won't fund embryonic stem cell research requiring the distruction of human embryos is not because we have an alternative source. It's because we won't fund research that depends on the destruction of embryonic humans.

The abstracts for two of the articles are published on the Nature advance publication online page. (I don't yet have access to the third, in Cell's Stem Cell journal.

Nature advance online publication 6 June 2007 | doi:10.1038/nature05934; Received 6 February 2007; Accepted 22 May 2007; Published online 6 June 2007

Generation of germline-competent induced pluripotent stem cells
Keisuke Okita1, Tomoko Ichisaka1,2 & Shinya Yamanaka1,2
1. Department of Stem Cell Biology, Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan
2. CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi 332-0012, Japan
Correspondence to: Shinya Yamanaka1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.Y. (Email: yamanaka@frontier.kyoto-u.ac.jp).

We have previously shown that pluripotent stem cells can be induced from mouse fibroblasts by retroviral introduction of Oct3/4 (also called Pou5f1), Sox2, c-Myc and Klf4, and subsequent selection for Fbx15 (also called Fbxo15) expression. These induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells (hereafter called Fbx15 iPS cells) are similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells in morphology, proliferation and teratoma formation; however, they are different with regards to gene expression and DNA methylation patterns, and fail to produce adult chimaeras. Here we show that selection for Nanog expression results in germline-competent iPS cells with increased ES-cell-like gene expression and DNA methylation patterns compared with Fbx15 iPS cells. The four transgenes (Oct3/4, Sox2, c-myc and Klf4) were strongly silenced in Nanog iPS cells. We obtained adult chimaeras from seven Nanog iPS cell clones, with one clone being transmitted through the germ line to the next generation. Approximately 20% of the offspring developed tumours attributable to reactivation of the c-myc transgene. Thus, iPS cells competent for germline chimaeras can be obtained from fibroblasts, but retroviral introduction of c-Myc should be avoided for clinical application.
Although ES cells are promising donor sources in cell transplantation therapies1, they face immune rejection after transplantation and there are ethical issues regarding the usage of human embryos. These concerns may be overcome if pluripotent stem cells can be directly derived from patients' somatic cells2. We have previously shown that iPS cells can be generated from mouse fibroblasts by retrovirus-mediated introduction of four transcription factors (Oct3/4 (refs 3, 4), Sox2 (ref. 5), c-Myc (ref. 6) and Klf4 (ref. 7)) and by selection for Fbx15 expression8. Fbx15 iPS cells, however, have different gene expression and DNA methylation patterns compared with ES cells and do not contribute to adult chimaeras. We proposed that the incomplete reprogramming might be due to the selection for Fbx15 expression, and that by using better selection markers, we might be able to generate more ES-cell-like iPS cells. We decided to use Nanog as a candidate of such markers.
Although both Fbx15 and Nanog are targets of Oct3/4 and Sox2 (refs 9–11), Nanog is more tightly associated with pluripotency. In contrast to Fbx15-null mice and ES cells that barely show abnormal phenotypes9, disruption of Nanog in mice results in loss of the pluripotent epiblast12. Nanog-null ES cells can be established, but they tend to differentiate spontaneously12. Forced expression of Nanog renders ES cells independent of leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF) for self-renewal12, 13 and confers increased reprogramming efficiency after fusion with somatic cells14. These results prompted us to propose that if we use Nanog as a selection marker, we might be able to obtain iPS cells displaying a greater similarity to ES cells.

and

Article Nature advance online publication 6 June 2007 | doi:10.1038/nature05944; Received 27 February 2007; Accepted 22 May 2007; Published online 6 June 2007

In vitro reprogramming of fibroblasts into a pluripotent ES-cell-like state

Marius Wernig1,6, Alexander Meissner1,6, Ruth Foreman1,2,6, Tobias Brambrink1,6, Manching Ku3,6, Konrad Hochedlinger1,7, Bradley E. Bernstein3,4,5 & Rudolf Jaenisch1,2
1. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and,
2. Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
3. Molecular Pathology Unit and Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA
4. Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
5. Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
6. These authors contributed equally to this work.
7. Present address: Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02414, USA.
Correspondence to: Rudolf Jaenisch1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to R.J. (Email: jaenisch@wi.mit.edu).

Nuclear transplantation can reprogramme a somatic genome back into an embryonic epigenetic state, and the reprogrammed nucleus can create a cloned animal or produce pluripotent embryonic stem cells. One potential use of the nuclear cloning approach is the derivation of 'customized' embryonic stem (ES) cells for patient-specific cell treatment, but technical and ethical considerations impede the therapeutic application of this technology. Reprogramming of fibroblasts to a pluripotent state can be induced in vitro through ectopic expression of the four transcription factors Oct4 (also called Oct3/4 or Pou5f1), Sox2, c-Myc and Klf4. Here we show that DNA methylation, gene expression and chromatin state of such induced reprogrammed stem cells are similar to those of ES cells. Notably, the cells—derived from mouse fibroblasts—can form viable chimaeras, can contribute to the germ line and can generate live late-term embryos when injected into tetraploid blastocysts. Our results show that the biological potency and epigenetic state of in-vitro-reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells are indistinguishable from those of ES cells.

Hiatus (Over, I hope)

I haven't been blogging - I've been lobbying and working, instead. Whether in Austin or at work, my access to the blog is spotty. And I worried that anything I wrote might get in the way of some bills we were fighting for.

Unfortunately, the Texas legislature is self-destructing and virtually none of the pro-life, pro-family bills made it through.

One of the bills I was lobbying for contained amendments to the Texas Advance Directive Act (TADA) that would have increased protection for patients, prevented the removal of artificial hydration and nutrition, and more than doubled the time that doctors had to give medical treatment that they and others deemed "inappropriate." An improved process for communicating with families and a liaison between the family and the doctor was in the bill, which would have also added funding for facilities that offered complex medical treatments, such as dialysis for comatose patients, which simply don't exist in Texas. For two more years, we have the same law and the same arguments.

I do expect some of the recommendations, such as a dedicated liaison and improved communications to be adopted voluntarily in hospitals, as the good ideas that they are.

The Bill to limit embryonic stem cell research also failed, but we did get a brochure to explain the options available for donating cord blood and held the line on expanding unethical research, since several "clone and kill" bills were blocked.

Religion and zealotry of one sort or another

The National Review has published an editorial by Colleen Carroll Campbell on the resignation of St. Louis' Archbishop Raymond Burke from his position on the board of that city's Children's Hospital foundation. The Archbishop objected to the invitation to the outspoken (and vocal) proponent for abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Cheryl Crow.

Ms. Campbell states the problem well:

Today’s religious leaders increasingly face a double standard when it comes to their public pronouncements: They can say what they want as long as they express politically correct views or stay mum on hot-button social issues. Where secular pundits and celebrities are given free reign to plead their case to the public, religious leaders are derided as theocrats for injecting religiously derived moral principles into political debates. This stifling of religious voices is intended to prevent religious conflicts in the public square. But it also prevents the most fundamental form of deliberation necessary to the functioning of a pluralistic democracy: honest debates about right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood.

However, I would add that the zealotry of some who complain about activism by any and all religious people in any public dispute is near-religious in itself.

A case in point:

The journal, Nature Neuroscience published an unsigned, unattributed essay in the April, 2007 issue, entitled "Shaky arguments against stem cells: Recent attempts to use scientific findings to discredit embryonic stem cell research are distorting the state of the field." (I'm not sure whether this requires registration to view.)

(Amazing, huh, that the editors could afford so much space for their title, but none for their own names?)

The editorial is nothing but a call for all embryonic stem cell research and nothing short of the same, without comment, without restrictions.

In order to illustrate their point, the authors (whoever they are), discuss an essay written to inform the readers of First Things. The authors (whoever they are) state that the content of the article is "correct," but feel it necessary to stress that the journal is a "conservative Roman Catholic magazine" and cite Maureen L. Condic, Ph.D. for "trying to spin science—both its problems and successes—to fit an anti-scientific purpose."

In fact, they seem most offended that Dr. Condic commented at all.

As I wrote the editors, the editorial reflects a deep bias and a "spin" of its own, discrediting their journal and "distorting the state of the field," indeed.

If we knew who these anonymous authors were, perhaps we could ask them why their own position is "right" and the Dr.s' is "wrong." I would also ask them why they insist on bringing religion and politics into the debate, when Dr. Condic so obviously - as they state - avoided both.

Truly transplantable lung stem cells

Researchers at The University of Michigan have proven that mesenchymal stem cells are present in the lungs, and that these cells have transplanted along with the rest of the lung.

In the past, it was believed that the mesenchymal stem cells ( a versatile group of stem cells - see the information in the quote below) were derived from the patient's lungs. We now know that they came from the donor and they they persist for years, aiding in the repair and function of the

In the cases where the donor and recipient are different genders, most of the stem cells are found to be from the donor. Some of the cells have been found more than 11 years after the transplant.

So much for the "first transplantable" claims out of Houston.

One of the most telling findings was that, in cases where the transplant donor and recipient were not of the same sex, nearly all the MSCs (about 97 percent) originated in the donor, indicating that they were present in the tissue since the time of transplantation. "We were able to isolate the cells derived from the donor as far as 11,5 years after transplantation," says Lama, assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the U-M Medical School. "We discovered the existence of a population of MSCs that reside and self-renew in the tissues of the adult lung – something that might hold true for other organ systems as well.

"Potentially the most important outcome of our finding is that it could lead to an understanding about therapeutic options using MSCs that reside in adult organs," Lama continues. "These lung-derived cells are different from MSCs derived from bone marrow in the expression of various genes, which makes us believe that they are specific to the organ they are isolated from."

The study appears online March 8 in advance of publication in the April print issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

MSCs are widely seen as a potential source of therapies for numerous diseases and conditions, such as heart disease, cystic fibrosis, graft-versus-host disease, muscular dystrophy, and as a possible source for improved recovery of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Lama’s laboratory currently is working on another study involving the lung-derived MSCs that shows potential importance of these cells in lung transplantation. That study is not yet complete, but so far it indicates a very strong ability of these MSCs to suppress the immune cells that are involved in organ rejection. In addition to helping prevent organ rejection, other possible uses for the lung-derived MSCs could be therapies related to heart attack and pulmonary fibrosis, Lama says.

MSCs are termed progenitor cells; that is, they can differentiate into only limited number of cell types such as bone, cartilage and fat cells. However, previous laboratory studies have demonstrated the beneficial effect of these cells in various diseases, such as models of heart attacks and pulmonary fibrosis.

The current study of MSCs included 172 bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples collected and analyzed from 76 lung transplant recipients at the U-M Health System. The ability to isolate these cells with relative ease from lavage fluid is a very significant finding as it provides a potential source to isolate MSCs, says Victor J. Thannickal, M.D., associate professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and senior author on this study. "The specific roles of these cells in chronic lung diseases are yet to be fully defined, but will be an active area of research in years to come." Source : University of Michigan Health System

Stem cell review, March 2007

It's time to write an updated review on the status of stem cell therapy.

For one thing, I wrote about the lung cells from two different labs and sources, yesterday. Next, Richard Doerflinger has written his "75 new reasons" to support non embryonic stem cell therapy over on "DO NO HARM." And then, there's the news out of China (here, at Reuter's) that a group of researchers will soon begin a large trial of cord blood stem cells in spinal cord injury has a lot of people talking.

Yesterday morning, Rep. Beverly Wooley from the Houston Area held a press conference with the local embryonic stem cells and cloning advocates to announce the latest version of her clone and kill bill, HB 2704. The bill contains the usual redefinition of "cloning" (as "implantation or attempted implantation") with a twist (" of any human embryo created by a method other than fertilization") and would create an Advisory Committee comprised of 7 scientists, 1 medical ethicist, 1 member of a religious organization (what, the rest can't go to church?), and representatives of the research centers. There is no call for treating physicians like family doctors, hematologist/oncologists, or transplant surgeons who would and do guide patients through the stem cell treatment. There is no patient or disease advocate member.

This in spite of the fact that Texas researchers are making progress, now, in real patients, treatment that doesn't depend at all on creating and killing embryos. For example, there are Drs. Cox and Baumgartner in Houston, who have been doing a study on using children's own bone marrow in trauma cases, focusing on new damage. The team is severely limited in funds for the research that could help Texas children, today.

While there is hope, what should we hope for? And what do all these studies and reports mean?

Every day, we learn more about the stimulation and recruiting of stem cells from the patient's own body and from donor cells, like cord blood.

Donations of cord blood, fat, peripheral blood, bone marrow are found much more easily and in larger numbers in practical terms, because there are more people than embryos that will ever be available for destruction, more babies being born than embryos in any lab or freezer, and because no one has to die for them.

Cord blood "unrestricted somatic stem cells" appear to me to be the most promising of all the stem cells.

The answers are obvious if you think about it -- even the "embryonic proponents" are trying to make adult stem cells.

None of the treatments involved in therapy - now or in any likely future therapies - are actual embryonic stem cells, because the cells we need will only function in specific conditions and surroundings. The specific conditions and surroundings are only found in place, in the actual site of damage.

Embryonic stem cells function is to make embryonic tissues and must develop into precursors and then specific tissues. The "gold standard" test for embryonic stem cells is their ability to make tumors called teratomas in mice. And this is what they would do in any body, as long as they are "embryonic stem cells."

The manipulations that are required to manage their development - like "transfecting" the cells with genes inserted by retroviruses, as in those lung cells from Houston (yesterday) - are themselves dangerous and risky for patients. In contrast, the non embryonic cells are much easier to manipulate and behave better in the body.

If you read the research articles, even those embryonic cells from the inner mass are not all universal cells. They have had some genes turned on and some genes turned off. The researchers select out the cells they desire by creating conditions that favor only those cells.

The trick in both embryonic and adult stem cell research is to find and support only the cells that are desired. And, again, the conditions that support the cells desired are only reliably found in the body, in site, and are best for non-embryonic stem cells and precursors.

On the other hand, "adult" or non-embryonic stem cells are found all over the body. Like the embryonic stem cells, there are many kinds. We are discovering which organs and tissues have their own stem cells in relatively large amounts, and which do not. Researchers have found precursors or other cells in bone marrow, fat, and cord cells and cord blood that can be induced to turn into the necessary cells, in numbers large enough for treatment.

The supposed advantage of embryonic stem cells - their tendency to become any cell in the body - is actually a disadvantage because they're so hard to control. And the "disadvantage" of non-embryonic stem cells - that they're already partially specialized - is what makes them easier to manipulate.

For another review of stem cell therapy, go here.

Embryonic SC researchers claim doubtful "first"

Beware of Press Release science reporting - the job of the news release or public affairs department of an institution is to get publicity, not to promote scientific knowledge. There's no peer review until after the fact, and the goal is to catch our attention, rather to educate.

A case in point was the announcement yesterday from the the University of Texas at Houston Brown Foundation's Institute of Molecular Medicine researchers' Press Release that begins:

UT Scientists Develop Promising New Procedure To Differentiate Human Embryonic Stem Cells

HOUSTON – (Feb. 26, 2007)—Molecular scientists at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) – which is part of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston – have developed a new procedure for the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, with which they have created the first transplantable source of lung epithelial cells.

The process, created in the laboratory of Rick A. Wetsel, Ph.D., a professor of molecular medicine at the IMM, is described in this week’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Research scientist Dachun Wang, M.D., is lead author of the article, “A pure population of lung alveolar epithelial type II cells derived from human embryonic stem cells.”

“We have developed a reliable molecular procedure which facilitates, via genetic selection, the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into an essentially pure population of lung epithelial cells,” said Wetsel, noting the procedure also can be used to create other types of highly-specialized cells.

The word that seems to carry the most weight in that first paragraph is "transplantable." And a lot depends on how they define that word.

Since I can't find any mention of the article on the internet, except in the press releases, I'm not sure exactly what "transplantable" cells means to these guys.

However, I am convinced that they are not the only ones to derive alveolar II lung epithelial cells from stem cells.

As reported, here and very few other places, last November 1, 2006 - you know, just before the Midterm election and Missouri's disaster with the clone and kill bill - researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School at Minneapolis published a report in Cytotherapy on their production of functioning alveolar II epithelial lung cells, capable of producing surfactant, from a certain population of umbilical cord blood stem cells:

BackgroundUmbilical cord blood (UCB) has been examined for the presence of stem cells capable of differentiating into cell types of all three embryonic layers (i.e. endo-, ecto- and mesoderm). The few groups reporting success have typically confirmed endodermal potential using hepatic differentiation. We report differentiation of human UCB-derived multipotent stem cells, termed multilineage progenitor cells (MLPC),into respiratory epithelial cells (i.e. type II alveolar cells).
Methods Using a cell separation medium (PrepaCyte-MLPC; BioE Inc.) and plastic adherence, MLPC were isolated from four of 16 UCB units (American Red Cross) and expanded. Cultures were grown to 80% confluence in mesenchymal stromal cell growth medium (MSCGM; Cambrex BioScience) prior to addition of small airway growth medium (SAGM; Cambrex BioScience), an airway maintenance medium. Following a 3-8-day culture, cells were characterized by lightt microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, immunofluorescence and reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR.
Results MLPC were successfully differentiated into type II alveolar cells (four of four mixed lines; two of two clonal lines). Differentiated cells were characterized by epithelioid morphology with lamellar bodies. Both immunofluorescence and RT-PCR confirmed the presence of surfactant protein C, a protein highly specific for type II cells.
Discussion MLPC were isolated, expanded and then differentiated into respiratory epithelial cells using an off-the-shelf medium designed for maintenance of fully differentiated respiratory epithelial cells. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time human non-embryonic multipotent stem cells have been differentiated into type II alveolar cells. Further studies to evaluate the possibilities for both research and therapeutic applications are necessary.

Unfortunately, most of the sites that are picking up the PR are just publishing it whole, without evaluation or editing.

For instance, ScienceDaily, one of my favorite science news sites, published the intact, clearly labeled "Press Release", although that site also published the press release on the earlier, UCB stem cell derivation of alveolar II cells.

So far, I've only seen one note on the UT announcement that distills the info available to the news, without the hype. LongevityMeme, a blog devoted to technology and science showing promise for the extension of the human lifespan, has not duplicated the silly "transplantable" or "first" claims. The post explains the pertinent points very well (click to the original for the embedded links):

Examples of continually improving control over stem cells have been rolling in of late; here is one from the University of Texas: "We have developed a reliable molecular procedure which facilitates, via genetic selection, the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into an essentially pure population of lung epithelial cells ... the procedure also can be used to create other types of highly-specialized cells. ... The method involves the use of protein markers under the control of cell-specific promoters to convert undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells into highly-specialized cells. The human embryonic stem cells were cultured on specially coated dishes and transfected with a lung epithelial gene regulator of a drug selection gene. ... It is a general technology for developing select cells from human embryonic stem cells. The technology has allowed us to develop a platform that could potentially be useful in the development of spinal cord cells, heart cells, nerve cells and others. ... transplantable alveolar epithelial type II cells can be explored as treatments for pulmonary genetic diseases, acquired lung disease, as well as lung trauma caused by car accidents, gunshot wounds and sports injuries. ... These are the cells that can potentially be used for regenerative lung repair."

(emphasis is mine)

The "transfected gene" treatment used to induce the embryonic stem cells to develop along the desired line appears to me to be a step that will complicate the testing and approval of the use of these cells in humans. I'm not convinced that surgery will be the optimum use of the outcome of stem cell regenerative medicine. I'm convinced that we will use what we learn to induce, stimulate and and recruit the body's own regenerative stem cells in place, as we need them

If the transfected gene is safe, then, perhaps it will be the treatment in the future. Or, perhaps the UT lab and the UM lab can collaborate on truly transplantable cells, if necessary.

MIT adult stem cell research soap opera?

Yesterday's Massachusetts Institute of Technology press release ("MIT bioengineer advances survival, promise of adult stem cells")led to the story behind the story and and maybe more.

Behind them all, of course is the truth that human embryos are, indeed human, and that there is not any difference between the embryo in the petri dish and the one that each of us once was.

The February 27, 2007 Press Release concerns an article published on line in the January 18, 2007 online edition of Stem Cell Express Online. The Abstract is available here. According to the website, the paper, "Tethered EGF Provides a Survival Advantage to Mesenchymal Stem Cells" was submitted last year, on May 26, 2006 and accepted for publication January 9, 2007. The research supports that stem cells develop in reaction to and influenced by their environment and details a way to manipulate the growth factor EGF on an implanted scaffolding to encourage bone marrow mesenchymal cells to develop bone and encourage healing after surgery or severe wounds.

Linda G. Griffith, Ph. D., leads the Griffith Lab at MIT, which focuses on bioengineered tissue, using adult stem cells. In fact, the MIT press release and the Science Daily adaptation both mention that Dr. Griffith has a personal interest in preferring to avoid research on embryonic stem cells.

Griffith, who does not work with human embryonic stem cells, believes that adult stem cells offer promising therapeutic possibilities.

"I'm very optimistic about the potential for adult stem cells to be useful clinically for the problems I work on, since there are already some clinical successes based on these cells" she said. "Continuing, careful, methodical work will lead to improved therapies based on adult stem cells. We are aiming to expand the range of therapies that work in the clinic." Griffith is one of several MIT biological engineering faculty members who work with adult stem cells but not human embryonic stem cells.

Griffith is also one among many scientists around the world who have at least some objections to creation of human embryonic stem cells, for a variety of reasons. She says her current focus on adult stem cells is driven largely by the interesting science and the feasibility for near-term clinical use for the types of cells she investigates. However, she also avoids research with human embryonic stem cells following a personal experience with in vitro fertilization almost 10 years ago.

"Like some other scientists I know, my personal views about creating human ES cell lines changed when confronted with the reality of doing so from my own embryos. After this experience, I was not comfortable conducting human ES cell research myself, and I have a better understanding of why some scientists object to all work with human ES cells," she said. She also said she feels her personal views, and those of others, are respected in the scientific community.

Currently, federally funded research is only allowed on certain established lines of embryonic stem cells, although a few states, including California and Connecticut, offer state funding for broader embryonic stem cell research. There are no legal restrictions on funding to study adult stem cells.

These quotes are exactly what so many of us have been saying all along. I certainly intend to use them in any testimony I give in the future, although I wish there were not quite so much stress on the theme of "personal views." I don't see much room for personal views in whether or not the embryos who are her children and those who other researchers would disaggregate for stem cells.

What's the story behind the story? We may never know all of it. But here's just a bit from an article on the MIT website about the hunger strike of Dr. James Sherley which was also covered here earlier this month:

Additionally, Sherley also outlined his main reasons for complaint, which included denial of independent lab space by then Provost Robert Brown and the conflict of interest that resulted from the spousal relationship between Lauffenburger and BE Professor Linda G. Griffith led him to believe his case for tenure was not handled fairly.

Do not look behind the curtain! (again, with the magic tricks)

I'd say the man who said this needs both a heart and a brain:

"Ultimately, human hearts, human brains, and human kidneys and human pancreas will be re-created in their entirety from human embryonic stem cells or some combination of adult and embryonic stem cells," Willerson said.

He's certainly got enough nerve.

Tell me what happens when you get a new brain, in its "entirety," Doctor.

On the other hand, there's this brilliant man who's using the brain and heart he's got:

Dr. Karel Dicke, an oncologist at the Arlington Cancer Center, uses stem cells found in patients' bone marrow to ease their recovery from high-dose chemotherapy.

Dicke, who has conducted research into adult stem cells for more than 40 years, said he opposes the use of public funds for embryonic stem-cell research because it doesn't have enough public support. He echoed statements from opponents of such research in noting that the field may not be as promising as some have predicted.

"It is not that far along yet," Dicke said. "Scientists are making political statements."

Of course, it's really all about the money. As I've said before - stem cell therapy of the future will not depend on the destruction of embryos. The goal will be to use the patients' own stem cells in site, when and where they are needed. Umbilical cord and placental cells are plentiful and have shown themselves plastic enough to provide the tissues and organs that we will need. (Where the repair cannot be made in situ. Edited, March 19, 2007. BBN)

Researchers in Minnesota have produced beating heart muscle from stem cells taken from the hearts of rats. In humans, they say they are using muscle from the legs to heal hearts in place.

Have a look at more stem cell advances in this article.

Dr. Anthony Atala's group at Wake Forest University grew nerve stem cells that homed in to the areas of the brain where they were needed. Last year, Zurich researchers reported work to develop heart valves for babies from their amniotic stem cells, even before they were born.

We don't need the smoke and mirrors, Doctor Willerson. You and others have already shown us that we already have a future without embryonic stem cells.

Jesus, embryos, research, and IVF protesters

Newsday printed an op ed by Michael D. Kerlin, "Where faith and stem cells meet: Jesus might have us use embryos - otherwise destined to be discarded - to aid the sick and dying." (That's pretty much it, except to testify to his Christianity, his alma mater, and to lay the fate of all sick and dying at the feet of President George Bush.)

As I commented at the site, Jesus taught that "self" belongs in front of "sacrifice."

The other posters and Mr. Kerlin do not seem aware of the facts about the numbers of embryos that would actually be available for research.

And a couple of the posters are horrified that I set the responsibility for ensuring the safety of the embryonic humans on the parents and the labs who created humans in harm's way. They ask whether I would forbid in vitro fertilization (IVF) and tell men and women who are unable to have children by natural intercourse, "tough luck." One poster doubts my sincerity, since there are so few picketers and protesters outside of IVF facilities. He questions whether the protests are only hypocritical abuse and harassment of poor single women, rather than rich couples seeking IVF.

There was a RAND study on the numbers of embryos available for research (Hoffman DI, Zellman GL, Fair CC, Mayer JF, Zeitz, JG, Gibbons WE, and Turner TG. May 2003. "Cryopreserved Embryos in the United States and Their Availability for Research." Fertility and Sterility 79 (5): 1063–1069.)and Art Caplan published one a few years ago, and he was surprised at how few parents would even consider research and how reluctant they and the clinics were to simply destroy the "excess" embryos. In addition, for those currently frozen, it's unlikely that the proper informed consent.

Yes, there are few protesters at IVF clinics, because most people have empathy for the parents who want children so much that they would go through all that IVF requires. Also, most people simply aren't aware of how many embryos are discarded.

However two wrongs don't make a right. Again, "self" should always precede "sacrifice."

It was our empathy that created the current situation, where the brothers and sisters of those babies who are now in the arms of the parents who wanted them so much died during the IVF process and more are frozen and at risk. We must steel ourselves to resist the temptation to help "the sick and dying," everyone from celebrities to tiny children who beg us and our legislators to sacrifice human embryos for their sake.

Who is to decide that some humans may be destroyed and dissected for research or so many spare parts for the benefit of someone else?

Because we know that embryonic stem cell research leads to a slippery slope. We know because some men and women have already fallen down that slope.


I'm sure that most of us have read about the women paid to become pregnant and have abortions for research and profit in the Ukraine and about all the full term healthy babies who mysteriously die in some of that country's hospitals. At one of these hospitals, graves of infants who had had brains and other organs have been found.(More here and here. Warning - graphic descriptions)

"Flawed" Adult Progenitor Cells Study

Lots in the stem cell news about the report a few years ago that certain populations of adult stem cells can become "any cell in the body."

No one doubts whether Verfaillie found the stem cells that she said she did. The problem is that there were mistakes in the reports about how she actually did it and that other labs have had a hard time duplicating her work. From the New Scientist article on the "flaws":

"In her most recent paper, Verfaillie and Irving Weissman, a stem cell biologist at Stanford University in California, showed that MAPCs can give rise to all the cell types found in blood, but it is still unclear whether MAPCs are as versatile as she claimed in the original Nature paper."

Many researchers are unable even to isolate them. “They’re very testy cells,” observes Amy Wagers of Harvard University, who spent a week in Verfaillie’s lab trying in vain to learn the technique.

The problems with the marker profiles may help explain these difficulties. “If I had been following this recipe since 2002, I’d be extremely angry,” says Jeanne Loring, a stem cell biologist at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California.

There's a much more detailed evaluation on the original report in yesterday's The Scientist:

Tim Mulcahy, vice president for research at the University of Minnesota, told The Scientist that the university asked two experts in flow cytometry to review the data, and they found "technical flaws with the paper," but said they didn't have the background to determine if the problems affected the results. The university then contacted three stem cell experts, and two agreed to review the data. One reviewer said the flawed data wouldn't affect the findings, and the other said the flaws might "weaken the conclusions," Mulcahy noted. He said the university decided to release the information to allow the scientific community to debate the impact of the panel's findings. The university is not releasing the names of the stem cell experts who reviewed the data.

Mulcahy added that Verfaillie asked the university to investigate the findings, and has been very helpful. "This was all done with her consensus and her willing cooperation."

The outside experts agreed with Aldhous that the antigenic markers used to define the MAPCs were in question, Verfaillie said -- "as do I," she added. But these concerns don't affect the results, she noted. "As MAPCs were - and still are - not defined on the basis of a phenotype, but based on functional criteria, I believe therefore that the conclusions of the papers are still correct. Obviously that is up to the scientific community to decide."

The current debate is over a "minor point," said Diane Krause, a stem cell researcher at Yale University. The concerns about the Nature paper focus on the "antigenic profile of these cells, and not what they can do," she told The Scientist. "I certainly believe Catherine," Krause added. "I think she's got the highest amount of integrity."

Indeed, researcher Mark Clements, from Westminster University in London, UK, has had some success replicating Verfaillie's results with human cells. "The inaccuracies in Catherine's papers do cast a shadow over her work," he told The Scientist, "but I do believe the underlying premise is valid."

Clements said the errors in the paper raise questions about the definition of MAPCs in terms of cell markers, but agreed that the overall premise of the paper is intact. "Our experience of the human cells tells us that the main problem with them is that they're so fastidious to grow," he said. This would explain why other labs and indeed Catherine's lab have had difficulties replicating this work, Clements said.

Thomas Braun from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Germany told The Scientist he thinks the explanation for the duplication of the figures was adequate. "Things like that happen although it is always hard to understand why such errors are not recognized at an earlier stage," he said.

A follow up study published in Journal of Experimental Medicine (I don't have link) and reported on in Science,that included doubter Irving Weissman proved multipotency, if not pleuripotency.

"The work has impressed one skeptic, Stanford blood stem cell researcher Irving Weissman, who collaborated on the new work. Weissman calls the result "remarkable." His skepticism, he adds, "makes me a perfect collaborator, because I insisted on very rigorous criteria for the experiments."

He emphasizes, as does Verfaillie, that these cells are clearly not as versatile as ES cells. But despite their limitations, they could prove to be useful therapeutically.

"A lot of people have lost interest in MAP cells by this point," says Weissman. "What our paper will help do is get everybody to look at it again." Others agree. "I'm sure it will revive interest in MAP cells," says stem cell researcher Paul Schiller of the University of Miami, Florida."

Perhaps, now that the "recipe" is corrected, more labs will confirm the original reports.

Different populations and kinds of adult stem cells are indeed very versatile, especially for producing what we really want: stable cells that will only become the exact specialized cells that are needed, where they are needed.

Adult stem cells have yielded more populations of specific progenitor and stem cells than even embryonic stem cells. The only place that embryonic stem cells work to produce "every cell in the body" is in the original container - in the intact embryo. Elsewhere, they produce embryoid bodies or teratomas, or mutate and die out unless first manipulated to become a more specialized stem cell or progenitor cell.

Which sounds like an adult stem cell or progenitor cell, to me.

Part of the problem with all stem cell research is that, as in the press coverage, scientists have also been "shotgunning" with groups of cells as though all samples stem cells are a bunch of homogeneous one size fits all entity. Slowly but surely, we're learning what markers to look for in order to find the most primitive or the exact future lineage we need, the environment, stimulating factors and the epigenetic factors involved.

If we think the progress has been fast before, I don't think it's anything like what will happen in the next 5 years.

(HT to FreeRepublic's neverdem.)

The key to stem cell research (no one dies)

Every living cell in our bodies has the whole set of genes that it took to grow us from a one cell embryo to the beautiful blogging people that we are now. It's just that the whole set is never working at any one time. Our growth, development, abilities and repair depend on whether a certain gene or set of genes is turned on or off by (what I think of as) the addition of keys and locks and cushions.

We constantly hear about the embryonic stem cell's ability to "develop into every cell in the body" (and all those pesky tumors when they're used in animals), as well as the trouble getting adult stem cells to work fast enough to repair damage. There's also the problem of aging, which is really just when our body can't replace dying cells as fast as we lose them, added to the fact that the cells themselves seem to die sooner and more often.

Epigenetics are the influences in the cell that turn certain genes on and others off. And they are the hot topic in the serious study of stem cells, embryology and medicine.

Stem cells rely heavily on epigenetic signals. As a stem cell develops, chemical tags on the DNA or its surrounding histone proteins switch genes on or off, controlling a cell’s fate.

You may hear of "methylation" or "imprinting" of genes. These chemical processes are how the DNA program within the nucleus of the cell - the blueprint and instructions for what the cell will do today or for the rest of its life - is set. They are the "epigenetic" conditions that fold away some genes and expose some others so they can be read.

One of the cushions is the telomere. After Dolly the sheep was cloned, we heard about telomeres - the repeating tags on genes that make the difference between a gene being young or old. I think of the string of telomeres as a roll of postage stamps. Each time you send a letter, you use a stamp, and eventually you don't have any.

In the same way, genes lose telomere segments when they are copied. Eventually, there are not enough telomeres to make the gene copying system kick in. But, sometimes, telomeres can be added by the cell's system and sometimes they aren't lost at all during copying.

What if you could go to the telomere office and buy a new roll or, better yet, if you could just make the ones you need in your own cells, when and where you need them?

Public Cord Blood Banks

Georgia Senator Shafer has introduced a bill that would make that State the first to dedicate funds to a public bank for both cord blood and placental and umbilical cord tissues. This follows a move across the country to begin public, rather than private, cord blood banking for therapy and research.

MD Anderson (MDA), our big cancer research and therapy center in Houston, Texas, has announced that it has received $9 million from the Federal Health Resources and Services Administration to support their Cord Blood Bank. MDA is already collecting units at two hospitals in the area.
The Texas Cord Blood Bank has been growing since a push by then Representative, now State Comptroller, Elizabeth Ames Jones and our Governor Rick Perry led the move to dedicate State funds. The first $1 million dollars in Federal money was matched by State money and again by private donations. In 2005, Governor Perry awarded a grant of an additional $1.2 million in matching funds (meaning that the grant will match each dollar donated from private donors). TCCB is currently collecting cord blood at 4 hospitals, one in North Dallas, one in San Antonio, and at hospitals in two cities in the Rio Grande Valley. (See the video on the Cord Blood Bank at Jones' campaign website.)

I'm convinced that cord tissues contain the stem cells that will offer all the therapies and hope that we hear about from the advocates of destructive embryonic stem cells. And we're throwing them away, every day.

Cow-Monkey blastocyst research

The truth about the goal of researchers seeking to make chimeras and clones is in the news, today. (A big "yuk" factor, here.)

I'm convinced that the future is in stimulating and recruiting the patient's own stem cells and regenerative potential, in site, where and when it's needed.

Animal research is acceptable, but once they start manipulating human DNA, we're dealing with humans until proven differently.

The (South) Korean Times reports on work in the lab of Koo Deog-bon:

The team, headed by Koo Deog-bon at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, said Friday they had established a monkey blastocyst, the source of stem cells, last month via interspecies nuclear transfer.

``We started the task of infusing monkey somatic cells into cow ova, from which the nuclei had been removed, last November. After hundreds of failures, we made a blastocyst in January,'' Koo said.

``It failed to thrive. But we became sure of the potential of interspecies research _ creating a blastocyst and extracting stem cell batches from it,'' the 41-year-old senior researcher said.

A blastocyst is an embryonic form at a stage where it consists of 128 cells. With its inner cells still undifferentiated, the blastocyst is the most important source of embryonic stem cells.

Scientists have made monkey blastocysts through intra-species nuclear transfer _ implanting monkey somatic cells into enucleated monkey ova. But this is the first time that a blastocyst has been established while using non-monkey ova.

``We will generate more monkey blastocysts to achieve our goals of culturing stem cell lines with them earlier than our competitors,'' said Koo at the state-backed institute.

Developing cloned non-human primate stem cells is significant in speeding up futuristic therapy by evaluating the pre-clinical safety and immune-tolerance of stem cell transplantation.

``If we are successful, we will be able to apply the technologies to humans _ making stem cells with animal ova _ if society allows such an idea,'' Koo said.

As Koo pointed out, the interspecies experiments can in part solve some of the ethical debates surrounding the making of cloned human embryonic stem cells because they don't use human eggs.