AMA: "People aren't going to waste time on Embryonic Stem Cells, anymore"

A member of the "lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics" maintains that there are "some scientists who like to hold on to what they've got, but" she doesn't "think people are going to waste time on embryonic stem cells any more."

(Josephine Quintanelle, quoted in the Guardian, 3/1/09)

The American Medical Association sends its members a "Morning Rounds" email with the latest headlines on science and medicine. The articles have more links than my posts and the editors seem to choose that days' big story.

Today's big story is that the Washington Post (free registration required) reports on a from a Letter to the journal, Nature. Two groups of scientists, one from Toronto (Andras Nagy, from the University of Toronto) and another from Edinburgh (Dr Keisuke Kaji, at the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh) have found a way to make skin cells transform into embryonic-like stem cells without using viruses.

This should lead to a cheaper way for people to have their own cells transformed into therapies. Farther down the line, it could help us treat disease and injury -and aging - in place, by inducing repair where it's needed and without transplants. On the other hand, if we use embryonic stem cells, it would be necessary to make a clone of each person or find some sort of universal donor cell that would not be rejected. The previous way of reprogramming cells to an embryonic stage used viruses that could not be removed and which have the potential to cause cancer if left in the DNA of the cells.

The scientists used human fibroblasts - a type of skin cell - which were treated with a "jumping gene" from a cabbage looper moth, that inserts itself into chromosomes along with the genes that "reprogram" the fibroblast -- then, the extra gene can be removed.

From the Post, a very clear description.

The alternative cells, known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, appear to have many of the same characteristics as embryonic stem cells but are produced by activating genes in adult cells to "reprogram" them into a more primitive state, bypassing the moral, political and ethical issues surrounding embryonic cells. Until now, however, their use has been limited because the genetic manipulation required the use of viruses, raising concerns the cells could cause cancer if placed in a patient. That has triggered a race to develop alternative approaches.

"These viral insertions are quite dangerous," Nagy said.

In the new work, Nagy and his colleagues in Toronto and at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland instead used a sequence of DNA known as a transposon, which can insert itself into the genetic machinery of a cell. In this case, the researchers used a transposon called "piggyBac" to carry four genes that can transform mouse and human embryonic skin cells into iPS cells. After the conversion took place, the moth gene, called "piggybac" lost its ability to insert itself into the chromosomes of the cells and "disappear" or can be removed.

"PiggyBac carries the four genes into the cells and reprograms the cells into stem cells. After they have reprogrammed the cells, they are no longer required, and in fact they are dangerous," Nagy said. "After they do their job they can be removed seamlessly, with no trace left behind. The ability for seamless removal opens up a huge possibility."

Unfortunately, for some reason the scientists used (non-stem) fibroblast cells from embyros as the cells that are reprogrammed, so the research is being repeated in cells from non-embryonic sources.

Other news articles on the breakthrough are at BBC News, Nature News,
AFP, Financial Times, the Candian Press, the Guardian and the Globe and Mail.

Whose life is it, anyway?

Trait selection in babies "is a service," says Dr. Steinberg. "We intend to offer it soon."

Whoops, someone noticed that some of this reproductive technology stuff might not be ethical.

Talk about controlling parents!

Eugenics is a done deal. The cat's out of the bag. There's no going back. (Don't think about the 14th Amendment that overturned Dred Scot and took the slaves from their "owners.")


Of course, the "Progressives" and human-plus groups only commit *good* eugenics. All they want is control and more money.


The "Progressives" started raising the alarm a couple of years ago, when they were pushing for a change in the Bush embryonic stem cell policy. The logic was that the reason there is no regulation is that the government isn't paying for enough research.

At the same meetings, they were adamant that their group must have the power maintain control. (Alta Charo, Laurie Zoloth, Jonathan Moreno, Insoo Hyun and the rest of the "Ethicists for Hire" crowd.)

Funny, in all these links, I didn't find a single comment about the doctors who lost a discrimination suit in California for refusing to fulfill a patient's request for IVF -- even in the midst of the hulabaloo about the mother of octuplets.

HT to Vox Popoli

US behind on regulation of reproductive technology

After hearing/reading for the last 8 years that there is too much regulation of research, there's now a call from the Jonathan Moreno and the "Progressives"(at the website that grew out the Center for American Progress, originally founded by John Podesta, Obama's advisor) for regulation of reproductive technology. See this post at the "Science Progress" blog.

Scroll down to the middle of the blog post on regulation to see a fantastic interactive map of regulation across the world.

Unfortunately, the regulation may not be easy to come by, or what those of us who are pro-life might wish for. The progressives mock those of us who believe that even embryonic humans have the right not to be intentionally killed or enslaved. See the comments in this review of Yuval Levine's book, Imagining the Future.

Human cloned embryos

Oddly, there is very little notice of the confirmation that Advance Cell Technology has created cloned human embryos. Current bioethics and science reporting evidently takes the creation and destruction of human embryos for granted. In fact, the embryonic humans were created with the intention of destroying them.

No one - or almost no one - seems to notice.


Wired Science has one of the few reports that narrows in on what should be the headline:"Research Breakthrough: Human Clones May Be Genetically Viable."

It is significant that (as reported earlier) human-animal hybrid embryos do not appear to be a practical source for human embryonic stem cells. However, after reading the article itself, it appears that the story with in the story may be - I believe should be - even more significant.

The article, "Reprogramming of Human Somatic Cells Using Human and Animal Oocytes," is available online and free, here, in pdf form. Supplemental information is available here.

Lanza and his colleagues report that they used human eggs and human donor DNA to create about 50 cloned human embryos, all females. They also write that they used a human embryo started by in vitro fertilization as a "control," or material to test the validity of their other results.

Cells were removed for testing from some of the cloned human embryos and the IVF human embryo. Other than that, we do not know the fate of these embryonic human girls.

Edited January 27, 2010 to correct a "Label" typo

Fox builds hen house

In the same set of news alerts that notified me of the Vatican's condemnation of cloning and embryonic stem cell research, I read that Insoo Hyun is the lead author of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Guidelines for the Clinical Translation of Stem Cells.

The Guidelines are also published on line at Cell Stem Cell and, along with a patient handbook and other supporting material, is available at the ISSCR website. Here is the link to the page containing links to pdf of the Guidelines, patient handbook, and other materials. That page also links to the Stem Cell Cell article.

The story in the Australian blurs the differences between destructive embryonic stem cell research and the non-destructive, ethical forms such as induced pluripotent stem cell research and adult stem cell research. The focus is on the former, detailing long anticipated (but not yet begun) phase 1 embryonic stem cell research, without mentioning on-going trials or previous achievements using the non-controversial cells.

The ISSCR in general and Dr. Hyun in particular, are very much advocates of embryonic stem cell research and cloning for research. Also on his task force were Laurie Zoloth and George Daley, both strong advocates of embryonic stem cell research. Daley has worked to create embryos slated for destruction in his own Harvard lab, although he has focused on non-destructive research, recently.

Dr. Hyun has a Ph.D. in bioethics and is on the faculty at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. He has focused on cloning research, and his early work included assisting the Clinton Administration's National Bioethics Advisory Committee (that would have been along with Obama transition team members, Jonathan Moreno and Robin Alta Charo) on their "secular" article on cloning. He went to South Korea with Hu Suk Wu in order to study the effects of cloning research on the Koreans - before the Korean was exposed as a fraud.

I wonder whether there was even one member of the ISSCR team who considers embryonic stem cell destruction unethical? And how soon will Dr. Hyun join his former colleagues in DC?

Science in Obama's Administration

After lots of 'Net speculation on science and medicine advisory councils and committees in addition to mine of this morning, we find out that the Obama leader for the transition team on the President's Council on Bioethics Review Team will be Jonathan Moreno the associate at the bioethics arms of the Center for American Progress, founded by co-chair of the Obama "office of the President-Elect" transitionist John Podesta.

And Moreno and Podesta are not the only "Progressives" on the transition team. Note the names Tom Perez (that's a Word document), Anthony Brown, Pam Gilbert ( a .pdf from the Center for American Progress online book, "Change for America"), Nicole Lurie, (former Clinton HUD appointee, lesbian rights attorney and San Francisco Supervisor) Roberta Achtenberg, Bruce Katz, Jim Roosevelt.

And that's just one sub-committee and only the top lines of the result of their Google searches.

Among the chatterers are the authors of Science Progress, an online newsletter and blog (with a biannual print edition) for the Center for American Progress. Jonathan Moreno is the Editor - - which is not mentioned at all in the Moreno biography linked above - - and all the usual suspects are on the advisory board. If you like the "match game" we used to play as kids, compare the names on Science Progress' advisory board with the Clinton National Bioethics Advisory Commission.

Those virtual pages contain advice from Moreno, Weiss, and Bernard Lo on what sort of scientists ought to be appointed by President-elect Obama and his minions and to which offices.

While Moreno advocates for the return of the science adviser to Presidential Cabinet meetings, Lo wants a National Bioethics Advisory Commission (the name that the Clinton appointed group used in the '90's) that not only will advise the President and the Administration by answering their specific questions, he wants the new NBAC to act:

"the Council should be addressing the nation. The Council should reach out to the American people, for example, by inviting testimony from community organizations and patient and public advocacy groups, soliciting public comments on draft proposals, and responding to criticisms by explaining the reasons why suggestions were not accepted. Further, a new council could approach communication with the public as a two-way street. Rick Borchelt and Kathy Hudson have argued here on Science Progress, “the end game of public engagement should be empowerment: creating a real and meaningful mechanism for public input to be heard far enough upstream in science and technology policymaking and program development to influence decisions.”"

Professor Lo is the co-author of one of the popular textbooks on Bioethics, Resolving Ethical Dilemmas. (Although not pro-life or based on a Christian worldview, the principles in use for clinical ethics are covered fairly well. In fact, it was the text assigned in my clinical ethics class at Trinity International University, as part of the Bioethics Masters Degree program.)

I don't believe that Professor Lo actually wishes to have a trickle up scientific policy from the citizens to direct science and ethics or public policy about either. Science cannot give empirical evidence, conduct controlled experiments or make an argument for one or the other approach to determining public policy. However, I believe that Lo, along with so many of the progressives, prefer to have scientists and academics decide science policy for the public and government, and to have carte blanche, without regard to the pro-life, religious or cultural beliefs of others. And that, in my opinion, is just as influential as money and careers in the opposition to the Bush science policy and bioethics appointees.

Science Magazine contains at least one more comment on the upcoming Obama administration appointees (Subscription only, I'm afraid.)

Gregory A. Good's review of Zuoyue Wang's book, In Sputnik's Shadow, completely ignores the inclusion of many men and women who belie his description of the President Bush as only appointing "advisers who told [President Bush] what he wanted to hear." He should at least be aware of examples such as the service of Michael Gazzaniga on the President's Council on Bioethics, Paul Wolpe as NASA's ethicist, even Jonathan Moreno as an adviser for the Department of Health and Human Services during the Bush Administration.

Of course, most of the discussion is about representation and money for research. However, if you enjoyed the match game above, take a look at the actual "incumbents" who are paid governmental appointees under President Bush, available in an online book available for free, here. There's more information here on jobs and volunteer science and technology advisory committees. Compare those names and backgrounds to the authors of a similar report from 2005, here. Now, take a look at the names on the advisory boards of Science Progress, Nature, Science Magazine, and (again, of course) the American Journal of Bioethics and at the people featured on the "Science Debate 2008" webpage videos.


Where does the balance fall between the right and the left, between the pro-life and the pro-choice?

(As one of the thousands of appointees by the Bush Administration, I am deeply offended that Good would imply that anyone who served did not do so with "the best interests of the country at heart." Is this projection on his part? Good will soon leave the History Department of West Virginia University for the American Institute of Physics - a society of societies that must have too much money to come begging to the government if they have a budget for a Center for the History of Physics, but you can e-mail him at greg.good@mail.wvu.edu through the end of the year.)

"iPS cells would have never been discovered without human embryonic stem cells"

In fact, Mr. Siegal, without the objection to cloning and embryonic stem cell research, iPS cells researchers might have taken a little longer to develop therapy that holds promise for regeneration and healing in the body, without transplants, intermediate cells and without costing the life of another human being.

Bernie Siegal, that lawyer who sued the Raelians for custody of their supposed cloned children and who lauded Hu Wu Suk for his own cloned children, is hosting one of his "World Stem Cell Summits" in Madison, Wisconsin next week. He is joined by Robin Alta Charo in promoting the Summit and reminding all of us that the push is not over for more clone-and-kill embryos and federal tax funded research depending on embryo creation and destruction. No matter how successful induced Pleuripotent Stem (iPS) cells are turning out to be.

Siegal founded the Genetics Policy Institute, with the help of the National Heritage Foundation Inc:

The GPI is funded by individuals, foundations, academic institutions and scientific societies, including the American Society For Cell Biology, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and the Huffington Foundation, according to Siegel.

R. Alta Charo (for some reason, she drops the "Robin") is a lawyer/bioethicist ( "for Hire")will deliver a keynote address at the Summit. She lobbies against physicians with consciences and in favor of abortion, cloning and embryo stem cell research. She's especially fond of the latter two, because (as she says in this audio copy of her lecture at the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities convention in 2006)she believes they will support her Progressive politics and belief that the research will support her personal belief that there is no Creator, so humans aren't so special, after all.

For a brief review of the history of "ethics for sale," look at this set of my posts.)

Human-pig embryo approved in UK

The "cybrid" or hybrid human-animal embryos are created in the laboratory by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transplantation, using emptied eggs from animals and the nuclear and cellular DNA from humans.. We know that there are currently experiments on-going with the human embryos made using emptied cow eggs (more on the "ease" of making these embryos, here), and now the British have authorized the development of pig-human embryos.

The experimenters admit that the problem will be achieving embryos and embryonic stem cells that do not contain DNA left from the egg. Proving the purity and "human-ness" of the stem cells will be a complication that I do not believe they will be able to overcome, at least for transplantation into humans, except possibly in the case of severe, last-hope disease and trauma.

The ethical debates about xeno-transplants and treatments using living organs, cells and tissues from animals carry the risks of transmitting animal diseases that humans have no immunity for and the development of new strains of disease that cross species lines. Ethicists have predicted that at least the early patients will have to live their lives in isolation at the worst, and have life-long surveillance at the best. (more on the debate, here and here.)

However, the researchers will probably be able to develop other uses, such as the early warning chemical weapon detection systems that are being developed by our own military, using human embryonic stem cells.

Rather than humanitarian and medical hope, I believe that time will show us that the research is the result of pure greed, with each lab hoping to come up with a product that can be patented and sold. I'm disappointed that the courts and "ethics" bodies in the US and UK have allowed these patents of human organisms. The drive to "create" new human cells and artifacts using human DNA is the logical outcome.

Meningitis damage repaired with adult stem cells

A 20 year old young man from Bedford, Texas was about to lose his arms and legs due to the clotting of blood in his vessels caused by meningitis but no longer.

The treatment involved doctors and technicians at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Florida, Israel and the Dominican Republic, and one aunt with a computer search.

(While it's wonderful that this young man was rescued, I can't help but wonder how many other experiments are going on in other countries, led by US doctors. Remember that Dr. Wilkerson of Houston did his first experiments using adult stem cells in Brazil.)

From the Fort Worth Star Telegram (Free subscription required):

Lampkin's medical odyssey has taken him from his home in Bedford to a hospital in an island country for a treatment the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved.

Sudden onset
It began when Lampkin, a freshman attending Cisco Junior College on an athletic scholarship, returned home for spring break.

That Friday he was fine. But on Saturday while visiting friends, he complained of having a headache and went to bed early, said Michelle Gideon, Lampkin's godmother.

The next morning -- Easter Sunday -- she found him lying on a bedroom floor.

"One side of his face looked totally normal, but the other side was swollen and looked like he had chickenpox," she recalled.

Lampkin was rushed to Harris Methodist H.E.B. Hospital, where he was treated for bacterial meningitis. Those chickenpoxlike spots were signs of clots cutting off blood flow.

Antibiotics helped stabilize Lampkin, who was transferred to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.

There doctors planned to amputate his legs at the knees and his arms at the elbows.

But an aunt searched the Internet for other treatments and found Grekos, who was using adult stem cells to stimulate tissue regrowth, improve circulation and reduce diabetic amputation rates. Grekos, director of cardiology and vascular disease at Regenocyte Therapeutic in Florida, flew to Dallas to escort Lampkin and his mother to the facility.

"If there was any hope of helping this young man we wanted to offer it," he said.

Once Lampkin was in Florida, his blood was drawn and sent to a lab in Israel.

Although it was Passover and the lab staffers were on vacation, they agreed to process the blood, Grekos said. The cells were then replicated into millions of super cells that Grekos' company has branded "Renocytes." The cells can become almost any type of new cell or tissue, he said.

Skeptical view on Expelled, the Movie

Michael Shermer, the Skeptic, has seen the movie, Expelled, in advance of its release Friday, April 18th, and posted a review on his blog at Scientific American.

Shermer is a spin doctor who, while purporting to follow reason, is actually better understood by the title he often sports, "skeptic." His near-"single-issue" is atheism vs. religion, specifically Christianity and Christians. He says in one of his books that he joined the Church of Christ (the conservative, no instruments) to impress a girl and never felt the conversion that should have gone with his baptism, but that he tried to justify his choice. He even went so far as to attend Pepperdine University, which is owned and run by the Churches of Christ. Rather than throwing out the bad and keeping or developing a faith in Jesus as he understands the Bible, he set about to prove to the world that religion is just one of the "weird things" that people believe. He loves to debate questions like "Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil?"

Shermer doesn't tell us that the agency that investigated Richard Sternberg's case against the Smithsonian agreed that he had been the subject of discrimination and a behind-the-scenes coordinated move to get him out of the Smithsonian. The case was dropped because he didn't belong to a protected group and he simply had no standing to sue within that agency, since he was not an employee. He did, however lose his lab space - going from a private office to a shared space and the privileges of unlimited access and his own key that he had enjoyed up to that time.

Also, Shermer claims that Sternberg went against policy in the peer review of the article by acting as editor and choosing the reviewers himself. Sternberg tells his side of the story and answers the charges against him at his own website, here, and here.


There's more on the web, including this review from 2006 Dispatches from The Cultural Wars , which details - and is an example of - the political nature of academia, research and the theme of Expelled.

Both sides spin to make a point. But, Sternberg's case appears to be a classic example of academia's - or any closed group with limited power to make change in the open - whisper campaigns and peer pressure to "expel" any doubters, gad-flies on the edge of scientific "consensus." Ironically, I've read that the reason that people don't understand the mutation that brings about changes in the gametes of individuals and eventually species, is that we don't understand really large numbers. Ironically, Intelligent Design began with the discussion about the mathematics involved in the evolution of species.

Human-DNA-in-cow-egg embryo created in UK

Scientists in the UK report that they have created an embryo using the transfer of human nuclear DNA from an embryonic human cell into the oocyte of a cow that has had the nucleus removed. These embryos are the "hybrids" or "cybrids" that we've been discussing for the last few years.

From the Guardian:

Apparently these researchers have achieved some success - but by using the nucleus from a very early embryonic cell, which might be easier to reprogramme than an adult cell. At the moment it is impossible to assess the significance of this report until we know more details of what has been achieved ... the results have been repeated and, importantly, they have been reviewed by independent researchers in the usual way."

Josephine Quintavalle, of the pressure group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said the research should not worry those opposed to hybrid embryos because the Newcastle work did not seem convincing. "The embryos didn't survive, they were created from embryonic stem cells rather than adult tissue, and there's a lot of question marks over the research."

But she added: "What it has done is wake up the public to this reality, that while parliament is getting in a tizz about this, while the whole country is up in arms discussing it, the HFEA is already issuing licences."

Supposedly, if the technique is perfected to allow the embryos to survive longer, these embryos will allow the study of the early embryo and production of embryonic stem cells in order to learn more about and find cures for diseases like diabetes and Parkinson's.

However, even if the embryos are disorganized and fail early, or if they are destroyed at day 5 or 6 or whenever, the ethical determination as to whether they are "human" or "bovine" has not been cleared up. We won't know what they are until several labs and several trials successfully create these embryos.

If the embryos appear to divide in an organized manner, producing human proteins and the differentiation necessary to create human embryonic stem cells, then they are essentially human embryos. This is a case of the old if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., logic.

Since the stated intention is to destroy the embryo, and we don't know whether they are human or not, those of us who find the killing of humans, even at the earliest stages will also hold that it is inherently unethical to even begin the process.

A discussion about the discussions about the announcement can be read at one of Nature.com's blogs, "The Great Beyond."

From the thread, "UK hybrid embryo: in perspective - April 02, 2008,"

New Scientist has attacked the group for announcing the achievement through the media rather than through a scientific publication. The Independent focuses on the ethical debate. Not many organisations outside the UK gave it any coverage at all, and those that did may have been under the impression that it was a world first, not mentioning previous achievements in the field (eg. Life Scientist, Australia).

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.

Yamanaka has a conscience

“When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters,” said Dr. Yamanaka.

The New York Times article on Shinya Yamanaka, "Risk taking is in his genes," (free one time registration necessary) should get the headline-writer in trouble for a sad pun.

Instead, Dr. Yamanaka might be in trouble with the objectors to conscience. (No links, just look at today's posts - or the last two months of posts - the subject keeps popping up.)

People like John Gearhart, MD will want to "put pressure" on Yamanaka to write letters to Nancy Pelossi and the rest of the US legislators making the usual reactionary case for Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in light of the successes with non-destructive research.

The NYT reporter, Martin Fackler, can't be too popular in the next few days for pointing out that the US laws and funding are not nearly as tight as those in Japan, due to moral objections in that country:

In 1999, his career got a break when he was hired by other universities, including Kyoto University in 2004, that were willing to give him a laboratory and more money. At about the same time, he said, he visited his friend’s fertility clinic. That visit inspired him to find a way around the moral issues that had bogged down stem cell research, not just in the United States but also Japan, where the Education Ministry put tough restrictions on embryo use.

In fact, restrictions are so tight that he says he cannot use human embryos at his laboratories here. Instead, research using human embryos is done at U.C. San Francisco, where he maintains a small two-person laboratory. He said he had never handled actual embryonic cells himself, and the American lab uses them only to verify that the reprogrammed adult cells are behaving as true stem cells.

“There is no way now to get around some use of embryos,” he said. “But my goal is to avoid using them.”

For a look at the science and bioethics slant on these revelations, see Wired Science (see the comments on this one), Blog.bioethics.net, Wesley Smith's Secondhand Smoke, and Jennifer Lahl's blog, "The Human Future."

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."

UTexas: Modified virus fights stem cell cancer

Viral gene therapy (similar to techniques used in the stem cell breakthrough last week) has been used by University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers in animal models and reported in the September 19, 2007 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. From MD Anderson:

Since 2004 scientists have found that brain tumors are driven by haywire stem cells that replicate themselves, differentiate into other types of cells, and bear protein markers like normal stem cells.

"Research has shown that these cancer stem cells are the origin of the tumor, that they resist the chemotherapy and radiation that we give to our patients, and that they drive the renewed growth of the tumor after surgery," Fueyo said. "So we decided to test Delta-24-RGD against glioma stem cells and tumors grown from them."

Researchers used a virus to infect the cells of aggressive tumors of the cells that support brain cells, glioblastoma multiforme. Gliomablastomas are 60% of brain cancers and patients have a survival rate as short as 2 to 3 months, with less than 10%-25% survival after 2 years even with current aggressive therapy. The virus is modified so that it is "selective" for cancer: it only infects the cancer tumors and cannot infect others.

The team first developed mice with transplanted human brain cells derived from stem cells found in four samples of glioblastoma multiforme. The researchers then developed a customized virus, Delta-24-RGD, to fight the cancer. According to a 2003 MD Anderson press release on the trials, the virus infection inserts copies of a certain gene, retinoblastoma protein (Rb), that acts as a "brake" on the cell duplication system of the cell. In order to make the therapy more efficient and safer, the virus also insert a gene to for a cell surface receptor, a sort of "docking" area on the outside of the cell.

The cell surface receptor for viruses is one of the ways that we are studying to fight both cancers (see this free article from this month's JNCI) and viral infections, themselves. The goal is vaccinations to affect genetic causes of cancer (as in these two reports) or to prevent viruses from binding to the cells and infecting them in the first place.

Thousands of Researchers Now Jobless

I don't think that the Scientific Activist ("Reporting from the Crossroads of Science and Politics") is at all happy with the "framing" of the reports on the reprogrammed adult stem cells. (beware the language)

However, I did learn where some of the speculation about iPS cells being "like an embryo." may have come from.

"Activist" says that this article from Jaenisch, et al from last summer indicates that the cells are capable of forming embryos and gestating to become a live, born mouse.

Actually, the article discusses the production of chimeras and the production of a viable embryo after the reprogrammed mouse cells are injected into "tetraploid blastocysts."

A blastocyst is an embryo. So, the Activist and Art Caplan are pointing to different ways to make chimeras, not cells that are unique individuals with an innate self-driven organization - they are not organisms.

In other words, the reprogrammed cells act like embryonic stem cells, but not like embryos - not like the cell that is a zygote - they can't make the placenta and direct their own organized embryonic development. The iPS (and embryonic stem cells from the inner cell mass) require more manipulation and the innate organization of another organism, the embryo into which they are implanted.

Embryonic Stem Cells from Patient's Own Adult Stem Cells

Well, they did it!

From Reuter's, UK:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two separate teams of researchers announced on Tuesday they had transformed ordinary skin cells into batches of cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells -- but without using cloning technology and without making embryos.

Their breakthroughs could make possible the long-sought goal of tailor-made medicine, but without the political, scientific and ethical roadblock of using human embryos.

Both teams call the new cells induced pluripotent stem cells and say they look and act like embryonic stem cells -- the master cells that give rise to every cell and tissue in the body.

. . .

James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison and colleagues reported their finding in the journal Science while Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues reported theirs in the journal Cell.

I haven't read either article, so -- long pause ---

Limits on "I want" ethics

While we're all waiting for the announcement that Shinya Yamanaka's lab has or has not published on human embryonic-like stem cells dedifferentiated from adult stem cells . . . (The press releases hit while I was writing this post.)


Wesley Smith's blog, Secondhand Smoke has a good discussion titled, " Just Because Someone Wants Something, Does That Mean Doctors Should Do It?," that goes along with the conscience and limits on science debates that seems to be the theme of this blog over the last couple of weeks.


The limits should probably be based on the individuals' right to life and liberty as in, "Is it permissible for a person to infringe on his own rights?" and "Does the desired event risk life and liberty of others?" These themes are what I consider the basis for "First, do no harm."

There are questions that need to be asked.

1. Nothing should be allowed that is designed to intentionally kill a human being. (The Nuremberg Code says "except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects,” but I don't believe that even doctors are allowed to infringe our own right to life and liberty.)

2. Will society be asked act to make special accommodations for the the intentionally mutilated (or the obese, the smoker, the Jehovah's Witness or vaccine denier, etc.)? (How much of my life, liberty and property do you claim?)

3. Will the rights of certain individuals be infringed upon by a demand for an action from someone else that is repugnant to the one being forced to act? (Traditional ethics that society may restrain, but not compel, action except in limited situations such as parents' duty to their children, doctors' and lawyers' duties to their patients and clients. )

Previous review Texas Cancer and stem cell research

Here's a link to a post from last January on HB 14, and House Joint Resolution 90, the Bills which became Proposition 15, the Legislation for $3 billion in cancer research bonds and the Texas Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

The original article is no longer available on the Austin American Statesman site, but here's another article on the debate:

From the San Antonio Express-News, November 3, 2007,

Unlike the California initiative, which was enmeshed in controversy — and litigation — over potential conflicts in its governing board, Proposition 15 would create a new entity — the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas — that would operate with two advisory boards. A scientific group would decide which research ideas merit funding, while a panel of 11 political appointees would provide oversight.

Political appointees would be restricted from decisions about institutions to which they have ties. And they could overrule the scientists on individual grants only with a two-thirds majority vote. The governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House each would appoint threepanel members. The other two would be the governor and state comptroller, or their delegates.

Local communities have been moving to put together lists of local candidates in the event the measure passes, believing the panel would make sure the money is distributed fairly across the state, rather than simply handing most of it over to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center — Texas' 600-pound gorilla of cancer research. The Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce's health care and bioscience committee would recommend John Kerr, president of the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research; and Phyllis Browning, CEO of Phyllis Browning Co.; as well as a slate of top local cancer experts for the scientific panel, said Ron Tefteller, who chairs the committee.

Local cancer researchers acknowledge that even with all that, they'll be at a competitive disadvantage with their neighbors to the east — as well as other Texas research institutions with a richer pool of benefactors. The law would require that researchers find matching funds equal to half the amount of the grant they're seeking under the program — "skin in the game," Nelson calls it.

Bioethics on the Ballot

Texas approved Billions in bond debt, some $3 Billion of which will fund the new Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. There is already private funding of embryonic and fetal tissue research in Texas already.(See this report on the Brown Institute in Houston.) While Texas is a leader in ethical stem cell research and public cord blood banking, there are no limits on State tax funds for research that would limit any sort of destructive research on unborn humans, including cloning, embryonic stem cell research and fetal research. As long as none of the subjects are able to hire a lawyer, it's open season in Texas. The prolife community in Texas is hoping - and has already begun the fight - to ensure that the oversight board will be able to control the use of the money for ethical means.

New Jersey, on the other hand, rejected funding for embryonic stem cells! Hooray!

First babies from "Lab Grown Eggs"

Well, the news out of Great Britain that apparently healthy twins were born from a new technique involving maturation of human oocytes - "eggs" - outside of the body will probably be hailed as the solution to the problem of where to get the eggs for embryonic stem cell and cloning research. It won't solve the problem that I asked earlier today as to whether and why it's important or ethical.

It's interesting that the article emphasizes the danger of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome:

In mild and moderate cases, affecting up to 20% of women undergoing ovary stimulation, this leads to symptoms such as swelling and breathlessness that resolves.

However, in about 1% the symptoms can become so severe that they are deadly. Among women with PCOS [Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome], the rate is nearer 5-10%.

Thanks to Wired Science blog for the tip.

Political news in Nature Reports

Rather than science news, Nature Reports focuses on the political (I believe this is available without subscription, but let me know if you need a copy and can't access it):

News Feature

Nature Reports Stem Cells
Published online: 17 October 2007
Scientific definition by political request

(by) Monya Baker

The NIH must set criteria for pluripotency in human cells

Within a month, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) hopes to start adding to the registry that lists the human embryonic stem cell (ES cell) lines eligible for US federal research funding. The registry currently contains only the human ES cell lines already in existence in August 2001, when President George W. Bush declared that no federal funds could be used for subsequently created lines. But of the dozens of human ES cell lines established since then, none will be added to the registry (with the possible exception of a few created by an unconventional technique that removes individual cells from embryos without destroying them). Instead, the word 'pluripotent' will replace the word 'embryonic' in the name of the NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry, and the list will begin to include cell lines derived from non-embryonic sources.

The impetus for the change comes from the White House in the form of a executive order that touts the potential of non-embryonic stem cells, and accompanied Bush's veto of popular legislation to lift restrictions on federal funding for research on human ES cells1. Researchers who derive and assess potentially qualifying lines will be given higher priority for new NIH grants and will be eligible for supplemental funds for existing grants. Before that happens, however, the NIH Stem Cell Task Force must set criteria for pluripotency in human cells. Politics has, essentially, mandated that an answer be found to a fundamental scientific question.

Asked about registering lines already clearly eligible for federal funding, scientists interviewed for this article generally reacted with a mixture of confusion, annoyance and indifference. One called the plan a "distraction that won't open any doors", and then asked not to be identified discussing politics. Some worried that political pressure on the NIH would hamper its ability to set a compelling definition. "I look forward to the day when the [registry] website is simply shut down, as its mere existence is a constant reminder of a public policy that does not serve the public good," says stem-cell pioneer James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Of the two dozen or so human ES cell lines eligible for US federal funding, his are the most widely used.

"The term pluripotent has been used for every type of stem cell," says Anthony Atala at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, who recently identified stem cells in amniotic fluid that can differentiate into cell types representing bone, endothelial, fat, liver, muscle, and neuronal lineages. Originally, 'pluripotent' meant a cell could give rise to cells representing the three germ layers found in early embryos. To assess this property, scientists can inject mouse or human cells under the skin of an immune-compromised mouse and see whether they form a benign tumour known as a teratoma. But as the field advanced, says Atala, more requirements were added to the term.

(snipped)

The registry will help scientists to coordinate their research and share cells and information. Including the cells that demonstrate embryo-like markers and growth patterns will fill in a gap that currently exists with the current embryonic stem cell registry at the NIH. And it seems to be desired by some researchers:

"Being on the registry seems to be important to a lot of people," Landis says, even when no one doubts the cells are eligible for federal funding. For example, representatives of groups that store umbilical cord blood have made enquiries, although their materials do not qualify as cell lines. Landis declines to speculate on their motivation, but researchers naturally want to boost the prestige and commercial value of their cell lines, and getting listed on the NIH registry would be one way to do that.

The Politics of Embryonic Stem Cells: Gearhart "pressures" Atala

I was able to attend the "Understanding Stem Cells: Science and Policy" lecture at the Koshland Science Museum, the museum of the National Academies of Sciences, in Washington, DC last week where I heard Jonathan Moreno, PhD, - the ethicist who works for and advances the American Center for Progress and Dr. John Gearhart, Director of Stem Cell Biology at Johns Hopkins University.

The focus of the talk was the need for US tax money for embryonic stem cell research and the downfall of the Bush policy - with just enough mocking of the President himself to make everyone feel at home with the two men.

While Dr. Gearhart takes some of the responsibility for the publishing of the papers on cloning written by the veterinarian from South Korea, Hwang Wu Suk, he was very disparaging of his colleague, Dr. Anthony Atala.

He told the audience that Atala's work on amniotic fluid cells was published in a "Secondary journal." that he couldn't recall. That journal was Nature Biotechnology, last January, 2007. Read Nature Biotechnology's press release on the article, here. The abstract is here. (the article itself is behind a pay wall.)

He also questioned the "rigor" with which the research was done, saying that the technique was poor and that no one could tell where those cells had originated from.

Gearhart and Moreno were vocal about the timing of the publication, since it coincided with the last vote on embryonic stem cells and cloning in the US Congress. Nevermind that the lead time on published articles is months.

However, Gearhart's most worrisome comment came in front of a small group, when he was answering questions after the talk. In order to support his contention that the publication of the article on "embryo-like" cells lacked "rigor," Gearhart said, "We put pressure on him to write Pelosi," to say that all stem cell research needs to be followed.

We heard rumors that this had happened, but this is the first time I've heard or read one of the major players in the politics of destructive embryonic stem cell research confirm his part.

Ethicists for hire (Revised)

A long time ago, there were some enterprising scientists and doctors who wanted to clone animals and humans and send out press releases and make money.

Since they were scientists and doctors, and very smart, they recognized the need to cover themselves in case anyone objected to the births of sick animals and the creation and destruction of human embryos (as well as terminology - these are the first to claim to achieve "therapeutic cloning").

Anyway, in an effort to prove that they were doing nothing wrong, the scientists hired some ethicists and made sure the ethicists were agreeable. Unfortunately, even smart scientists and doctors can forget how competitive and fussy those people can be even when cloning and embryo destruction are involved.

Some of (their) bioethicists, including Glenn McGee, PhD (editor of the original version of The Human Cloning Debate, Berkley Hills Books, 2000. This book is no longer in print, but it was the first book I bought that had “As Seen on Oprah” on the cover.) and Art Caplan, PhD (co-editor with Dr. McGee of the 2006 version of The Human Cloning Debate ) even resigned!

An October, 2001 article in Christianity Today, titled “Psst! Wanna buy a bioethicist?” noted:

Indeed, this year two of the nation's most prominent bioethicists resigned in protest from the Advanced Cell Technology ethics advisory board. One of them, the University of Pennsylvania's Arthur Caplan, said that while ACT was using his name (and paying dearly for it), it wasn't seeking his advice. And after he resigned, Glenn McGee, also from the University of Pennsylvania, called corporate ethics boards "rubber stamps" created to give companies an aura of acceptability.

Ronald M. Green did not resign. He is still the ACT bioethics spokesman:

"I think this will become a standard way of producing stem cell lines," said Ronald M. Green, a Dartmouth College professor of religion who is an unpaid bioethics adviser to Advanced Cell Technology.”

It's not often that technology offers a solution to an ethical dilemma, but this could be one," says bioethicist Ronald Green of Dartmouth's Ethics Institute, a member of ACT's unpaid research advisory panel.

In the world of Ethics advisory and review, “unpaid” can mean anything from $200 a day per diem plus expenses, to millions of dollars for the advisor’s institution.

The smart scientists' company, Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), has been in the news this week claiming that two embryonic stem cell lines created by removing lots of cells from 16 newly thawed and nurtured human IVF embryos (which were then destroyed) proves that embryonic stem cell lines can be produced by removing a single cell from an unharmed human embryo that can then be implanted and grow up to be a consumer of biotechnology.

ACT's leadership includes former Geron founder and owner of the patent for the use of telomerase in the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, CEO Michael West, PhD, and Robert Lanza, MD, vice president.

Few remember that Advanced Cell Technologies began life as a company that practiced agricultural animal reproduction for research and profit.

The New York Times described ACT in 1998 as a startup biotech firm wholly owned by Avian Farms, a Maine poultry genetics company. ACT currently lists three subsidiaries of its own -- Cyagra, for work with livestock; Cima Biotechnology, which focuses on avian cloning; and Em Tran (short for Embryo Transfer), which applies genetic research to the interests of cattle breeders.

Fewer still noted the repeated criticism of ACT's tactics and ethics scandal of 2001,

"However, a former member of ACT's own ethics committee called the announcement "nothing but hype" and said that "they are doing science by press release"."

and then correlate it with similar criticism in 2006,

In a rare moment of consensus on the controversial issue of embryonic stem cells, even supporters of therapeutic cloning dismissed Lanza's work. "A pitiful attempt to look morally acceptable, rather than do valuable science," sneered Glenn McGee, editor of the American Journal of Bioethics.

One of the best comments comes from an excerpt from an email said to be from Art Caplan and posted at BodyHack, a blog at Wired News: “this is not quite as much hype as the killer of jon benet ramsey but it is close!” (sic)



A deeper look into the history of bioethicists and their corporate connections reveals that not only Green, but virtually all of the usual suspects in the field have risked Carl Elliott’s charge that bioethicists are “show dogs” and that it’s “Better to buy a bioethicist now than to be attacked by one later. The only challenge is how to disguise the job so that bioethicists do not realize that they have been bought.”


(See, “Bioethicists find themselves the ones being scrutinized,” by Sheryl Gay Stohlberg, originally published in the August 2, 2001 New York Times., “And now, ethics for sale? Bioethicists and big buck. Problem city?” By Nell Boyce , originally published July, 2001 in US News., and Carl Elliott, "Pharma Buys a Conscience," The American Prospect vol. 12 no. 17, September 24, 2001 - October 8, 2001.



I’ve noted the inbred closeness of various policy making bodies in the past. (Here and here.)


However, knowing about the connection between Green, Caplan, and McGee at West's ACT, Laurie Zoloth's advisory position at West’s former company, Geron, Robin Alta Charo's advisory position at WiCell (begun with the help of Geron) and Caplan's advising position at another partner of Geron, Celera Genomics, perhaps all the criticism of Green and ACT is simply sibling rivalry.

November 20, 2007: Edited to add Labels.

November 20, 2008 repost and rewrite on the appointment of Jonathan Moreno and Alta Charo to the (newly created) Office of the President Elect transition team.