Scientists begin attempts to clone human embryos for stem cells (Harvard/Children's Hospital Boston)

AP on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 6/6/06 | Malcolm Ritter - ap

[NormsRevenge]

Harvard-affiliated researchers said Tuesday they have begun efforts to create stem cells by cloning human embryos, joining the race among a small group of scientists in this controversial pursuit.

The work at Children's Hospital Boston, the main pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, is aimed at eventually creating stem cells for treating blood diseases like sickle-cell anemia, leukemia and other blood disorders.

Dr. George Daley, a leading expert in blood diseases, is overseeing the work at the hospital. Daley, an executive committee member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, said he had begun experiments but declined to describe the results of his work so far.

Two other researchers, Douglas Melton and Kevin Eggan, have received approval from a series of review boards to begin similar work, the institute said.

Melton plans to focus on diabetes and Eggan plans eventually to work on neurodegenerative conditions like Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Stem cells can give rise to more specialized cells and tissues, which in turn may be useful for transplant to treat a range of diseases. Through embryo cloning, scientists hope to produce transplant material that is genetically matched to patients, avoiding the problem of rejection.

The University of California, San Francisco, is also pursuing the cloning of human embryos, a goal that some find ethically objectionable.

Hwang Woo-suk of Seoul National University in South Korea caused a sensation in February 2004 he and colleagues claimed to be the first to clone a human embryo and recover stem cells from it. He hit the headlines again last year when he said his lab had created 11 lines of embryonic stem cells genetically matched to human patients.

But the promise came crashing down last December and January when Hwang's university concluded that both announcements were frauds.

[Always Right]

Gee, we only have over a million aborted babies a year in this country how it. I can really see the need to create some more so we can experiment on them too.

[trisham]

I thought this was illegal.

[jmaroneps37]

The rat will be trying to clone fdr.

[massgopguy]

California passed Prop 70 making Cloning a Human Right. How backwards is that.

[massgopguy]

The results?! I'll tell you the results! Malignant Carcinomas in over 80% of the lab animals.

[TheDon]

Dr. Mengele would be envious.

[presidio9]

Note the date of this announcement...

[onedoug]

Ghouls.

[MHGinTN]

A common misconception fostered by decitful mainstream media whoredom. Nothing in this research is illegal. And what is further not commonly known is, Harvard has been experimenting with human beings at embryo age by implanting them in the extra-corporeal uterine tissue slabs, then discarding the implants and the tissues after a few days of survival. See, Harvard (and much of the science community)doesn't consider a human being at embryo age to be a human being worthy of anything more than exploitation for body parts.

[trisham]

And what is further not commonly known is, Harvard has been experimenting with human beings at embryo age by implanting them in the extra-corporeal uterine tissue slabs, then discarding the implants and the tissues after a few days of survival. See, Harvard (and much of the science community)doesn't consider a human being at embryo age to be a human being worthy of anything more than exploitation for body parts.

****************

I had no idea. This is an interesting article regarding Douglas Melton and the use of embryos "left over" from fertility treatments.

http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/melton_bio.html

[Coleus]

Harvard Researchers Start Cloning Human Embryos with Private Funds

Harvard researchers announced Tuesday that they have begun efforts to clone human embryos to create stem cells by using private funding to get around federal funding restrictions.

Human embryonic stem cell research is controversial because some question the ethics of creating and then destroying embryos for scientific research. In 2001, President Bush limited federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research to existing stem cell lines.

Researchers argue that stem cells may one day help treat diseases such as Parkinson's or damaged organs, by creating perfectly matched tissue to transplant.  Other research is being done on adult stem cells -- taken from bone marrow, skin, muscle and umbilical cord blood, among other sources -- which avoids the controversy surrounding the use of embryos.  The Harvard researchers, meanwhile, have said they conducted lengthy review processes for their embryonic stem cell work to follow ethical standards and make sure it doesn't use federal funds, Reuters reported. "Our long-term goal is to create embryonic stem cells from a patient's tissues, correct the genetic defects and get the repaired cells back into the patients," said one of the researchers, Dr. George Daley of Children's Hospital in Boston, according to Reuters.

Congress has considered legislation on both sides of the issue with supporters of embryonic stem cell research seeking to release more federal funding, and opponents looking to block funding.  The research has had its share of scandal. Earlier this year, a South Korean scientist, Woo Suk Hwang, said his team had cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them, but was later found to have falsified his research. Other groups have claimed to have cloned human babies but never produced supporting evidence.  Several private companies and scientists in Britain are working on embryonic stem cell research.  In 2004, California voters approved a controversial bond measure earmarking $3 billion for human embryonic stem cell research.

[little jeremiah]

Very bad.

[hocndoc]

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston is "creating" new stem cell lines from embryos: research that doesn't qualify for Federal funds. But not illegal, not banned.

http://publicaffairs.uth.tmc.edu/distinctions/archive/2006/February/Runnells.html
Runnells Gift Funds ‘Universal Donor’ Stem Cell Research

Houstonians Nancy and Clive Runnells have donated $100,000 to The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston to develop a “universal donor” stem cell line that could generate a variety of new tissues to treat major diseases and would not be rejected by a patient’s immune system.

Runnells’ gift allows scientists Eva Zsigmond, Ph.D., and Rick Wetsel, Ph.D., to develop new embryonic stem cells lines to advance the universal donor project while strictly adhering to federal rules for conducting stem cell research.

“The Runnells gift allows us to proceed on the next step in our research program, which is to test our results from mouse research in human embryonic stem cells. By doing so with private funds, we are able to conduct our research using stem cell lines that will be suitable for use in clinical trials should our early research results be confirmed,” said Wetsel, professor of immunology and director of the laboratory for developmental biology at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM).

The private donation permits Wetsel and Zsigmond, assistant professor of molecular medicine and associate director of the laboratory for developmental biology at the IMM, to generate new stem cell lines using fertilized eggs donated to their research from private fertility clinics. These eggs would have otherwise been destroyed if not used for research.

Rick Wetsel, Ph.D., and Eva Zsigmond, Ph.D., are studying stem cells at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases. Photo by Ina Fried

Rick Wetsel, Ph.D., and Eva Zsigmond, Ph.D., are studying stem cells at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases. Photo by Ina Fried

Federal and state regulations currently prohibit the use of federal funds to develop new lines of embryonic stem cells. A ruling by President Bush allows research on a limited number of lines developed before Aug. 9, 2001. These federally approved stem cell lines unfortunately are not suitable for clinical use in humans because they were cultivated on a feeder stock comprising animal tissue cells, including mouse embryonic derived cells, which resulted in contamination of the human stem cells. State research funds are not available for embryonic stem cell research.

“Nancy and I were reading a Houston Chronicle story that mentioned Dr. Wetsel’s stem cell research and that he had hit a wall blocking his progress because he did not have access to suitable embryonic stem cells and money for further research,” Clive Runnells said.

“We have a son who broke his back skiing about eight years ago. If a universal donor stem cell could be developed, it might alleviate some of the pain and health problems people have after they’ve broken their back, especially if the stem cells could be used right after the accident,” Runnells said.

“Of course, a universal donor stem cell line could be used for other illnesses and injuries, too,” he said. “We were very interested from the standpoint that this could be a great breakthrough. With neither state nor federal funding available, we saw this as an opportunity to give. We have high hopes for Rick’s and Eva’s research.”

UT Health Science Center President James T. Willerson, M.D., welcomed the Runnells’ gift. “We are deeply grateful to the Runnells family for their support of this important project. Our institution is committed to exploring the potential of all types of stem cells – those from umbilical cord blood and from bone marrow, as well as embryonic cells – to heal major diseases at their root cause. And we are doing so while closely adhering to federal regulations for stem cell research.”

Therapies are years away, but embryonic stem cells are expected to provide new treatments for a variety of diseases because they can differentiate into any type of tissue.

A universal donor stem cell line would reduce the need for one of the most controversial potential uses of stem cell research – therapeutic cloning.

“One of the most promising areas of stem cell research is the potential for generating new tissue to treat diseases caused by the loss of organ-specific cells – heart muscle to treat heart failure, dopamine-producing neurons to treat Parkinson’s disease, insulin-producing beta cells for type 1 diabetes,” Wetsel said. “Scientists already know how to differentiate stem cells into cardiomyocytes and neural cells.

“What we have accomplished in animal models and propose to accomplish in human stem cells is to strip the cells of surface proteins that provoke an immune response,” Wetsel explained. “This would allow generation of reparative tissues that could be used for any patient, because they would not be rejected by the recipient’s immune system.”

IMM Director Ferid Murad, M.D., Ph.D., 1998 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology, said the Runnells gift provides vital support for existing stem cell research at the institute, even as the IMM looks to greatly expand its stem cell program.

“Rick and Eva are well-known in scientific circles for their great expertise in using stem cell techniques to generate transgenic and “knock-out” mice, which are so important to basic science and disease research,” Murad said. “They are building on their success by moving into a promising area of human stem cell research. Their new, privately funded efforts are an exciting advance for the IMM, the university and the Texas Medical Center as a whole.”

Wetsel and Zsigmond, like Murad, have conducted basic research using federally approved stem cell lines. Murad’s lab explores the role of nitric oxide in stem cell regulation and differentiation.

“Stem cell biology is an important aspect of the IMM’s research program right now and it will only grow in importance,” Murad said. “With the generous support of our New Frontiers Campaign, we will soon complete a new home for the IMM with state of- the-art research facilities. And we are recruiting additional outstanding stem cell scientists – leaders in the field – to join our efforts.”

By Scott Merville, Public Affairs

[RunningWolf]

This is science like Mengele was science.

Wolf

[neverdem]

ping

[trisham]

"These eggs would have otherwise been destroyed if not used for research."

*************

But they should not have been. This seems to me to be a classic "straw man" argument. Do you remember all of the outcry regarding government funding? It seemed that all of those in support agreed that without it, this kind of research would not be possible. Sadly, they were wrong.

[little jeremiah]

I agree. E.F. Schumacher wrote a book, popular in - what was it, the 70s? - "Small is Beautiful - Economics as if People Mattered".

What we have here is "Science as if People Don't Matter" (nor the rule of natural law).

[I'm ALL Right!]

Pass the Soma!