'Ethical' stem cell lines created ~~ Technology removes an ethical dilemma?

BBC ^ | Wednesday, 23 August 2006, 17:12 GMT 18:12 UK | BBC staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Last Updated: Wednesday, 23 August 2006, 17:12 GMT 18:12 UK

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'Ethical' stem cell lines created

The scientists removed single cells from the embryos

Human embryonic stem cell lines have been generated without embryos being destroyed, according to researchers.

A US team created stem cell lines by removing single cells from embryos, a process that left them intact, they report in the journal Nature.

At present, growing this type of stem cell results in embryo destruction.

The researchers say their findings may remove some of the ethical barriers to this field and provide a way of bypassing current US legislation.

	Under US law, federal funding is limited for research in which an embryo is destroyed. Clearly this approach does not involve the destruction of an embryo Professor Robert Lanza

In 1995, the US congress passed an amendment stating that the government would not fund research in which human embryos were destroyed.

And in 2001, President Bush declared federal funding would only be available for research using the 61 human embryonic stem cells lines already in existence, where a "life or death decision had already been made".

This meant that no new lines could be created, whether from existing embryos or cloned embryos.

US stem cell researchers said the funding limits had ensured the US lagged behind in this field of research, limiting new studies to private companies, while pro-lifers hailed the decision.

Scientists believe stem cells may one day help to combat a range of diseases, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, or to repair spinal cord injury.

'Ethical barriers'

But Professor Robert Lanza, medical director of biotech company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Massachusetts, US, and lead author on the paper, said: "We have shown for the first time you can create human embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo and thus without destroying its potential for life."

Using spare human IVF embryos, the researchers removed single cells from them, employing the same procedure used for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a technique that has been used in IVF so cells can be removed from the embryo and tested for genetic disorders.

The process, said the team, leaves the embryo intact, enabling it to continue and grow into a healthy foetus.

Of the 16 embryos used, they developed two long-term stem cell lines, which, Professor Lanza said, were "genetically normal and able to generate all of the cell types of the body".

If the research is successfully replicated by other scientists, this could mean more stem cell lines for research and potentially tailored stem cell lines which could be used for children born through PGD.

Professor Lanza added: "We hope this method can be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available for federal funding, and thus give the field a badly needed jump start."

Limited relevance

However, David Christensen, from the Family Research Council, a US-based conservative group, said: "What is good about this research is that it shows many more researchers are seeing that we need alternatives to destroying human embryos to get stem cells.

I am unconvinced by the ethical arguments - spare IVF embryos used to derive the cell lines would have been destroyed anyway Professor Robin Lovell-Badge

"Unfortunately what Professor Lanza did was entirely unethical because he generated and manipulated 16 human embryos and then threw them all away."

Other scientists said while the paper marked a technical achievement, they were concerned about its practical relevance.

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of developmental genetics at the UK's MRC National Institute for Medical Research, added: "I am also unconvinced by the ethical arguments - spare IVF embryos used to derive ES cell lines would have been destroyed anyway."

Professor Chris Shaw, a neurologist at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, said: "This is a useful alternative source for embryonic stem cells but it side-steps the crucial ethical question: 'What happens to those embryos found to have a genetic mutation and those that are healthy but excess to requirement?'"

[GovernmentShrinker]

For PGD, and PGD-comparable removal for stem cell research, normally no more than 8 cells (3 days post-fertilization). Most cells taken for embryonic stem cell research have been taken from blastocysts, which are a little further along -- apparently they're easier to keep going, but it looks like this group has figured out how to get comparable results from earlier cells.

I don't think there's any reason that a blastocyst couldn't survive cell removal just as well as these earlier embryos, but it hasn't been the practice to try to save blastocysts when they're being used to provide cells for research. If PGD is done for the purpose of selecting embryos to transfer into a patient, it has to be done by the 8 cell/3 day stage because results aren't immediately available, and doing the test later would mean the embryos were too far along by the time they could be transferred, to have a good chance of surviving and implanting.

[tallhappy]

Thanks, both of you.

I don't think there's any reason that a blastocyst couldn't survive cell removal just as well as these earlier embryos

The issue isn't blastocyst survival but subsequent developmental progrsm being effected. I'd think there is a good reason to think this may be effected, but both of you have provided info that empirically it doesn't seem to.

Interestingly, it may be that later manipulation would be more deleterious than at this very early pre-implantation stage before any obvious differentiation and before pattern formation begins.

[Incorrigible]

Bump

[GovernmentShrinker]

Interestingly, it may be that later manipulation would be more deleterious

Very true. There's just so much self-malleability built into these early embryonic cells that they can compensate for a heck of a lot. This is why researchers are so fascinated with the potential of embryonic cells.

Malleability seems to decrease gradually as an organism differentiates and grows. Weird little factoid: in the handful of cases where abdominal/thoracic surgery has been done on fetuses in utero, to correct defects that would likely be fatal before birth if they went uncorrected, the incisions in the embryos heal without scars. Surgery even shortly after birth (and probably in very late stage fetuses) leaves scars. Somewhere along the line, some switch seems to get flipped in all the skin cells, from "heal wounds with normal skin cells" to "heal wounds with scar-type skin cells". If they ever figure out how to flip that switch back without causing other serious harm, the implications for victims of disfiguring injuries and burns would be immense.

[dpwiener]

I think the more troubling question is whether that removed cell has the capacity to develop into a baby and, if so, they are just creating a twin and killing the twin.

No one has yet been able to take a single removed cell from an embryo and coax it into developing into a baby. But even if they eventually do, so what? What happens when medical science reaches the point where it is capable of taking any human cell and turning into an embryo which can develop into a baby? Does that mean that every cell in our bodies is a potential new human being and that the destruction of even one cell therefore becomes murder?

[conservative blonde]

Researchers are still destroying human life but giving it a different name. The source embryos are not implanted in a uterus, so they die. Human life is still being destroyed. Adult stem cell research where all the successful cures and treatments are coming from does not kill human life.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Adult stem cell research where all the successful cures and treatments are coming from does

So you are making a research judgement?

[ga medic]

You are welcome. I am not convinced that this is a viable option for the research, but time will tell. I am hopeful that this research can bridge the gap between the potential of embryonic stem cells and the right to life for the innocent embryo. I have a grandfather suffering from Alzheimers, so I have been very interested in the potential of both adult and embryonic stem cells. Any benefits will be too late to help him, but I would love to keep others from the same fate.

I just can't see taking an innocent life as justifiable for any reason. This research at least indicates that we are working toward the right goal.

[batter]

BTTT

Thanks for the very informative discussion. That was great!

I have a family member which could be helped with a break through. To date, I've been fully behind Adult stem cells and very opposed to embryonic. This may open a new avenue and the researcher's should be commended for attempting to find a way to preserve life.

I still think the MSM has given the adult stem cells the 'short end of the stick' in their coverage, but what else is new.

[batter]

family member which could be helped

which = who - Back to grammar class for me.

[tallhappy]

Thanks for your comments. Really appreciated.

But... This may open a new avenue and the researcher's should be commended for attempting to find a way to preserve life.

Don't be. This really is a publicity stunt in some ways. ACT is to my mind a scam company in that what they do is addressed to investors and fund raising. Companies that never prodiuce anything in biotech and other tech fields can none the less be incredibly successful in making money.

I think they actually do science -- they hire people who do -- but I get the feeling they are one step above charlatanism. Maybe I am being harsh and unfair, but I am just goving my impression.

My guess is the breakthrough if it occurs will come through unexpectedly and will be effective enough to be obvious, won't involve embryonic stem cells and won't be done by one of the high profili huge money self promoting companies or labs -- which is why it will be "unexpected".

Nothing though is going to be as good as cliamed by the vested interest types.

EG chemotherapy helps and keeps people alive. But no one would say that's where we want to be in how we treat cancer.

[conservative blonde]

The successful ethical results of adult stem cell research is making the judgements.

After twenty years of embryonic research there have been no cures, no treatments for diseases just hype and potentials and maybes.

[Question_Assumptions]

If it requires changing the cell, then it's not a problem. If it doesn't require changing the cell, then it is. That's the short Reader's Digest version.

[Question_Assumptions]

If the one cell is removed past the point where that one cell, alone, can twin, then it's not an issue. While I agree that there is a lot of complexity sorting things out when you get down to a single cell or handful of cell, I've found that it's still not that difficult to sort out if one has a sound definition of what distinguishes a person from a non-person.

[MHGinTN]

Permit me to raise yet another quandary: how do the removers of a single cell at four or eight cell age of the embryo know that that particular cell isn't the twin of the first embryo of the conception?... Read a little about the twinning process for identical twins and you'll get the gist of why that question is relevant.

[MHGinTN]

Don't give up on a possible cure for your grandfather ... scientists are trying to get a drug into trials that acts like a cleansing agent in the brain, to dissolve through normal body functions the material which forms the brain gnarls. During a normal lifetime, your brain dissolves the material which forms tangles in Alzheimers, and something goes awry in Alzheimers that stops this normal dissolving process.

[RedStateRocker]

Give it up. Just join me in a chorus of "Every Sperm Is Sacred"

[MHGinTN]

Care to elaborate, or was that a drive-by?

[RedStateRocker]

Sure. 'Pro Life' is one thing, but treating every single cell that could possibly become a human being is so ridiculous that Pythonesque mockery is the only appropriate response (I am referring to the song out of 'Meaning of life'). I don't support cutting up third trimester babies but when someone is saying that even taking one cell out of an embryo is tantamount to abortion then that is so silly that I just shake my head. Some positions are worth reasoning with, some are only suitable to be mocked.

[MHGinTN]

The musing of certain self-appointed experts on this thread not withstanding, here's the reality of this procedure.

When an identical twin emerges from the initial zygote of conception, Science is not able to identify which of the first four to six to eight cells of the developing embryo is the actual one that is the zygote age of the twin. Does that help to see why this could actually be killing the twin in some instances? Or do you not consider the zygote age of the human lifetime to be worthy of protection as a human being in fact?