Hopes Now Outpace Stem Cell Science

When Ron Reagan gave his speech on stem cell research before the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night, medical researchers were taking careful note. It was just so important to them that he get the details right, that he make no mistakes on the science and that they glean any tricks they could on how to get their message about the importance of stem cell research across.

But for all the promise, and for all the fervent hopes of patients and their families that cures from stem cells will come soon, researchers say many questions in basic science remain to be answered. And experts with ethical objections to the destruction of human embryos for such research say they oppose paying for the work with public money. Scientists know the emotional, and ethical, sides in the stem cell debate. The cells are from human embryos.

Many scientists hope eventually to make customized stem cells for patients by starting the cloning process, making an embryo that is genetically identical to the patient, but interrupting the clone's development when it was a few days old and extracting its stem cells. Such research can be an ethical tinderbox, they realize. They also feel frustrated and hobbled by the current restrictions on research with human embryonic stem cells. If they want federal money, scientists must agree to use only cells derived from embryos dating from before Aug. 9, 2001. Many hope for a real policy change.

So leading scientists say they go around the country speaking at churches and synagogues, in community gatherings and at medical centers, hoping to explain stem cell research and its promise. And they anticipated Mr. Reagan's speech with shivers of thrill and anticipation. They knew that any misstep, any exaggeration, any error by someone as prominent as Ron Reagan, the former president's son, could end up hurting their cause.

But the speech, said Dr. John Gearhart, director of the stem cell program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was all he could have wished. "I certainly thought it was passionate," he said. Yet, he added, it also was accurate. "I think he did a good job," Dr. Gearhart said.

Mr. Reagan spoke of the stem cells as simply cells, with a potential to cure disease. "They are not, in and of themselves, human beings," he said.

He also spoke of a girl with diabetes, who put sequins on her insulin pump. She "has learned to sleep through the blood drawings in the wee hours of the morning,'' and she knows what her future might hold - "blindness, amputation, diabetic coma."

The idea of stem cell research is to take embryo cells that have the potential to become any type of cell, be it liver, heart, nerve, pancreas or blood, and grow them in petri dishes, adding chemicals to turn them into replacement cells to cure disease. A person with diabetes, for example, would get pancreas cells to replace ones that have died. Someone with Parkinson's disease would get replacement brain cells.

Researchers, however, have not yet cured any disease or even routinely turned embryo cells into specific adult cells. They got furthest in mice, where they converted mouse stem cells into brain cells like those lost in Parkinson's and into blood cells.

Dr. Ronald McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, counseled patience.

"We are essentially getting cells to differentiate without the rest of the embryo," Dr. McKay said. "That has to be controlled and it has to be controlled in the lab. It's tricky stuff and it will take quite a while to figure out."

"The problem is that everyone is looking for magic," Dr. McKay said. "Academics are too."

But, he said, to get to the next stage, when animals can routinely be cured of some diseases, like diabetes or Parkinson's, "is likely going to take a new wave of technology or experiments."

Yet, said Dr. Leonard Zon, a stem cell expert at Harvard Medical School, research is advancing rapidly, and in directions that can have even more impact than creating replacement cells.

Everyone wants to help patients, said Dr. John Kilner, an ethicist who directs the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. The question, however, is, At what ethical cost?

"The core ethical problem is that this research requires destroying human beings at the embryonic stage," he said. "It is a human embryo, it is not dirt or soil or some other materials and it is not just some cells. There are so many examples in history where people say, 'As long as we can convince ourselves that these beings are not fully persons then what we want to do is O.K.' "

He sees the questions as "an end-means thing." Proponents of the research are holding up lofty goals and dismissing the means to achieve them. Dr. Kilner says there are many who share his ethical qualms.

"We're talking about federal support here,'' he said. "It is inappropriate to require the entire populace to support something that a significant proportion considers to be such an ethical violation."

Dr. Zon disagrees. "As long as the issues are openly discussed and peoples' ethics are examined, why shouldn't we pursue this avenue of research?" he said.

"What's good about what Ron did is that he opened this debate up to the American public. He showed them what might be the future and asked them to think about it."

This is the closest I've seen in any major media article to explaining the need for cloning of a twin of the patient:

""Many scientists hope eventually to make customized stem cells for patients by starting the cloning process, making an embryo that is genetically identical to the patient, but interrupting the clone's development when it was a few days old and extracting its stem cells.""

Although the "interupting the clone's development" is a little tame - sort of like "The Nazis interupted the development of 6 million Jews."

Also, at least the reporter admits that researchers have never been able to influence the development of embryonic stem cells into specific cell types. On the other hand, adult and umbilical cells *have* been induced to de-differentiate and others have been identified as stem cells that can be induced to both differentiate into specific stem cells and/or fuse with the local cells, increasing function and healing muscle, neurological tissue, and even producing insulin.

Notice that the author did not mention the patients with spinal cord damage who are now walking with braces and swimming independently after only a couple of months?

btw, here's an article on how the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation is spending money on embryonic research - $3 million for research and $1 million for lobbying.
Take a look at Proposition 71 info, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Stem-Cell-Funder.html

The NYT has a great search engine at the top of the page. Usually on the same page as the artcles I read, they offer a link called "Times News Tracker."
Also, I use Google News
http://news.google.com/

Chris Hansen Letter To The Editor - A Former Embryo Speaks Out

Since I am a former embryo, I have every right to speak out on behalf of embryos who can not speak for themselves. I am glad that my stem cells weren't harvested! I would have been killed in the process. Many embryos have sacrificed their lives for research, and not a single disease has been cured in the process. I am now an adult, and I have lots of stem cells to donate. I don't mind donating part of myself for research. I just don't want to die in the process! Adult stem cells have cured three-hundred diseases without killing a single person. Embryos of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your lives!

Chris Hansen
Author of
Revelation Revisited

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