Update Dec 26 '07: "Dolly" scientist abandons embryonic research due to skin-to-stem cell breakthrough

[hellokeith]

Update Dec 26 '07

Yahoo! news link, AFP

2007 stem cell breakthrough is like turning lead into gold

by Mira Oberman, AFP
Wed Dec 26, 5:10 PM ET

CHICAGO (AFP) - It was the kind of breakthrough scientists had dreamed of for decades and its promise to help cure disease appears to be fast on the way to being realized.

Researchers in November announced they were able to turn the clock back on skin cells and transform them into stem cells, the mutable building blocks of organs and tissues.

Then just earlier this month a different team announced it had cured sickle cell anemia in mice using stem cells derived from adult mouse skin.

"This is truly the Holy Grail: To be able to take a few cells from a patient -- say a cheek swab or few skin cells -- and turn them into stem cells in the laboratory," said Robert Lanza, a stem cell pioneer at Advanced Cell Technology.

"This work represents a tremendous scientific milestone - the biological equivalent of the Wright Brothers' first airplane," he told AFP.

"It's bit like learning how to turn lead into gold."

Stem cells offer enormous potential for curing and treating disease because they can be transformed into any cell in the body and then hopefully used to replace damaged or diseased cells, tissues and organs.

But stem cell research has been highly controversial because -- until now -- viable embryos had to be destroyed to extract the stem cells.

US President George W. Bush has banned all federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells and access to stem cells in other countries has also been restricted because of the difficulty in finding women willing to donate their eggs.

The new technique, while far from perfected, is so promising that the man who managed to clone the world's first sheep, Dolly, is giving up his work cloning embryos to focus on studying stem cells derived from skin cells.

"The fact that (the) introduction of a small number of proteins into adult human cells could produce cells that are equivalent to embryo stem cells takes us into an entirely new era of stem cell biology," said Ian Wilmut, the Scottish researcher who first created a viable clone by transferring a cell nucleus into a new embryo.

One of the greatest advantages of the new technique is its simplicity: it takes just four genes to turn the skin cell back into a stem cell.

This, unlike the complex and expensive process developed by Wilmut, can be done in a standard biological lab. And skin cells are much easier to harvest than embryos.

"It's an explosion of resources," said Konrad Hochedlinger, of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Prior to this discovery, researchers who wanted to look at how diseases developed would usually have to study animals or organs harvested from cadavers because embryonic stem cells were so hard to use and access.

But with stem cells derived from skin, tissues and organs can be grown in a petri dish, making it easier for researchers to map the genetic structure of diseased cells, a process which could unlock a cure.

They could also allow researchers to do chemical screens to identify drugs which may cure or treat a disease, a process which could significantly speed up the process of bringing life-saving drugs to the market.

The use of skin cells will eventually allow doctors to create stem cells with a specific patient's genetic code, eliminating the risk that the body would reject transplanted tissues or organs.

Researchers have already shown this is possible when they cured sickle cell anemia in mice.

They used skin cells taken from the tails of sick mice, transformed them into stem cells, manipulated those stem cells into healthy bone marrow cells and then transplanted them into the sick mice.

And since the new cells came from the sick mice, there was also no need for dangerous immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection.

:thumbsup:

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Link to my original AT P&N posting on this news piece

AP Science News article link on Yahoo!

For example, the inspiration for a group of cystic fibrosis drugs now being tested in people or animals goes back 18 years to a genetic discovery. And more generally, gene therapy ? the notion of fixing or replacing defective genes ? has been studied in people for more than 15 years without much success.

At least, federal money for research into the new kind of cell won't be a problem, said Story Landis, head of the National Institutes of Health's Stem Cell Task Force. The task force is about to invite scientists to apply for new grants for such work, she said.

This week's advance has apparently solved a supply problem for the study of embryonic stem cells. These cells are valued for their ability to morph into any of the cell types of the body. Scientists had long searched for a way to produce embryonic cells that carry the genes of a particular person.

Such cells could be used for at least three purposes. The most highly publicized one is to create transplant tissue for treating disease. In the shorter term, they could be used to create "diseases in a dish," colonies of cells bearing illness-promoting genes that could reveal the vulnerable roots of medical conditions. And finally, scientists could use such cells for rapidly screening potential medicines in the laboratory.

Until this week's announcement, scientists who wanted to make such cells looked to an expensive, cumbersome cloning process that destroyed embryos, making it an ethical lightning rod. And it hadn't yet worked with human embryos.

The new technique is much simpler. It makes human skin cells behave like embryonic stem cells without using embryos at all.

End of problem? Not unless these altered skin cells can truly replace embryonic cells, and that's not clear yet, a prominent scientist says.

Paul Berg, a Stanford University Nobel laureate who helped establish federal guidelines for human research on genetically manipulated cells, said the celebration over this week's announcement is premature.

"I'm amazed at the ethicists" saying the problem of needing embryos has been solved, Berg said. "We're not in the clear ? this is a first step."

I like the fact that this news article does not throw softballs to anyone on any side of this issue. Research takes a long, long time to develop into actual treatments. Sometimes, it yields no results. And this research may be the same. But the fact of the matter is that federal money should only be available to ethical research. Money talks, and if there is no money in embryonic stem cell research, then the demand for embryos will be low, and hopefully the both legal and illegal production of embryos will be "stemmed" in favor of for example fertilization clinics which follow strict ethical guidelines and only fertilize embryos which will be implanted.

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UPDATE Dec 6 '07 further down page
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[Rainsford]

Heh, science isn't a one-answer endeavor. Anybody who says so is trying to sell you something.

 

[blackllotus]

I like how you call embryonic stem cell research unethical as if it were some universal fact rather than your own opinion. You're obviously entitled to your own opinion, just keep in mind that this issue over human embryos has cost us years of progress in the area. Private funding sounds good in theory but is utter trash in practice for most scientific subjects. Cutting off federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research effectively neutered the whole effort.

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: hellokeith
But the fact of the matter is that federal money should only be available to ethical research.

I'm in 100% agreement with this statement. When do we shut down the weapons labs?

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: ironwing

Originally posted by: hellokeith
But the fact of the matter is that federal money should only be available to ethical research. That I agree with.

I'm in 100% agreement with this statement. When do we shut down the weapons labs?

Tried to help the OP clarify his statement.

 

[umbrella39]

Originally posted by: ironwing

Originally posted by: hellokeith
But the fact of the matter is that federal money should only be available to ethical research.

I'm in 100% agreement with this statement. When do we shut down the weapons labs?

LMAO. Served. And who gets to the authority and decider on "ethics" anyway? The OP? Please. Nice post.

 

[senseamp]

There is nothing unethical about using discarded embryos to do stem cell research.

 

[hellokeith]

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

Not even close to the same thing.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

Nazis did research on live subjects, often killing them as part of the research. Not even close to the same thing.

On the other hand, a much better analogy would be cadaver research, a very important and productive area of medical science. Are you going to tell me THAT is "unethical"?

Actually, do you even know why embryonic stem cell research is "unethical" or are you just parroting back talking points you heard someone else say? Can you explain, without using circular logic, what's unethical about embryonic stem cell research?

 

[Sinsear]

Originally posted by: senseamp
There is nothing unethical about using discarded embryos to do stem cell research.

I might be one of the few Republicans to agree with this. I have always believed that this could be a path to the future.

 

[Mean MrMustard]

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

...and Godwin's Law enters the thread in less than 10 posts. Good job.:roll:

 

[wetech]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

Nazis did research on live subjects, often killing them as part of the research. Not even close to the same thing.

On the other hand, a much better analogy would be cadaver research, a very important and productive area of medical science. Are you going to tell me THAT is "unethical"?

Actually, do you even know why embryonic stem cell research is "unethical" or are you just parroting back talking points you heard someone else say? Can you explain, without using circular logic, what's unethical about embryonic stem cell research?

Not defending the analogy, but since when are embryos not living? Are they not also killed in the process?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

Well that was an awfully stupid post.

I hope you know that in vitro fertilization also tends to use significant numbers of embryos besides the one that actually becomes implanted in the uterus. (sometimes it's just a few, sometimes it's a whole bunch). Ahhhh! Another embryo holocaust! Shut down the nazi fertility clinics!

This debate has always been incomprehensible to me. When you have a disease whose cure might be under box A (adult stem cells) or box B (embryonic), doesn't any rational person pick up both boxes?

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: wetech

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

Nazis did research on live subjects, often killing them as part of the research. Not even close to the same thing.

On the other hand, a much better analogy would be cadaver research, a very important and productive area of medical science. Are you going to tell me THAT is "unethical"?

Actually, do you even know why embryonic stem cell research is "unethical" or are you just parroting back talking points you heard someone else say? Can you explain, without using circular logic, what's unethical about embryonic stem cell research?

Not defending the analogy, but since when are embryos not living? Are they not also killed in the process?

I did not say embryos are "not living", but that was not a central point to the analogy or my objection to it. Of course they are living, they are an active organic lifeform. But then, single celled organisms are also "living", as are lab mice and any number of forms of life, both less and more complex than human embryos, that are killed in the process of much scientific research. The point of hellokeith's argument was that killing embryos is equivalent to killing fully developed human beings, which is not a scientific argument a reasonable person can make. You destroy more life rinsing out your mouth with Listerine than is destroyed by embryonic stem cell research.

Of course I didn't answer your second question, and the answer might actually make your first question irrelevant. In the first place, much of the research in embryonic stem cells is done on existing stem cell "lines"...something that people like hellokeith would like to stop despite the fact that it does NOT destroy any embryos. But in the second place, there is a lot of new research into methods of deriving new stem cell lines from single cells extracted from embryos WITHOUT destroying the embryo in question. In other words, embryonic stem cell research on existing lines can go on without killing anything, and in the near future, research into many new lines may be possible without destroying more embryos.

Basically, it's a complicated situation that people like hellokeith just confuse with their brainless "analogies" and foaming at the mouth ideology.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

Well that was an awfully stupid post.

I hope you know that in vitro fertilization also tends to use significant numbers of embryos besides the one that actually becomes implanted in the uterus. (sometimes it's just a few, sometimes it's a whole bunch). Ahhhh! Another embryo holocaust! Shut down the nazi fertility clinics!

This debate has always been incomprehensible to me. When you have a disease whose cure might be under box A (adult stem cells) or box B (embryonic), doesn't any rational person pick up both boxes?

Nothing is quite so easy as leading someone by the nose when you dangle the appearance of the moral high ground in front of them. It is clear to me that folks like hellokeith don't understand the science involved, they are simply attracted to the issue because it gives them a (bad) reason to get on their soap boxes and sound off about the sanctity of life and how everyone except them is a Nazi murderer.

Don't kid yourself, this isn't about curing disease, it's not even about saving the embryos. This issue, like so many "moral" issues, is simply a convenient way for idiots to feel superior. It's a political stalking horse for the "moral majority" crowd, nothing more.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'd be thrilled if this development was all it's represented to be- one less thing for the fundie fringe to rave about...

Now about shutting down those nazi fertility clinics...

Which is, of course, an issue that folks who believe as Hellokeith does won't touch with a pole- points out the contradictions in their own holier than thou position... Within the Fundie fold, the pressure to "be fruitful and multiply" is huge, putting childless Fundie couples in the very awkward position of creating "life" that will ultimately be destroyed so as to follow that edict. Apparently not too difficult on that level, yet utterly reprehensible on another.

Faith conquers all, even its own contradictions...

 

[First]

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

We get it, you're a hack.

 

[senseamp]

Originally posted by: wetech

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: hellokeith

There is nothing unethical about using discarded jews to do medical research. - Nazi scientist

fixed

Nazis did research on live subjects, often killing them as part of the research. Not even close to the same thing.

On the other hand, a much better analogy would be cadaver research, a very important and productive area of medical science. Are you going to tell me THAT is "unethical"?

Actually, do you even know why embryonic stem cell research is "unethical" or are you just parroting back talking points you heard someone else say? Can you explain, without using circular logic, what's unethical about embryonic stem cell research?

Not defending the analogy, but since when are embryos not living? Are they not also killed in the process?

There are many thousands of times more human cells in that dump I just took than there are in a human embryos being harvested for stem cells. Now you can say that embryo has potential to become human, but if it's going to be flushed down the toilet, no it does not. Unless you bring your wife, daughter, or some other woman to the clinic to agree to have that embryo implanted in her, it is nothing more than human bodily waste on its way to disposal, and thus should be usable for research to save and improve lives of those of us who are real living human beings.
Now I am against embryos being harvested industrially for stem cell therapies, when supply of discarded embryos is insufficient to meet demand, but we aren't there yet, it's still in research phase where simply using discarded embryos is sufficient supply to do it, and there is no ethical problem as far as I can see with using embryos destined for disposal to do research.
Now if later scientists can find something to create stem cells similar to embryonic ones without harvesting embryos, then that's fine, but in the mean time they should be able to use embryonic stem cells to do research if they need to.

 

[hellokeith]

Scientists cure mice with sickle cell

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
Thu Dec 6, 6:47 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Scientists have the first evidence that those "reprogrammed stem cells" that made headlines last month really have the potential to treat disease: They used skin from the tails of sick mice to cure the rodents of sickle cell anemia.

The study, published in the journal Science, doesn't bring this potential therapy closer to people just yet. Big hurdles remain, including a risk of cancer from the reprogramming method.

But without the mouse work, scientists didn't know "whether all the recombined machinery will work or not," explained lead researcher Tim Townes, molecular genetics chief at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. "It's the first example of actually completing the cycle and curing a disease."

Townes had created a strain of mice bearing the human genes for sickle cell, a devastating inherited disease of deformed red blood cells that can't carry enough oxygen.

Townes paired with prominent stem cell scientist Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., to reprogram skin from those mice into embryonic-like stem cells. They coaxed the newly engineered cells to grow into blood-producing cells. Then they replaced the sickle cell-causing gene with a healthy version and infused the new cells.

The mice started producing healthy blood, and their sickle cell symptoms vanished.

"What this paper shows for the first time is you can combine all these steps," said Konrad Hochedlinger, a researcher at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital. "It's an important proof of principle for the usefulness of this technology to treat disease."

First the breakthrough of skin-to-stem cell, and now they've already cured a disease with it!!! :shocked: :thumbsup:

I have to say I am very excited about this research and the promise it appears to hold. Imagine being able to use your own adult skin cells to treat a condition, cure a disease, or grow a new organ.

Will embryonic pundits embrace non-embryonic research and breakthroughs?

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: hellokeith
Scientists cure mice with sickle cell

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
Thu Dec 6, 6:47 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Scientists have the first evidence that those "reprogrammed stem cells" that made headlines last month really have the potential to treat disease: They used skin from the tails of sick mice to cure the rodents of sickle cell anemia.

The study, published in the journal Science, doesn't bring this potential therapy closer to people just yet. Big hurdles remain, including a risk of cancer from the reprogramming method.

But without the mouse work, scientists didn't know "whether all the recombined machinery will work or not," explained lead researcher Tim Townes, molecular genetics chief at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. "It's the first example of actually completing the cycle and curing a disease."

Townes had created a strain of mice bearing the human genes for sickle cell, a devastating inherited disease of deformed red blood cells that can't carry enough oxygen.

Townes paired with prominent stem cell scientist Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., to reprogram skin from those mice into embryonic-like stem cells. They coaxed the newly engineered cells to grow into blood-producing cells. Then they replaced the sickle cell-causing gene with a healthy version and infused the new cells.

The mice started producing healthy blood, and their sickle cell symptoms vanished.

"What this paper shows for the first time is you can combine all these steps," said Konrad Hochedlinger, a researcher at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital. "It's an important proof of principle for the usefulness of this technology to treat disease."

First the breakthrough of skin-to-stem cell, and now they've already cured a disease with it!!! :shocked: :thumbsup:

I have to say I am very excited about this research and the promise it appears to hold. Imagine being able to use your own adult skin cells to treat a condition, cure a disease, or grow a new organ.

Will embryonic pundits embrace non-embryonic research and breakthroughs?

Yes, because unlike people such as yourselves who choose to politicize everything, I am excited by advances in medicine, regardless of where they came from. I'll leave those details to those who actually know what they're talking about, you know, the scientists?

 

[3chordcharlie]

Most people who support embryonic stem cell research will probably deny that this ever happened. isgust;

Seriously, where do you come up with this?

 

[fallout man]

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Yes, because unlike people such as yourselves who choose to politicize everything, I am excited by advances in medicine, regardless of where they came from. I'll leave those details to those who actually know what they're talking about, you know, the scientists?

Sweet Jesus! Stop using logic! I'm melting... meeeeeeehlllllltiiiiiingggg.

 

[senseamp]

There are no embryonic pundits. There are only anti-embryonic ones, and those who want all research to proceed, even if it's on otherwise discarded embryos.

 

[fallout man]

Originally posted by: senseamp
There are no embryonic pundits.

Actually, there are. They're very expensive, and difficult to come by. However, THEY'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.

Ha ha. See what I did there? See?