Hi Linda,

The news from Korea is amazing and shifts everything.

Should we be sending these last two paragraphs to elected officials?
Dropping them from helicopters? Tattooing them on our foreheads?

Kathleen
================================================
"Hwang said that his approach is actually less controversial than using
discarded embryos from in vitro fertilization. The cells grown in
Hwang's
lab don't have the ability to grow into a person, according to Hwang and
other scientists.

``Ethically this is a better way of producing stem cells than using
cells
from embryos,'' said David Magnus, director of the Stanford University
Center for Biomedical Ethics. Magnus addressed the ethics of the Korean
research in the conference call with reporters yesterday. ``These
things,
whatever they are, aren't people.''
--===============================================


-----Original Message-----
From: Linda J Herman <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent:         Thu, 19 May 2005 23:23:58 -0400
Subject: ARTICLE: Stem cell Technique may speed therapies

   Stem-Cell Technique May Speed Therapies, Study Says (Update1)

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- South Korean researchers said they've found a more
efficient way to create individually tailored stem cells, the building
blocks that may one day be used to cure conditions such as diabetes and
Alzheimer's disease.

For the first time, an experiment successfully combined individual DNA
of
various types of patients with an egg from an unrelated donor to make
stem cells, researchers led by Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National
University
said in a study published today. The work created 11 new lines, or
groups, of the cells that may be used to study and, eventually, treat
serious diseases.

``What we've seen is a tremendous advance,'' said Leonard Zon, a Harvard
Medical School researcher and president of the Chicago-based
International Society for Stem Cell Research, in a telephone interview
yesterday. Zon wasn't involved in the South Korean study, published
today
in Sciencexpress, the online version of the journal Science. ``You can
basically get designer embryonic stem cells.''

The technique may be a first step toward using stem cells to grow
genetically tailored tissue for repairing organs such as the brain or
pancreas without the risk that a patient would reject a donor's tissue.
In experiments the researchers conducted a year ago, the DNA came only
from the woman who donated the egg, and the resulting cell lines would
have had limited application.

The next challenge will be learning how to direct the stem cells to form
desired tissues, said Gerald Schatten, a University of Pittsburgh School
of Medicine stem-cell researcher who participated in the study.

Stem cells matching patients' DNA can be generated with the new process
``regardless of age or sex or infirmity,'' Schatten said yesterday
during
a conference call arranged by Science with reporters. ``We owe the
people
of Korea and the government of Korea a debt of gratitude.''

U.S. Research

Research using the new stem-cell lines wouldn't be eligible for U.S.
government funding because President George W. Bush's policy prohibits
use of federal money for experiments with human embryonic stem-cell
lines
created after August 2001.

Bush cited objections to creation of new human embryonic stem- cell
lines, which usually involves destroying days-old embryos to harvest the
cells. States including California and New Jersey have started their own
programs to fund the research.

With funding from the South Korean government, Hwang's lab in each case
took the nucleus that contains a cell's DNA from a patient with a
condition such as spinal-cord injuries, diabetes or an immune disorder,
and implanted it into an egg cell provided by women donors, in a process
also known as cloning using nuclear transfer.

After the implanted egg was placed on a bed of ``feeder'' cells, a
medium
used to nurture an implanted egg, some began forming embryo-like groups
of cells, a process that normally occurs only after eggs are fertilized
by sperm.

Successful Growth

About one in 16 of the cell groups grew successfully, a rate more than
10
times better than the researchers achieved in a similar experiment a
year
ago. This time, the DNA implanted into the donor egg came from someone
other than the donor, showing that the stem-cell lines can be produced
with anyone's DNA.

The latest experiment also succeeded in using human feeder cells, rather
than widely used mouse cells that some researchers say may contaminate
the resulting stem cells.

When the stem cells were allowed to reproduce, some matured into cell
types including those for bone, muscle, skin, nerves and the retina.
Stem
cells are like blank slates that can be directed to become cells with
specific functions.

Tissue Rejection

``For the first time ever in half a century of transplantation we have a
working technology to eliminate tissue rejection,'' said Robert Lanza,
medical director of Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., a closely-held
biotechnology company in Worcester, Massachusetts. ``It's unbelievably
good news for patients.''

Using the same cloning approach, researchers might be able to grow
tissues from patients with specific diseases to perform advanced
experiments. Cells from patients with Alzheimer's disease could be grown
into brain tissue, for example, giving scientists new insight into the
incurable disorder, Harvard's Zon said.

Using the Technique

Laboratories probably will begin using the technique to advance their
own
research into various diseases, researchers and company officials said.

``It makes me want to run out and set up shop and start doing this,''
said John Gearhart, director of the Stem Cell Program at Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine in Baltimore. ``If these cells do
demonstrate the characteristics of disease, we can use them to'' screen
drugs for effectiveness or to customize therapy, he said.

In California, where voters have approved a $3 billion bond sale to fund
stem-cell research in the next 10 years, scientists probably will begin
using the South Korean approach, said David Greenwood, Chief Financial
Officer of Menlo Park-based Geron Corp.

``A number of researchers have described this as a possible avenue of
opportunity,'' he said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Geron's shares rose 46 cents, or 6.8 percent, to $7.21 as of 4 p.m. New
York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Shares of Palo Alto,
California-based StemCells Inc. rose 41 cents, or 13 percent, to $3.58.
The company is using stem cells from adults rather than from embryos to
develop a treatment for a rare brain disorder.

Viacell Inc., based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, rose 39 cents, or 6.9
percent, to $6.05. The company stores umbilical-cord stem cells and
other
types for possible use in treatment and is working on stem-cell
therapies.

Obstacle Overcome

Harvard's Zon, who is trying to use stem cells to cure blood disorders,
said the South Korean work solved an important obstacle in his research,
and probably shaved three years off bringing his work to human testing.

``I'm looking forward to recreating the technique here in Boston,'' he
said. ``We need to keep advancing the field as much as possible so we
can
shorten these time lines.''

Twenty-seven U.S. states are considering measures that either promote or
restrict stem-cell research, according to Patrick Kelly, vice president
of state government relations for the Washington-based Biotechnology
Industry Organization trade group. States including Texas and Missouri
are considering or have considered legislation that would prohibit the
technique, called somatic cell nuclear transfer or therapeutic cloning.

Such restrictions might put the U.S. at risk for falling behind other
countries in biomedical research, Kelly said in a telephone interview.

`Behind the Curve'

``This is the frontier and it is being pursued, particularly in Korea,''
said Kelly said. ``As long as we continue to have this debate about the
morality of doing research on a single-cell entity living in a petri
dish, we stand to be behind the curve.''

The U.S. House of Representatives may vote as early as next week on two
bills seeking to expand stem cell research, Majority Leader Tom DeLay
said yesterday. One bill would remove federal limits on funding for
embryonic stem cell research, while the other would encourage work on
stem cells that come from umbilical cord blood.

Hwang said that his approach is actually less controversial than using
discarded embryos from in vitro fertilization. The cells grown in
Hwang's
lab don't have the ability to grow into a person, according to Hwang and
other scientists.

``Ethically this is a better way of producing stem cells than using
cells
from embryos,'' said David Magnus, director of the Stanford University
Center for Biomedical Ethics. Magnus addressed the ethics of the Korean
research in the conference call with reporters yesterday. ``These
things,
whatever they are, aren't people.''



To contact the reporters on this story:
John Lauerman in Boston at  [log in to unmask];
Marni Leff Kottle in San Francisco at  [log in to unmask];
Last Updated: May 19, 2005 16:27 EDT

Source: Bloomberg.com
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=aBYd9rG77zok&refer=as
ia

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