Dr. Hwang also said this procedure was much easier than expected.
Ray
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathleen Cochran" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2005 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: ARTICLE: Stem cell Technique may speed therapies


> 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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