Three For-Profit MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) - At least three
for-profit companies are racing to develop large amounts of
embryonic stem cells even as President Bush struggles to decide
whether the government should hinder such research.
The stem cells hold the potential to cure diseases and ailments
from cancer to spinal cord injuries. If this dream can be realized,
these companies stand to reap millions - if not billions - in
profits.
Each company employs different but still controversial techniques
to harvest embryonic stem cells. One buys leftover embryos from
fertility clinics. Another is working to create embryos by way of a
cloning method similar to the one used to make Dolly the sheep. The
third pays men and women for their sperm and eggs, then creates
embryos in the laboratory.
Each company's research involves plucking the coveted stem cells
from 4- or 5-day-old human embryos, which must be destroyed in the
process.
Anti-abortion activists and others consider all three techniques
unethical, saying they result in the destruction of human life.
Proponents of such research argue that these days-old,
undifferentiated cells cannot be viewed as human, and they stress
that they have no intention of implanting them in a womb and
producing babies.
Since 1996, federal law has banned the use of tax dollars for
research that destroys embryos. The Clinton administration decided
federal money could pay for research as long as the stem cells were
extracted with private money.
Bush, who has come under pressure to reverse the Clinton policy
and disallow any federal money for human embryonic stem cell
research, appears to be searching for a compromise - possibly
adopting a middle ground that imposes new restrictions but allows
the research to move forward.
"The work will go on, one way or another," said Thomas Okarma,
chief executive of Menlo Park-based Geron Inc., which funded the two
scientists who first isolated human stem cells in 1998 and still
dominates the field.
Geron buys leftover frozen embryos from fertility clinics and
cracks them open to obtain the stem cells. Geron owns the worldwide
rights to this process and has filed about 30 new patent
applications for the various techniques and technology it uses.
Chief executive Thomas Okarma said he considers Geron's technique
ethically sound.
"These things aren't people," he said. "These are all frozen
excess and no longer needed by the couple. And they are either going
to be thrown away or stored forever."
Eventually, Geron hopes to get stem cells without having to use
embryos at all. It hopes to do this by finding and cloning the
proteins in eggs that lead to the creation of stem cells. Then,
Okarma said, "living cells will be tomorrow's pharmaceuticals."
Across the country in Worcester, Mass., Advanced Cell Technology
is working on another technique that it hopes will enable it to
generate stem cells by growing human embryos without the use of
sperm.
Advanced Cell's plan is to pay women to take fertility drugs to
produce excess eggs. Researchers would then take an egg, remove its
nucleus and genetic material and fuse it with a skin cell containing
adult genetic material. With a jolt of electricity, the researchers
then would coax the egg to replicate as if it had been fertilized
with sperm. After a few days, stem cells would be ready for
harvesting.
So far, Advanced Cell has yet to obtain a stem cell with this
technique. Chief executive Michael West, a Geron co-founder who left
for Advanced Cell last year, said the company has not yet created
embryos.
Many scientists consider the results of Advanced Cell's technique
to be human embryos, since theoretically, they could be implanted
into a womb and grown into a fetus. West himself has used the term
"embryo." However, his ethical advisers prefer terms such as
"ovumsum."
"These are not embryos," said the chairman of Advanced Cell's
ethics advisory board, Dartmouth University religion professor
Ronald Green. "They are not the result of fertilization and there is
no intent to implant these in women and grow them."
A third effort was announced this week by the Jones Institute for
Reproductive Medicine, a private fertility clinic in Norfolk, Va.,
that was responsible for the birth in 1981 of the nation's first
test-tube baby.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine said it believes
the researchers there are the first in the United States to have
created embryos expressly for stem cell research, using eggs and
sperm from paid, consenting adults.
"At one level, it's cleaner" ethically than using leftover
embryos, society spokesman Sean Tipton said. "There's no question
what you're going to do with these embryos. You're going to the
individuals up front."
Only the Geron-generated cells would be eligible for federally
funded research dollars under the Clinton administration guidelines,
which called for using only surplus embryos from fertility clinics.
The Advanced Cell and Jones Institute embryos would not pass this
federal test. |