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CINCINATTI: Stem Cell Study Limited Here ... But Some Area Patients Have Benefited By Tim Bonfield - Enquirer staff writer Monday, August 2, 2004 While there is stem cell research in Cincinnati, local scientists are not involved in the controversial work involving human embryonic stem cells discussed last week by the son of former President Ronald Reagan. During a speech Tuesday night to the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Ron Reagan Jr. called for removing restrictions the Bush administration imposed on stem cell research. The topic has re-emerged as a political issue since the June 5 death of President Reagan after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease It is one of many illnesses that experts say could be treated and possibly cured through expanded stem cell research. But even if the federal funding rules change, some scientists doubt that Cincinnati's cautious, limited approach to stem cell studies will suddenly change. "I don't think that Cincinnati is going to be doing any cutting edge embryonic stem cell research," said Dr. Irwin Light, who retired July 1 from a leading role in reviewing research proposals at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. That's because local institutions would remain affected by an Ohio law that prohibits research use of aborted fetal tissue. They also remain sensitive to strong anti-abortion sentiments in the Cincinnati area, Light said. Ron Reagan's speech painted a picture of how Parkinson's disease could be treated someday: "Imagine going to a doctor who, instead of prescribing drugs, takes a few skin cells from your arm. The nucleus of one of your cells is placed into a donor egg whose own nucleus has been removed. A bit of chemical or electrical stimulation will encourage your cell's nucleus to begin dividing, creating new cells which will then be placed into a tissue culture. "Those cells will generate embryonic stem cells containing only your DNA, thereby eliminating the risk of tissue rejection. These stem cells are then driven to become the very neural cells that are defective in Parkinson's patients. And finally, those cells - with your DNA - are injected into your brain where they will replace the faulty cells whose failure to produce adequate dopamine led to the Parkinson's disease in the first place. "In other words, you're cured." The type of treatment Reagan described is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" or "therapeutic cloning." To the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, there should be no deep ethical concern with this kind of research. "Therapeutic cloning produces stem cells, not babies," according to a coalition statement. "With therapeutic cloning, there is no fertilization of the egg by sperm, no implantation in the uterus and no pregnancy." Someday, supporters say embryonic stem cells could be converted into all manner of tissue, including: • Brain cells to battle Alzheimer's. • Nerve cells to repair broken spines. • Organ cells to repair damaged hearts, kidneys or livers. But to others, therapeutic cloning reflects destruction of human life. "(Reagan's) misleading language covered up the fact that producing the cells he seeks requires cloning human beings and then destroying them," said Dr. John Kilner, president of the Chicago-based Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. In therapeutic cloning, scientists still create embryos grown to the blastocyst stage. Creating stem cell lines requires removing the desired stem cells so they can be multiplied in a lab dish. In so doing, the blastocyst is destroyed, which critics consider akin to abortion. To supporters of stem-cell research, it makes sense to allow researchers to start growing stem-cell lines from unused embryos from fertility treatments or from aborted fetal tissue. Otherwise, in most cases, the material gets thrown away. "Yes these cells could theoretically have the potential, under very different circumstances to develop into human beings," Reagan said Tuesday. "But they are not, in and of themselves, human beings." This is where the Bush administration restrictions kick in. Except for a limited and shrinking number of stem cell lines that already existed before the rules changed in August 2001, medical centers cannot use federal funds - or any staff or equipment supported by federal funds - to create or study new embryonic stem cell lines. The Catholic church is among the groups that considers such experimentation immoral. "The church has great concern about protecting the sanctity of life at all stages," said Dan Andriacco, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. "There is great danger in many of these new technologies involving artificial reproduction and stem cell research that the sanctity of life could get lost in the mix." The local reality In Greater Cincinnati, people already have benefited from certain kinds of stem cell treatment. Many people with leukemia, others with breast cancer and a few people with multiple sclerosis and other illnesses have received stem cell transplants as part of bone marrow transplants. Such treatments have helped some, but not others. Last year, Cincinnati cardiac researchers joined a few centers nationwide in transplanting muscle stem cells, gathered from the patient's own leg, as a way to repair heart tissue damaged by a heart attack. Early results indicate that the cells do function, but the study is not complete. In 2001 in Northern Kentucky, an eye doctor helped restore sight to a woman from Dallas with a combined cornea and stem cell transplant. The stem cells in that case came from an adult cadaver. Cincinnati also has been a growing center for performing and studying islet cell transplants as a way to treat extreme cases of diabetes. This insulin-producing cell exists in the pancreas and can be collected in some cases from the patients themselves or harvested from donated cadaver organs. But these transplants involved cells taken from patients' own bodies or from adult cadavers, not from unused embryos generated during fertility treatments or from aborted fetuses. On the animal front, however, Cincinnati researchers rank among the nation's top experts in the use of technologies that also could be used for therapeutic cloning. Cincinnati Children's Hospital is one of the nation's top producers of genetically engineered mice, which are created and bred to express many kinds of human diseases so that potential treatments can be studied. But as of early July, Cincinnati Children's Hospital had not approved any human embryonic stem cell projects, Light said. Even if the federal funding restriction was lifted, it isn't clear whether a flood of proposals would emerge. Questions remain about whether materials used in embryonic stem cell research would violate state laws against using aborted tissue. It also remains unclear how ethical standards for human medical research would affect such projects, Light said. "These are all questions of legal wording and definitions. Is an embryo in a petri dish the product of conception? None of this has been tested in court and nobody wants their study to be the test case," Light said. Local researchers added a new wrinkle to the debate in March. According to a study of mice published in the journal Nature, experts were unable to make adult stem cells taken from bone marrow function as heart tissue to repair a damaged heart. To some, the study adds strength to calls for lifting stem cell research restrictions because it indicates that adult stem cells won't work as an alternative. But Dr. David Williams, co-author of the study, and a board member of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, said he wouldn't go that far. "Unfortunately, the whole area has become politicized," Williams said. "The use of adult stem cells hasn't proven out very well so far. But the data on embryonic stem cells is still very limited as well." As for the dream treatments envisioned in Reagan's speech, "I think we're still a fair far way away from that," Williams said. E-mail [log in to unmask] SOURCE: Cincinnati Enquirer, OH - Aug 1, 2004 http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/08/02/loc_stemcells02.html * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn