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Too Soon to Give Up on Embryonic Stem Cells By Brandon Keim November 20, 2007 | 1:44:17 PMCategories: Bioethics, Biotechnology, Stem Cell Research The war is over! Cue the confetti! Lay down your legislation and angry blog comments and join hands outside the clinic where we'll all get stem cells! No embryos necessary! The landmark transformation of skin cells to stem cells is being hailed as a peacemaker in the bitter battle over embryonic stem cell research, which currently requires embryos to be destroyed. But the celebration is premature -- and if it drains attention and funding from embryonic stem cells, it will be misguided. As pointed out by both Ian Wilmut, the Dolly pioneer who recently quit cloning in favor of so-called somatic de-differentiation, and Robert Lanza, the Advanced Cell Technologies guru who called the new technique "the holy grail," ESC science is still very important. It's unknown whether de-differentiated cells will be as versatile as ESCs. Scientific obstacles -- most importantly, de-differentiating without causing dangerous mutations -- remain. "Make no mistake, this work represents a tremendous scientific milestone," Lanza told me. "But I'm afraid it's the beginning of a tidal wave that could wipe out other lines of stem cell research." Lanza noted that gene expression in the new stem cells wasn't equivalent to that in embryonic cells. Even ESCs, he said, "all have personalities. Some can do certain tricks better than others. There's no reason to believe it's going to be any different with these." It's quite possible, then, that the new cells will end up being useful in many ways, but embryonic stem cells -- not to mention various types of adult stem cells -- will still be required to treat certain conditions. If research funding suddenly dries up for everything except de-differentiation, those cures will never arise. Moreover, de-differentiation is still early-stage. Between now and fully-realized therapies could exist a period of time in which ESC-based treatments would be useful, even life-saving. ESCs would provide a necessary bridge, one that shouldn't be burned. In that vein, Lanza mentioned that many ESC-based treatments currently in animal and early-stage human development don't require personalized cell lines, but rather a few hundred -- easily attainable with current techniques, and enough to cover much of the spectrum of human tissue compatibility. (As a rough analogy, think of blood types: personalized cell lines are effectively type O, but a large percentage of the population is covered by type A. The treatments Lanza's talking about are, in a sense, the stem cell equivalent of type A transfusions.) "You're talking about a lot of people who right now could be using some of these cells, and this field is moving ahead very rapidly," said Lanza.* "Almost on a weekly basis is a new breakthrough. We're seeing how dramatic an impact some of these have in animals. It'd be a shame to have people continuing to have a range of horrific diseases. If for some reason de-differentiation is perfected first, then great -- but we can't take that chance. I'm very worried that opponents will run with this." And, as if on cue, the opponents are running with it: the Discovery Institute declared this morning that "We should now move to outlaw all human cloning," which "will divert billions of dollars and many years of our best researchers' efforts way from areas of advancement that have the chance to do tremendous good without the terrible moral cost of permitting human cloning." Given the seemingly intractable differences between embryonic stem cell supporters and opponents, the potential of de-differentiation is seductive. Many people will want to quit the embryonic work -- why bother when something else could work better? But it's too soon to say. At this moment, de-differentiation deserves attention, funding and acclaim. But none of that should be diverted from other research. Note: A more reasonable approach to the new research comes from the Center for Genetics and Society, who have traditionally criticized embryonic stem cell research for being scientifically overhyped and relying on dangerous hormone treatments to secure eggs. They're hopeful that de-differentiation will make ESCs obsolete and focus public attention on making stem cell therapies safe and accessible, but careful to caveat their statements: "If these results are as promising as they appear to be...." * One might object that Lanza's sentiments are conflicted by his vested interests in embryonic cloning. But as we noted above, Ian Wilmut -- who's now quit cloning -- feels the same way. So does Junying Yu, one of the scientists responsible for the breakthrough. As she told me, "We don't know the significance of the differences [between gene expression in de-differentiated and embryonic stem cells]. That's all the more reason to keep the ESC research going." Stem Cell Breakthrough Is Like 'Turning Lead Into Gold' [Wired News] Rayilyn Brown Board Member AZNPF Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn