New Method Makes Embryo-Safe Stem Cells
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aug 24, 10:57 PM EDT
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New Method Makes Embryo-Safe Stem Cells*
By MATT CRENSON
AP National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- In an innovative move, a biotech company has found a
new way of making stem cells without destroying embryos, touting it as a
way to defuse one of the country's fiercest political and ethical debates.
Some opponents of the research said the method still doesn't satisfy
their objections and many stem cell scientists and their supporters
called it inefficient and politically wrong-headed.
But a spokeswoman for President Bush, who vetoed legislation last month
that would have allowed federal funding for embryonic stem cell
research, called it a step in the right direction.
And Dr. Robert Lanza, an executive with Advanced Cell Technology, which
created the new stem cell lines, said: "This will make it far more
difficult to oppose this research."
Stem cells have become a Holy Grail for advocates of patients with a
wide variety of illnesses because of the cells' potential to transform
into any type of human tissue, perhaps leading to new treatments. But
the Vatican, President Bush and others have argued that the promise of
stem cells should not be realized at the expense of human life, even in
its most nascent stages.
The new method works by taking an embryo at a very early stage of
development and removing a single cell, which can be coaxed into
spawning an embryonic stem cell line. With only one cell removed, the
rest of the embryo retains its full potential for development.
The method was described online Wednesday in the British journal Nature.
The journal published a similar paper by Advanced Cell Technology last
year demonstrating the technique's viability in mice.
"The science is interesting and important," said John Harris, a
professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester in Great Britain,
commenting on the biotech company's efforts.
But few believe it will resolve the bitter ethical battle over stem cell
research.
"This will please no one," predicted a longtime critic of the company,
Glenn McGee, director of the Alden March Bioethics Institute in Albany, N.Y.
Some stem cell researchers complain that the new approach, though it may
hold future promise, simply isn't as efficient as their current method
of creating stem cells. That procedure involves the destruction of
embryos after about five days of development, when they consist of about
100 cells.
Meanwhile, hard-line opponents of stem cell science argue that the
technique solves nothing, because even the single cell removed by the
new approach could theoretically grow into a full-fledged human. Some
also object over the possibility the procedure could harm the embryo in
an unknown way.
The method "raises more ethical questions than it answers," said Richard
Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
U.S. law currently bans federal funding of any research that harms human
embryos. A White House spokeswoman said the method's eligibility for
funding could not yet be determined, "but it is encouraging to see
scientists at least making serious efforts to move away from research
that involves the destruction of embryos."
President Bush has said that he personally opposes any research that
sacrifices embryonic life, even to save an existing person. In August
2001 the president limited federal funding to research on a few dozen
stem cell lines that had been created up to that point.
Scientists complain that the decree has severely crippled progress in
the field. But recent developments have moved them toward their twin
goals of attracting non-federal money for stem cell research and
overturning the restrictions.
Several states, including California, New Jersey and Illinois, have set
up ways to fund the research. A number of Democratic candidates in this
year's congressional elections are focusing on the issue.
The research at Advanced Cell Technology subverts those efforts, McGee
said. But writing in Nature earlier this year about the demonstration of
the technique in mice, Stanford University stem cell researcher Irving
Weissman disagreed.
"Although the efforts cited here will be criticized as a diversion of
good science by politics, I believe all of these attempts to advance and
translate medical science should be pursued in parallel," Weissman wrote.
Scientists at Advanced Cell, based in Alameda, Calif., devised a clever
means of piggybacking on existing fertility treatments to avoid the
creation, manipulation or destruction of embryos specifically for the
production of stem cells. The fertility procedure, known as
preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, is used when parents want to
avoid having a child with a lethal or severely debilitating birth
defect. About 1,000 such procedures are performed each year in the
United States.
PGD begins with in vitro fertilization to produce numerous embryos. At a
very early stage of development, when the embryos are no more than a
ball of eight to 10 cells, a technician extracts a single cell from each
one. The extracted cells are tested for genetic disorders, and those
free of defect are then implanted in the mother in the hope they will
develop.
The new stem cell production method takes a cell extracted during PGD
and allows it to divide. One of the two resulting cells is genetically
tested as in normal PGD; the other is cultured to encourage the
development of stem cells.
"It's nothing revolutionary," said Yury Verlinsky, a Chicago geneticist
who specializes in PGD.
Though the new procedure may satisfy the president's objections to stem
cell research, it does not meet the ethical standards of the Roman
Catholic church, which opposes both PGD and in vitro fertilization.
Advanced Cell Technology was able to produce two viable stem cell lines
from a total of 16 embryos. The lines appeared to exhibit the full
potential of embryonic stem cells to develop into any type of human
tissue, the researchers reported, but additional study is needed to
verify that.
"I think this will become a standard way of producing stem cell lines,"
said Ronald M. Green, a Dartmouth College professor of religion who is
an unpaid bioethics adviser to Advanced Cell Technology.
The company, which has been struggling financially, owns about 300
patents that it hopes to develop into medical treatments. After news of
its announcement broke on Wednesday, the price of its over-the-counter
stock shot up from 42 cents to close at $1.83 per share.