LifeNet

Controversy: iPS & adult stem cells could be embyros?

This is a difficult controversy/situation and has come up before. While other scientists do not agree with this, it is important to look at all points of view.

VATICAN CITY, April 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the top researchers in the field of stem cells has said that iPS (induced pluripotent) stem cells, the “embryo-like” cells hailed by many as the answer to the ethical problems presented by embryonic stem cells, are “probably” actually already embryos and have already, with the right conditions and treatment in the lab, developed into “complete animals” in experiments.

At the time of their discovery in 2007, iPS cells were hailed by both the research community and many in the pro-life world as a solution to the problem of obtaining pluripotent cells – those capable of producing all the tissue types of the body – without destroying human embryos. In 2012 Dr. Gurdon and Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their work surrounding the development of iPS cells. 

Since their discovery, however, some ethicists have warned of various problems with iPS cells, including the fact that cells derived from embryos have been used in the process of creating the iPS cells. Some also warned that iPS cells could give rise to complete organisms and are, in fact, indistinguishable from embryonic cells that can be induced to begin replication as whole embryos. According to his own papers, Yamanaka said that some of the cells obtained through his process are “pluripotent,” while some are “totipotent,” which means they can spontaneously become embryos and start to develop into a mature organism.

LifeSiteNews.com spoke with Dr. Dianne Irving, a former bench biochemist researcher with the National Institutes of Health in the US, who confirmed Dr. Gurdon’s assertion, saying, “Some iPS cell are potentially embryos.”

Yamanaka himself stated in his research paper that in a test in the lab for signs of pluripotency, some of the iPS cells obtained “tested positive for embryonic antigens, not for pluripotent antigens,” explained Irving.

“Those were embryos,” she added. “So according to that assay some of the iPS cells are already embryos. Most of them are not, but have the potential to be reverted back.”

Some of the procedures used to create iPS cells, Irving continued, “take the DNA back too far, and end up with a new single cell embryo or a totipotent, rather than pluripotent cell, one that has the capacity to revert back to a new embryo”.

Irving described the process of “regulation,” a natural part of the embryo’s genetic systems, which automatically reacts to changes in an embryonic cell to correct genetic damage and reassert the direction of development to produce a whole embryo with the normal complement of 46 chromosomes. This process can also revert the DNA in a separated totipotent cell to what it needs to function as an embryo rather than just a “cell.”

“It may not be well known or understood in the public,” Irving said, “but in the scientific research community, it is well known that sometimes a pluripotent iPS cell could, through this process of regulation, spontaneously revert to being totipotent, which can then become an embryo.” 

“This has long been documented in the scientific literature. It’s not new,” she added.

Gallup poll: "Values and Beliefs"

Assisted suicide, abortion, death penalty, embryonic stem cell research ...

As pro-life educators, there's much work to do.

Hit the link for the summary data.

Gallup's 2011 Values and Beliefs poll

Federal Judge blocks federal (taxpayer) funding of embryonic stem cell research

Says the executive order Obama issued allowing such funding contravened a federal law prohibiting taxpayer funding of the destruction of human embryos.

UPDATE:Judge Blocks US Funding Of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research

U.S. Chief District Court Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington ruled that government funding for embryonic stem-cell research was barred by a law that prohibits the use of federal money for research in which an embryo is destroyed.

Lamberth said Congress clearly intended to bar federal funding of research involving embryo destruction, and added, "This Court is bound to apply the law as it is written."

The judge rejected the Obama administration's argument that embryonic stem-cell research itself did not result in the destruction of embryos.

Or, go here, to lifenews.com -  

Judge Forces Obama Admin to Stop Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Fr. Berg gives an update on stem cell research: "Have stem cells become passe?"

From the Westchester Institute of Ethics and the Human Person

What has been happening in stem cell science over the past six months to a year?

For the better part of the past two years, scientific attention has focused on comparing the traits and capabilities of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with the putative “gold standard” human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Unlike hESCs, which are obtained by destroying live embryos, iPSCs are made directly from adult cells—such as skin cells—by adding a small number of factors to these cells in the laboratory. These factors remodel the mature cells and convert them into stem cells that are functionally identical to stem cells obtained from embryos. No human eggs are required and no human embryos are generated or destroyed in the process.

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... stem cell fervor has waned and public frustration over the lack of tangible progress in stem cell science is growing.

To be sure, criticism of the lack of progress in the translation of stem cell research to therapies has arisen from surprising sources. In March of 2009 Dr. Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health under the first Bush adminstration, wrote in her U.S. News & World Report column that "embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes, are obsolete." An editorial last January in Investor’s Business Daily angrily criticized California’s Proposition 71. This was the 2004 State law which allotted $6 billion of California taxpayer money to primarily embryo-destructive stem cell research over the next decade, an initiative that rode a tremendous wave of hyped advocacy for embryonic stem cell research. “Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research,” wrote the editors, “there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress.” Writing earlier this month in the Los Angeles Times, one science reporter felt it was time to offer her own mea culpa: don’t blame the scientists for hyping the potential of hESC research; blame us, the reporters.

Science magazine and stem cell dishonesty

This is an excellent article on the negative consequences of mixing politics and science. Michael Fumento on Stem-Cell Research & Science on National Review Online . We love the line about the "Kenneth Lay school for honesty."

Some excerpts:

How many diseases ASCs can treat or cure is debatable, with one website claiming almost 80 for umbilical-cord blood alone. Dr. David Prentice of the Family Research Council, using stricter standards of evidence, has constituted a list of 72 for all types of ASCs. But now three ESC advocates have directly challenged Prentice’s list. They’ve published a letter in Science magazine, released ahead of publication obviously to influence President Bush’s promise to veto legislation that would open wide the federal funding spigot for ESC research. The letter claims ASC “treatments fully tested in all required phases of clinical trials and approved by the U.S Food and Drug Administration are available to treat only nine of the conditions” on his list.

Well! One answer to that is that it’s nine more than can be claimed for ESCs. Further, there are 1175 clinical trials for ASCs, including those no longer recruiting patients, with zero for ESCs. But a better response is that the letter authors come from the Kenneth Lay School for honesty, as do the editors at Science.

In the detailed attachment to their letter, the Science magazine writers aren’t just at odds with Prentice but the medical community as a whole. For example, regarding sickle-cell anemia, they claim “adult stem cell transplants from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood can provide some benefit to sickle cell patients” and “hold the potential to treat sickle cell anemia.” “Some benefit” and “potential?”

An article from the May 2006 issue of Current Opinion in Hematology notes that “there is presently no curative therapy” for sickle-cell anemia other than allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. “Hematopoietic” means from marrow or blood; “allogeneic” means the cells are from another person. Seminars in Hematology (2004) states, “. . . curative allogeneic stem cell transplantation therapy” has “been developed for sickle cell anemia.” Meanwhile, “. . . curative allogeneic stem cell transplantation therapy [has] been developed for” sickle-cell anemia according to Current Opinions in Molecular Therapy (2003), while “hematopoietic stem cells for allogeneic transplantation” are “currently the only curative approach for sickle cell anemia” observes the journal Blood (2002). (All emphasis mine.)

It's worth remembering that Science magazine published the Korean scientist W.S. Hwang, who claimed to have derived embyryonic stem cells -

How can Science not know all this? Simple; it does. I’ve written repeatedly of how the publication has made itself a propaganda sheet for ESC research, as well as other political causes. At the least, it should change its name to Pseudoscience. Sometimes it prints easily falsifiable studies, such as this, attacking the usefulness of ASCs. Other times it falsely promotes ESCs. That culminated in January when the journal was forced to retract two groundbreaking ESC studies that proved frauds.

MIT researcher on embryonic stem cell research

Here is a fine critique of Harvard's decision to fund embryonic stem cell research, entitled Harvard's stem cell misstep http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=310

Some key points from the article:

MercatorNet: How soon could human embryonic stem cells be used for cures? Harvard is telling potential donors to its stem cell institute that "in as little as a decade" there will be treatments for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes. It also suggests that the names of many incurable diseases will be eliminated from our grandchildren's vocabularies. Are these predictions realistic?

Sherley: The question "How soon," is pre-empted by the question: "Could human embryonic stem cells ever be used for cures?" When the errant biological properties of human embryonic stem cells are considered, it is difficult to foresee them ever being used directly as cures in children or adults. This promise was the earliest misleading misinformation from proponents of human embryo research. Because many factors that guide the normal development of embryonic cells are absent in mature tissues, embryonic stem cells placed in adult tissues produce malformed tissues that are cancerous. So, figuring out how to use human embryonic stem cells directly by transplantation into patients is tantamount to solving the cancer problem.

By studying embryonic stem cells derived from human embryos cloned from the cells of individuals with particular chronic diseases, Harvard scientists claim that they will obtain new knowledge about how chronic human diseases develop. It is amazing that such words come out of the mouths of noted developmental biologists who have known for years that simple embryonic stem cell culture is an inadequate model for human development.

MercatorNet: You seem pretty convinced that human embryos are human beings. Can you explain briefly why?

Sherley: My answer is, "What else could they be -- aliens?" Scientists who want to conduct experiments with human embryos are quick to say what human embryos are not. I challenge them to tell the public what human embryos are. There is only one answer to this question, "living human beings."