Year that could be turning point on disease - Times Online

Year that could be turning point on disease - Times Online:

"A tissue reprogramming technique that promises an almost limitless source of stem cells without the need to destroy embryos has been named as the breakthrough of the year by the prestigious journal Science.

The method for turning back the clock on adult tissue, so it acquires the versatile properties of embryonic stem cells, heads a list of ten achievements that also includes the direct observation of planets orbiting distant stars, and cheaper and faster technologies for mapping the genetic code.

The stem-cell advance, made by separate teams in Japan and the United States, has excited scientists because it could lead to tissue therapies for diseases such as Parkinson’s and diabetes grown from a patient’s own skin. ..."

With all the recent buzz that the new administration will roll back stem cell restrictions, it seems that new discoveries will reduce or even eliminate the need to resort to harvesting embryos for stem cells. No less a respected scientific journal than Science has named this the breakthrough of the year, and the advantages lie not only in eliminating one of the significant bioethical barriers to using stem cells, but also the fact that by using a patient's own cells, the problem of tissue rejection is greatly reduced.

UCLA stem cell scientists reprogram human skin cells into embryonic stem cells

UCLA stem cell scientists reprogram human skin cells into embryonic stem cells:

"UCLA stem cell scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells without using embryos or eggs.

Led by scientists Kathrin Plath and William Lowry, UCLA researchers used genetic alteration to turn back the clock on human skin cells and create cells that are nearly identical to human embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to become every cell type found in the human body. Four regulator genes were used to create the cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells.

The UCLA study confirms the work first reported in late November of researcher Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University and James Thompson at the University of Wisconsin. The UCLA research appears Feb. 11, 2008, in an early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.

The implications for disease treatment could be significant. Reprogramming adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells could generate a potentially limitless source of immune-compatible cells for tissue engineering and transplantation medicine. A patient’s skin cells, for example, could be reprogrammed into embryonic stem cells. Those embryonic stem cells could then be prodded into becoming various cells types – beta islet cells to treat diabetes, hematopoetic cells to create a new blood supply for a leukemia patient, motor neuron cells to treat Parkinson’s disease. ..."

It's good to see this kind of research producing results. There is much to do before this translates into effective therapy, but some major hurdles are being overcome. It wasn't that long ago that many researchers were claiming that it was impossible to do what is now being reported.

Finnish patient gets new jaw from own stem cells | Science | Reuters

Finnish patient gets new jaw from own stem cells | Science | Reuters:

"HELSINKI (Reuters) - Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen.

Researchers said on Friday the breakthrough opened up new ways to treat severe tissue damage and made the prospect of custom-made living spares parts for humans a step closer to reality. ..."

Another interesting story that suggests that conventional wisdom regarding embryonic stem cells is falling victim to scientific progress.

Proofs of concept are one thing, but actual results are even better. If science and technology can keep moving in this direction, in the not-too-distant future students may read about the ethical and moral debates surrounding the harvesting of embryos for stem cells and wonder what it was all about.

Researchers use new stem cell method to treat mice | Reuters

Researchers use new stem cell method to treat mice | Reuters:

"CHICAGO, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Using a new type of stem cells made from ordinary skin cells, U.S. researchers said on Thursday they treated mice with sickle cell anemia, proving in principle that such cells could be used as a therapy.

U.S. and Japanese researchers last month reported they had reprogrammed human skin cells into behaving like embryonic stem cells, the body's master cells. They call the cells induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells for short.

The Japanese team had previously done the reprogramming work in mouse skin cells.

A team at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has now used the new cells to treat mice engineered to have sickle cell anemia, a disease of the blood caused by a defect in a single gene."

There is a lot of exciting news in the stem cell arena. To see some real progress in applying the newer, non-destructive stem cell research to a real medical problem is encouraging.

One thing that characterizes this debate more than any other debate I've seen is the discernment that goes into it. People see the medical problems and know that stem cell research can address such problems, but they are uncomfortable with the destruction of developing embryos in order to harvest pluripotent stem cells. The question is not "can we do it?" but "should we do it?" The newer research in "reprogramming" adult cells seems to be alleviating the bioethical concerns of many in and out of the scientific community.

It is encouraging that even while the debate was raging in the scientific and political realms, there were researchers who were willing and able to quietly continue their studies, even in the face of skepticism at the idea of reprogramming adult cells.

Dolly creator Prof Ian Wilmut shuns cloning - Telegraph

Dolly creator Prof Ian Wilmut shuns cloning - Telegraph:

"The scientist who created Dolly the sheep, a breakthrough that provoked headlines around the world a decade ago, is to abandon the cloning technique he pioneered to create her.

Prof Ian Wilmut's decision to turn his back on 'therapeutic cloning', just days after US researchers announced a breakthrough in the cloning of primates, will send shockwaves through the scientific establishment.

He and his team made headlines around the world in 1997 when they unveiled Dolly, born July of the year before.

But now he has decided not to pursue a licence to clone human embryos, which he was awarded just two years ago, as part of a drive to find new treatments for the devastating degenerative condition, Motor Neuron disease.

Prof Wilmut, who works at Edinburgh University, believes a rival method pioneered in Japan has better potential for making human embryonic cells which can be used to grow a patient's own cells and tissues for a vast range of treatments, from treating strokes to heart attacks and Parkinson's, and will be less controversial than the Dolly method, known as "nuclear transfer."

His announcement could mark the beginning of the end for therapeutic cloning, on which tens of millions of pounds have been spent worldwide over the past decade. "

This is a fairly long article and goes into a lot of the science, ethics, and politics of stem cell research.

Wilmut's decision is based primarily on the value he sees in the Japanese research, which is achieving impressive results without the extra baggage of bioethics concerns that are being raised over techniques that require the creation and subsequent destruction of embryos.

The recent success in the cloning of primate embryos noted in the quotation above is characterized later in this article as requiring 304 eggs to get to a point where two stem cell lines were created -- and one of them had too many chromosomal abnormalities to be of any use. This is complicated by the fact that there is a great demand for human eggs to be used for fertility treatments, and this argues against such an inefficient process in view of such demand.

The Japanese successes in creating pluripotent stem cell lines from adult body cells seems to be a bit of a paradigm shift. For many years scientists had considered development and differentiation to be largely a one-way street. In other words a skin cell could not be expected to de-differentiate to the point where it could turn into other types of cells. We are now learning that this is, indeed, possible and this realization may result in lives being saved.

Stem Cells From Testes Produce Wide Range of Tissue Types - washingtonpost.com

Stem Cells From Testes Produce Wide Range of Tissue Types - washingtonpost.com:

"WEDNESDAY, Sept. 19 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. researchers say they've successfully reprogrammed adult stem cells from the testes of male mice into a wide variety of cell types, including functional blood vessels, contractile cardiac tissue, and brain cells.

If the same can be done with adult testes stem cells from humans, they may offer a source of new therapies to treat men with health problems such as heart disease, vascular diseases, diabetes, stroke, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and even cancer, the researchers said."

Not only does this avoid the ethical pitfalls of embryonic stem cell harvesting, at least as far as males are concerned, it becomes possible for patients to be their own donors.

Brave New Salvation | Christianity Today

Brave New Salvation | Christianity Today:

"On April 21, 2447, the death of a 143-year-old woman hailed a new era. Lungs of people everywhere swelled with relief. Impeccability had dawned.

The deceased, Rosa Pecadorita, a coca grower in a remote village in the Andes mountains, was widely believed to have been the last living sinner. As the obituary in The Global Times put it, she was 'the last remaining human whose genes had not been therapeutically adjusted to prevent her from engaging in behaviors that the Global Referendum of 2304 deemed harmful to society and which the treaty that ended the Great Wars of Religion of 2105-2304 classified as sins.'"

This article was in the June 2007 print edition of Christianity Today, and was posted on the CT website a day or so ago.

The matter-of-fact sort of way this article is written reminds me of the phrase "banality of evil", coined by Hannah Arendt in 1963. This phrase first appeared in the context of Arendt's book on Adolph Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem, and refered to the fact that most of the actions of the Third Reich were carried out by ordinary people who considered what they were doing to be proper and natural.

Christianity Today has collated links to recent articles dealing with bioethics on their web site. It may be worthwhile to look some of these over.