Not everyone's impressed with the scientists at Stemagen Corp's newest accomplishment. Led by Andrew French, the team cloned five human embryos using donated DNA from skin cells. Because there has been such a moral divide over the use of embryonic stem cells in research, many researchers have now diverted their efforts toward finding new ways to develop the embryonic cells, ways that don't destroy the human embryo.

Scientists are investigating the use of embryonic stem cells because they can turn into other types of cells, theoretically replacing damaged tissue in the brain, heart and immune system, and curing diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's.)

"Stemagen is trying to develop ways to produce embryonic stem cells for treatment and research," French said.

But, and this is a big one, that is not enough for some (many?) in the anti-research crowd. Check out the following example:

For some this is the answer the the ESC research dilemma, the embryonic life has been spared and the scientists still get their stem cells. But those who think so, just don’t get it. Mary Meets Dolly weighs in on the number of ways this method is still unethical:

1. It is unethical to create a human embryo in a dish and treat it like a commodity,
2. Embryo biopsy is not always successful and therefore still destroys embryos, if only part of the time, and
3. What happens to the embryo after a piece of it is sucked out? Will it actually be implanted? Or does it go back in the deep freeze?

An excellent assessment. It is not merely the destruction of the human embryo, but the very creation and use of innocent human life for scientific advantage that makes such research unethical.

Take no prisoners. Make no compromises. Put the blinders on and plug up your ears. Now, do you think we can reasonably discuss this?

Read the entire post here.

Labels: cloning, DNA, embryonic stem cell, embryos

San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, January 18, 2008 --Scientists at a California company reported Thursday that they have created the first mature cloned human embryos from single skin cells taken from adults, a significant advance toward the goal of growing personalized stem cells for patients suffering from various diseases.

Creation of the embryos - grown from cells taken from the La Jolla company's chief executive and one of its investors - also offered sobering evidence that few, if any, technical barriers may remain to the creation of cloned babies.

Five of the new embryos grew in laboratory dishes to the stage that fertility doctors consider ready for transfer to a woman's womb - a degree of development that clones of adult humans have never achieved.

No one knows whether those embryos were healthy enough to grow into babies. But the study leader, who is also the medical director of a fertility clinic, said they looked robust, even as he emphasized that he has no interest in cloning people.

"It's unethical and it's illegal, and we hope no one else does it either," said Samuel Wood, chief executive of Stemagen, whose skin cells were cloned and who led the study with Andrew French, the firm's scientific officer.

The closely held company hopes to make embryos that are clones, or genetic twins, of patients, then harvest stem cells from those embryos and grow them into replacement tissues. When transplanted into patients, the tissues would not be rejected because the immune system would see them as "self."

"All our efforts are being directed toward personalized medicine and diseases," said Wood, adding that the scientists did not try to extract stem cells from the first embryos they made because they were focused on proving they could make the clones.

Continue reading.

Labels: clones, cloning, embryos, stem cells

As if the struggle to obtain government funding for embryonic stem-cell research wasn't already difficult enough, The Center for American Progress had this on March 1st:

Ongoing stem cell research and cloning debates in Kansas and other states highlight a new frontier in the stem cell debate: attempts to define scientific terms for political advantage.

The federal government’s inaction has left a void in overarching scientific guidelines and regulation. State-level opponents of stem cell research are trying to fill that void with altered scientific terminology that conflates human beings and embryos and overbroad definitions of human cloning. These efforts to politically define complicated biological terms often results in ill-conceived laws that satisfy neither opponents nor supporters, confuse scientists attempting to pursue research in the state, and may even create legal problems for those attempting to conduct cooperative studies across state lines.

Two recent bills passed out of committee in the Kansas House of Representatives are particularly egregious examples of the political manipulation of scientific terminology. Advocates of the first bill, H.B. 2098, claim it is an attempt “to define terms related to human cloning.” Yet in reality, it’s an attempt to politically redefine terms to help opponents of stem cell research.

The companion bill H.B. 2255 is a demonstration of just this strategy. Using identical definitions to those in H.B. 2098, the bill seeks to ban public funding for “human cloning to create a cloned embryo,” defined as SCNT.

Even ignoring the ban on funding for SCNT, which would subvert the will of the people of Kansas and prevent scientists in the state from pursuing cures with the best tools available, the bill is simply a poor piece of legislation. It defines an embryo as “the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus or an organism in the early stages of development.” This definition, when considered alongside other references to the “human organism” in the bill, seems intended to blur the line between human beings and embryos.

Unfortunately, the vagueness of the definition also blurs the distinction between a fetus and an embryo. The legislation could be read as stripping away protections for what scientists consider an early stage fetus because it would legally be considered an embryo in Kansas. Certainly the proponents of this bill would not intend this effect, and neither opponents nor proponents of the legislation would condone weakening research protections for the fetus. But by relying on politics instead of science when defining technical terms, legislators may open the door to a whole host of unintended consequences, such as making fetuses more vulnerable to potentially harmful research.

Read the entire article here.

Labels: cloning, embryonic, stem cell research, stem cells