 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
 Current Issue Past Issues About Us Public Affairs Baylor Home 
|
Debate over human embryonic stem cells continuesStem cell.
It's such a simple term, but put the words human and embryonic before it, and it becomes one of the most politicized scientific issues of the day. Human embryonic stem cells have captured the imaginations of scientists, disease advocates and even the public since that day in 1998 when two teams - one led by John Gearhart, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the other by James Thomson, DVM, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin - announced they had for the first time isolated these elusive cells. Why are they so important? They have the potential to become every tissue in the body. Isolated long before a developing embryo has a brain or any other organ system, their potential for medical science is enormous. Realizing that potential will take more than scientific know-how and funds. It will require societal backing that is as yet lacking in the United States. The issue of these controversial cells and the societal upheaval they promote was the focus of a recent two-day conference "Stem Cells: Saving Lives or Crossing Lines — Human Embryonic Stem Cell Policy" sponsored and hosted by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Other sponsors included Rice University, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, The UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine. Issues of the day
Ongoing controversy
"It should be remembered that the arguments and concerns against using human embryos in research is not a new thing," said William R. Brinkley, PhD, senior vice president at Baylor College of Medicine and dean of the BCM Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. "It began 30 years ago with in vitro fertilization. The discovery that human oocytes could be fertilized successfully outside the body occurred in 1973, about the time as the Supreme Court's decision on Roe vs. Wade." As controversy over the procedure continued, arguments were raised over unused embryos and whether they could be stored or discarded, many began to equate this with abortion, he said. "There has been acrimonious debate over what should be done with thousands of IVF embryos that were created but never used," he said. "Regulation has never really developed. Consequently, some groups could work freely on these without government control, but those with federal funding would go to jail if they did." An impasse over the issue exists, he said. One group considers the embryos the beginning of life. Others think of them as minute clumps of cells with little potential for becoming human life. The latter group believes there is less an ethical risk to use the cells for medical science than to sanction their demise in a cold, dark freezer. "If there is hope for effective leadership in stem cells research, we must find a way around the impasse," he said. Stem cell research became a "wedge" issue in the past Presidential election. "Who can remember when a topic in biomedical research has become more polarizing to the American public?" he said. Other sciences issues have become politicized. Splitting the atoms became controversial as scientists worked to harness nuclear energy. "In retrospect, few would disagree with the larger benefits of such power such as those in the medical field," he said. When scientists themselves voiced concerns over genetic engineering or the gene splicing that is now at the heart of the nation's biotechnology industry, scientists established a voluntary moratorium and then worked out their differences and safety issues in a series of conferences culminating at Asilomar in 1975. "Would Asilomar work today?" asked Brinkley. He and the originator of that movement, Dr. Paul Berg, think not. Tip of the iceberg "Without funding and freedom to make new cell lines, we are eliminating access by a population of brilliant students who won't have ways to use this technology for basic understanding of human development, which would happen with federal funding," he said. The British have drafted a workable solution, he said, and the United States is far behind. Policies in states are varied and present a hodge-podge of regulation. For example, when Jose Cibelli, DVM, PhD, professor of biotechnology at Michigan State University, cooperated with Korean scientists on the derivation of the first human embryonic stem cell lined from a cloned blastocyst, his collaborator wrote: "J. B. Cibelli made intellectual contributions to the manuscript and the RNA analysis of nonhuman primate cells. All human experiments were performed in Korea by Korean scientists." This was placed in there to protect Cibelli and to prove he had not broken Michigan law that prohibits such work. He has signed a petition asking President Bush to increase the numbers of embryonic cell lines available to scientists in the United States and to increase the budget over the $24 million currently allocated - a figure that palls before the funds in California.
Stephen L. Minger, PhD, director of the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory at King's College in London, is an American working in Britain for the past eight years. "I live in a pragmatic country with a history of tight regulation about reproductive matters," he said. "In 2001, the Parliament allowed the development of stem cells in a tightly regulated system. You have to get a license to be allowed to derive human embryonic stem cells. You cannot create embryos to make cells but they do allow somatic cell nuclear replacement." That approach has allowed his laboratory to move forward in the field, faster than some of his U.S. colleagues. He admits that he and his colleagues were smug because "we have the support of a government that says it wants Britain to be in the forefront of stem cell research." However, two weeks in the Far East proved to him that researchers there are moving even more rapidly. "You guys in this country stand to lose a lot," he said. Chinese researchers and its government are building an infrastructure that will allow generation of stem cells in vast quantities. A physician in Shanghai is already doing transplants of adult nerve cells and in Seoul, Korea, technicians at a research facility are developing the ability to do somatic cell nuclear replacement at a rate of 1,200 per day. Although they are practicing with pig and cow ovaries now, the goal is to use these techniques for humans in the near future. Regulations "The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to regulate this area of public policy," she said. "The science has progressed and public confidence been maintained." The area remains controversial, and some people in the country do not support the work, she said. Nor does she think the UK approach is easily exportable to a nation such as the United States, which has a cultural distaste for regulation. "We have certainly benefited form the regulatory approach. It has given us public confidence and we have been able to consider the potential of stem cells and embryonic stem cells," she said. In the United States, said Neal Lane, PhD, University Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University and Senior Fellow for Science and Technology at the Baker Institute, "There is no law on cloning and no regulation on people other than those who are federally funded. That's an unacceptable policy situation in the United States, however you feel about how it will come out in the end."
Building scientific capacity He noted that when the President announced his policy, the actual number of embryonic stem cell lines was in confusion. In fall, he said, the NIH had identified 71 independent lines, but only one was solidly established. By now, he said, there are 22 established lines and one well on the way. These are the lines the federally funded researchers in the United States may use. The NIH has given out 26 investigator-initiated grants and 67 "administrative supplements" that will help investigators plan their work in this area, Battey said. Other grants are planned. "My hope for this field as a physician is that some day regenerative medicine will be a mainstay technology and a tool that will let us do something about these awful diseases in children and adults. Keep an open mind about how this technology will help us move forward. It will probably be in ways that no one in this room envisions today," said Battey. In discussing studies in humans, Battey said, "There is reasonable doubt about whether any cell lines are safe enough to be used in human beings." All the lines approved by President Bush have come in contact with mouse feeder cell or human serum, which generates a safety debate." Therapeutic cell types He is testing some of the cell lines in animal models of human diseases to determine if they can work to overcome disabilities and illness. For example, in rats with spinal cord injuries, they see not cures but real improvement after use of the stem cells. Tests with other cells are not as far along. He sees hope that the stem cell work in the United States will become more robust as people ask for it. The vote in California gives him expectation that this will come about. Real hope He echoed the often-expressed sentiment during the conference when he said, "One successful experiment breaks the field." In other word, essentially all resistance will fade if the promise of embryonic stem cell therapy is fulfilled in the cure or successful treatment of dire human diseases.
|
News A Matter of Health
Briefs |
