Another amazing ethical stem cell advance

Here is another amazing breakthrough in ethical stem cell research that I haven't yet seen reported by any UK media source.

Researchers have for the first time converted cultured skin cells into stem cells with near-perfect efficiency. The discovery could clear the way for scientists to produce large volumes of stem cells on demand, hastening the development of new treatments for conditions like Parkinson’s disease, spinal injury and diabetes.

Some ten years ago scientists thought that the only way of producing programmable therapeutic stem cells was to cannibalise human embryos (see picture).

The problem was that these embryonic stem cells could not be transplanted into other individuals without inducing immunological reactions or tumours and their harvesting involved the destruction of human embryos.

But then in 2006, scientists first showed that mature body cells could be reprogrammed to act like embryonic stem cells — capable of growing indefinitely and of becoming any type of cell in the body, a property known as pluripotency (see diagram below right).  Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University won the Nobel Prize in medicine last year for his pioneering work in producing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) from adult skin cells in mice.

Yamanaka’s techniques have been since refined but the production of these induced pluripotent stem cells remained mysteriously inefficient.

Now, by removing a single protein, called Mbd3, a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, have been able to increase the conversion rate to almost 100% — ten times that normally achieved. Moreover, the researchers show that the cells all transition to pluripotency on a synchronized schedule.

The new work, described this week in Nature, has huge potential for therapeutic advance and does not involve the destruction of early human life in the process.  It is amazing that manipulating a single molecule is sufficient to make this switch, and make essentially every single cell pluripotent within a week.

The work was carried out using mouse cells but the team has also reprogrammed human cells from a human and demonstrated similar effects.

The best and most effective treatments are also ethical treatments. Maybe that is the most important lesson to learn from all this.

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Embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos – six reasons for caution

The newspapers are full today of the news that scientists in the US state of Oregon have produced embryonic stem cells (ESCs) using the same cloning technology (somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)) that created Dolly the sheep.

The original paper was published in the scientific journal Cell (Reutersand Naturegive helpful reviews).

Shoukhrat Mitalipov and his colleagues took skin cells and transplanted their nuclei into eggs from paid donors from which the nuclei had been removed. Some resulting embryos were grown to the blastocyst stage (about 150 cells) at which point embryonic stem cells were harvested and developed into stem cells lines from which a range of more specialised body cells were derived.

Some are claiming that this might be the first step in producing stem cells that can be used to treat conditions in which there is cell loss like Parkinson’s, diabetes and spinal cord damage.

The huge media coverage this story has generated is due to the obsession of the British media with embryonic stem cell technology, the fact that this is the first time embryonic stem cell lines have been derived from cloned human embryos and the emotion generated by conditions for which there is currently no cure.

Amidst the hype let me register six reasons for caution.

First, what many news outlets do not make clear is that these embryonic stem cells have been produced by the cannibalising of cloned human embryos, a process that results in their destruction. This is a huge ethical barrier to the technology for those who believe, as I do, that human life begins at conception.

Second, the paper discloses that ten women were paid to ‘donate’ more than 120 eggs in the course of the research. The primary means by which these eggs are procured is ovarian hyperstimulation which is associated with serious health risks in both the short and long term. Egg donors for the experiment received US$3,000–7,000 in compensation. This is expensive and risks creating an organ trade that preys on the poor, especially students. Jennifer Lahl’s excellent book ‘Eggsploitation’spotlights the booming business of human eggs told through the tragic and revealing stories of real women who became involved in selling their eggs.

Third, the method used to create these embryos is identical to that used to create cloned adults. If someone were to implant one of these embryos in a woman it could theoretically be grown into a cloned baby. Such portakabin technology is extremely difficult to police and some like Dr David King, from the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, are saying for this reason that it should not be done at all.  

Fourth, we know already that cloned mammalian embryos are not normal because they do not grow into normal adults. It took 277 attempts to create Dolly the sheep and she was abnormal and died early. This raises the strong possibility that stem cells derived from cloned embryos may not be normal either. This means that they are very unlikely ever to be used in treatments but only in research. It is adult stem cells derived from sources like umbilical cord blood and bone marrow that hold the real promise, are involved in the overwhelming majority of clinical trials and are already being widely used in treatment of a wide range of conditions.

Fifth, there is already alternative stem cell technology available for research. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) (which can be made from reprogrammed adult cells without the need to create and destroy embryos) and for which Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka won a Nobel prize in 2012, have already led many researchers to abandon research using cloning methods. Although this research is still at an early stage iPS cells appear to have most of the properties of embryonic stem cells and their production does not involve the same ethical barriers.

Finally, this new research is at a very early stage and we need to beware of the huge media hype that will be generated around it by biotechnology companies and scientists who have financial and personal vested interests and a hotline to the media. We need to be wary that we are not being given an exaggerated account which is high on hype and plays down the real risks. 

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Ethically derived stem cells offer more therapeutic promise – exciting new breakthroughs

Shinya Yamanaka (pictured) of Kyoto University won the Nobel Prize in medicine this year for his pioneering work in producing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) from adult skin cells in mice.

In so doing he laid the framework for an ethical alternative to using embryonic stem cells (which involve the destruction of an embryo) to provide treatments for conditions including diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, spinal injury and ischaemic heart disease.

Since his initial breakthrough in 2006 there have been progressive refinements of his technique (see here and here) and just last week, in a new breakthrough, a team at the University of Cambridge used cells from a patient's own blood (‘late outgrowth endothelial progenitor cells’) to make personalised stem cells from which they will be able to grow blood vessels. The first use will be to test drugs on those vessels.

This latest study was published in the journal Stem Cells: Translational Medicine.

Dr Amer Rana, leading the team, said this method was better than taking samples from skin or other tissues because of the relative ease of obtaining a blood sample.

The British Heart Foundation added that these cells had ‘great potential’ and The Medical Research Council talked of ‘rapid progress’ being made in the field.

Whilst therapies derived from iPS cells are still some way off, the advances have been so dramatic that a review by Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal this week concludes:

‘It's not far-fetched to conclude that, thanks to induced pluripotent stem cells, the embryonic stem-cell debate is fading fast into history. If stem cells derived from the patient's own blood are to offer the same therapeutic benefits as embryonic stem cells, without the immunological complication of coming from another individual, then there would be no need to use cells derived from embryos.’

Ridley says that the chief medical ambition of those who study stem cells has always been that the cells would be used to repair and regenerate damaged tissue. But, he adds, there's another, less well known application of stem cells that is already delivering results: disease modeling.

It might soon be routine to test drug treatments on personalised tissue created from your own stem cells in order to work out which drugs might best benefit your condition.

Ridley reports of a study doing just this. A team at Johns Hopkins University and the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, using a version of Dr Yamanaka's technique, successfully grew nerve cells from a patient suffering from a rare disease called Riley-Day syndrome, which is linked to early mortality, seizures and other symptoms and caused by a fault in one gene.

The scientists then tested 6,912 chemical compounds on the cells to see if they could find one that ‘rescued’ the ‘expression’ of the gene: that is to say, caused it to produce the protein it is supposed to produce. One of the compounds worked, inducing the gene to be actively transcribed by the cell. Ridley concludes:

‘The hope is that in the not-very-distant future, when something is going wrong in one of your organs, one treatment may be to create some stem cells from your body in the laboratory, turn them into cells of that organ, or even rudimentary structures, and then subject them to experimental treatments to see if something cures the problem. The goal of personalized medicine, in other words, may be reached by stem-cell researchers before it's reached by geneticists.’

In a further development this week along the same lines ten international drug companies are to team up with scientists from 11 European countries to create a bank of stem cells for a project aimed at speeding up the development of new medicines.

‘StemBANCC, coordinated by Swiss drugmaker Roche and managed by scientists at Oxford University, aims to use human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) derived from people with hard-to-treat conditions - as research tools.

Martin Graf from Roche, who is coordinating the project, said the goal was to generate 1,500 induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from 500 patients that can then be used by researchers around the world to study a range of diseases, including diabetes and dementia.

Graf and Zameel Cader of Oxford University, who announced the project in London, said the raw material for the project would be largely skin and blood samples taken from patients with diseases such as Alzheimer's and diabetes.

The research will focus mainly on these conditions as well as peripheral nervous system disorders such as chronic and neuropathic pain, central nervous system disorders such as dementia, and neurodysfunctional conditions such as autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

One of Dr Yamanaka's original motivations when he set out to induce pluripotency in adult cells was to discover ethical avenues of research. He once said:‘I thought, we can't keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.’

Even Julian Savulescu, the controversial and liberal bioethicist at Oxford University, recognises that Yamanaka has achieved great scientific advances within an ethical framework:

‘Yamanaka has taken people’s ethical concerns seriously about embryo research…he deserves not only a Nobel Prize for Medicine but a Nobel Prize for Ethics’.

The best and most effective treatments are also ethical treatments. Maybe that is the most important lesson to learn from all this.

Perhaps the last word belongs to leading US stem cell scientist James Sherley: 'For those trained in the science, this is not news, but instead a completed fate that was known from the beginning' – a timely reminder that in good science the end does not justify the means (Romans 3:8).

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Obama re-elected. What will it mean for beginning of life policy?

The man whom pro-life leaders have called ‘the most pro-abortion president in US history’ has been re-elected.

Obama snagged the race after taking key swing states, including Virginia, Ohio, and New Hampshire.

Obama’s support for liberal abortion has already been well documented (see here, here and full list of all his actions here).

But what will his re-election mean more generally with respect to issues at the beginning of life? The Hastings Centre in Washington DC has compiled a useful summary.

Cloning

“[W]e will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society, or any society.”

Source: The White House website

Abortion

President Obama believes a woman’s health care choices are personal decisions, best made with her doctor—without interference from politicians. He continues to support a woman’s right to choose under Roe v Wade.

Source: Campaign website

Conscience Clauses, Contraception, and Family Planning

The Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that “guarantees women access to recommended preventive services including contraception without cost sharing, while ensuring that non-profit religious organizations are not forced to pay for, provide, or facilitate the provision of any contraceptive service they object to on religious grounds.”

Source: Department of Health and Human Services website

Stem Cell Research

“Today, with the Executive Order I am about to sign… we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research. We will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research. And we will aim for America to lead the world in the discoveries it one day may yield…Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research – from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit – and from a government willing to support that work… As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research – and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."

Source: Executive Order Signing

Whatever we may think of Obama’s policy in other areas there is no doubt that his re-election does not bode well for human embryos, pre-born babies and Christian conscience.

Expect this to have an impact not just in the US but also with international funding and policy pushed by American delegates to the UN through groups like IPPF and UNFPA.

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Obama and Romney compared and contrasted on bioethics issues – new report

The Hastings Centre in Washington DC has run a useful comparison of Obama and Romney on a range of bioethics issues.

Some excerpts below on cloning, abortion, conscientious objection, contraception and stem cells:


Cloning

President Barack Obama

“[W]e will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society, or any society.”

Source: The White House website

Governor Mitt Romney

“During my time in office, I stood up to those who wanted to call into question the very definition of life. I vetoed a bill that would have opened the door to cloning and embryo farming.”

Source: CPAC Speech

Reproductive Health: Abortion

President Barack Obama

President Obama believes a woman’s health care choices are personal decisions, best made with her doctor—without interference from politicians. He continues to support a woman’s right to choose under Roe v. Wade.

Source: Campaign website

Governor Mitt Romney

“Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade…With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate... Mitt supports the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. As president, he will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood.”

Source: Campaign website

Reproductive Health: Conscience Clauses, Contraception, and Family Planning

President Barack Obama

The Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that “guarantees women access to recommended preventive services including contraception without cost sharing, while ensuring that non-profit religious organizations are not forced to pay for, provide, or facilitate the provision of any contraceptive service they object to on religious grounds.”

Source: Department of Health and Human Services website

Governor Mitt Romney

“Romney opposes the January 2012 HHS rule requiring Catholic Hospitals, charities, and universities to purchase health insurance for their employees that includes coverage of contraception, abortifacents, and sterilization, in violation of their religious principles. He has vowed to waive this requirement in all 50 states, that he claims “compel religious institutions to violate the tenets of their own faith.”

Source: Campaign website

Stem Cell Research

President Barack Obama

“Today, with the Executive Order I am about to sign… we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research. We will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research. And we will aim for America to lead the world in the discoveries it one day may yield…Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research – from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit – and from a government willing to support that work… As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research – and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."

Source: Executive Order Signing

Governor Mitt Romney

“Stem cell research is a great scientific frontier, and it must be pursued with respect and care. When confronted with the issue of stem cell research as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney chose to support life by vetoing a bill that would have allowed the cloning of human embryos. Quite simply, America cannot condone or participate in the creation of human life when the sole purpose of its creation is its sure destruction. Adult stem cell research and alternative methods to derive pluripotent stem cells, such as altered nuclear transfer and direct reprogramming, are scientific paths that carry much promise and avoid raising ethical concerns. As president, Mitt will focus his energy on laws and policies that promote this kind of research to unlock the medical breakthroughs that our loved ones so desperately need."

Source: Campaign website

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Adult stem cell research goes forward in leaps and bounds whilst embryonic stem cell work grinds to a halt

It has been an amazing week in the field of stem cell technology with five big stories hitting the news all at once. New doors of therapeutic promise are opening whilst at the same time other doors are slamming shut.

I recently highlighted a New Scientist editorial, ‘In praise of stem-cell simplicity’, which gives a fantastic overview of exciting new avenues in ethical stem cell research which are opening up. But the speed of new developments has increased by leaps and bounds just in the last few days.

Stem cells are naturally occurring cells in the body which have the capacity to develop into a variety of specialist cells. They have been recognized for well over a decade as having huge potential in the treatment of diseases where is there is tissue or cell loss – such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, spinal injury and heart disease.

The reason stem cells are so controversial is that the harvesting of embryonic stem cells involves the destruction of existing embryos and yet some British scientists have for years maintained that they are essential for research.

On the other hand, other scientists have argued that stem cells derived from ethical sources (adult stem cells, umbilical stem cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells) are safer than embryonic stem cells and have greater therapeutic potential.

Both adult stem cells (from bone marrow and other body tissues) and umbilical stem cells are already used in treatment for a wide variety of haematological and other conditions. By contrast the first clinical trials using embryonic stem cells have only just recently begun.

In addition to this iPS cells, which appear to have all the characteristics of embryonic stem cells, can now be produced by stimulating ordinary body cells to revert to an earlier developmental stage without having to destroy embryos.

What has happened this week is that there have been some fantastic advances in using stem cells from ethical sources whilst at the same time a huge setback for embryonic stem cell technology. It appears that ethical stem cell research is opening more and more doors whilst unethical research using embryos is foundering. These developments are another nail in the coffin for the misinformation and hype that the British public have been fed by the British press on these issues for so long.

For the first time, adult stem cells from patients’ own hearts have been shown to improve heart failure.

In the research, carried out at the University of Louisville and published in the Lancet, the heart’s blood-pumping efficiency in 14 patients who responded to the stem cell treatment, increased from 30.3% to 38.5% whilst at the same time the amount of dead heart muscle tissue decreased by 24% percent over four months. Seven control patients who did not receive the stem cell treatment showed no improvement.

Second, the doctors behind the world’s first transplant of an artificial windpipe made from a patient’s own stem cells are to begin clinical trials next year on a stem-cell ‘bandage’ for mending torn knee cartilage.

Professor Anthony Hollander of the University of Bristol, who helped save the life of a Colombian woman, Claudia Castillo, with the transplant of a tissue-engineered windpipe, will lead a team treating patients with torn knee cartilages, a common problem among sportspeople. The doctors aim to transplant stem cells derived from a patient’s bone marrow on to a damaged knee joint, where it is hoped the cells will act like a repairing bandage to mend the tissue.

Third, Embryonic-like stem cells have been isolated from breast milk in large numbers. The discovery raises the possibility of sourcing embryonic stem cells for regenerative medicine, without the need to destroy embryos.

Peter Hartmann at the University of Western Australia in Crawley and his colleagues first announced the discovery of stem cells in breast milk in 2008. Now they have grown them in the lab and shown that they can turn into cells representative of all three embryonic germ layers, called the endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm – a defining property of embryonic stem cells (ESC).

Embryonic-like stem cells have previously been discovered in amniotic fluid and in the umbilical cord, but this is the first time they have been discovered in an adult. Chris Mason of University College London has said, ‘If they are truly embryonic, this would be another way of getting stem cells that would not raise ethical concerns.’

Fourth, Scientists at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine have demonstrated that baby mice in utero can heal their mothers’ heart disease (See 'Foetal stem cells "can repair mother’s heart"'). They found that foetal stem cells from the placenta, which they had marked with green fluorescent protein, travelled to the pregnant mother’s heart and were transformed into a variety of cells to repair cardiac damage. This may help to explain a phenomenon seen in previous studies where one in two women with peripartum cardiomyopathy spontaneously recovered after pregnancy.

The director of cardiovascular regenerative medicine at the institution, Dr Hina Chaudhry, has described it as ‘an exciting development that has far-reaching therapeutic potential’. The findings, which are published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation Research, could help researchers find a stem cell treatment for heart disease.

Finally, the company doing the much-heralded first trial on embryonic stem cell therapy is discontinuing further stem cell work.

Geron, a pioneer in stem cell research that has been testing a potential spinal cord injury treatment, said late Monday that it’s halting development of its stem cell programs to conserve funds. It is seeking partners to take on the programs’ assets and is laying off 66 staff, 38% of its entire workforce.

Those scientists who have been singing the praises of embryonic stem cells most loudly are, perhaps predictably, expressing their disappointment. The firm is claiming that its decision is ‘purely financial’ but John Martin, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at University College London has said: ‘The Geron trial had no real chance of success because of the design and the disease targeted. It was an intrinsically flawed study… The first trials of stem cell that will give an answer are our own in the heart. The heart is an organ that can give quantitative data of quality.’

Josephine Quintavalle from the group CORE (Comment on Reproductive Ethics) was rather more frank: ‘At long last after 10 years of unremitting hype, reality has caught up with embryonic stem cell claims. If Geron is abandoning this project it is because it is simply not working, despite the millions of dollars and hot air that has been invested in the promotion of this research.’

So in summary, this has been a week where ethical stem cell research has marched on whilst embryonic stem cell work has ground to a halt. What were perhaps always blind alleys are now closing but new highways of promise are opening ever and ever wider.

The best and most effective treatments are also ethical treatments. Maybe that is the most important lesson to learn from all this.

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Adult Stem Cells: the power of placenta

You are unlikely to learn this from any UK news source but an international conference was held in Rome on 9-11 November devoted to medical applications of adult stem cells.

The Vatican Pontifical Council had earlier announced a 5-year, $1 million partnership with adult stem cell biopharmaceutical firm NeoStem and its educational foundation to research adult stem cells, examine their use and promote the cells as medical treatments.

Adult stem cells, which unlike embryonic stem cells can be obtained ethically without destroying human embryos, are already used in the treatment of hundreds of diseases. Great strides are also being made in developing the alternative ethical sources – umbilical stem cells and iPS (induced pluripotent stem cells).

I have recently highlighted some exciting new advances on this blog.

Some interesting papers have come out of the conference. Here is one on another promising ethical source of stem cells – the human placenta. I reproduce the article from the Vatican radio site here in full with some added links.

Adult Stem Cells: the power of placenta

A leading pioneer in the use of adult stem cells to treat life-threatening diseases is calling the Vatican ‘a very powerful and supportive ally to helping advance this technology.’

Dr Robert J Hariri, founder and chief executive officer of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics is a US neurosurgeon and trauma specialist recognized for his discovery of pluripotent stem cells (cells that can differentiate to become nearly any cell of the body) from placenta.

Dr. Hariri spoke to Vatican Radio after delivering a speech on his research on adult stem cells in the treatment of autoimmune diseases at a three day Vatican sponsored conference this week entitled ‘Adult Stem Cells: Science and the Future of Man and Culture.’

Recipient of the Thomas Alva Edison Award for his discovery of placental stem cells in 2007 and for engineering tissues and organs from stem cells in 2011, Dr Hariri says he was first drawn to investigate the placenta as a therapeutic source of stem cells after seeing an ultrasound of his daughter while she was an embryo growing in the womb. He marvelled at how the placenta developed more rapidly than the embryo and at its nutrient-giving and protective properties.

He explains that placental cells are ‘one size fits all.’ They can mature into all kinds of cells without an embryo, and do not present problems of rejection by the patient-recipient. ‘The placenta is nature’s perfect graft material. It’s accepted between recipients and donors without having the two be matched.’

Using adult stem cells obtained from human placenta, Hariri says he and his team of researchers have had ‘compelling results’ in the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

‘We’re able to down-regulate the auto-reactive response of diseased immune system and correct things like Crohn’s Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis. And we find this exciting enough to continue to invest in exploring this as a potent, therapeutic use of these cells.’

And the supplies of these stem cells are apparently limitless. Dr Hariri told participants at the Vatican conference that one donor can provide cells for millions of recipients.

‘The placenta is an abundant resource,’ that can be easily recovered when a woman gives birth to a child he notes. ‘It’s readily available, it can be procured or recovered under very rigorous or tight controls. It’s a good, high quality source of material. From a single placenta we can mass produce, expand, manufacture those cells into huge numbers, quantities that allow us to treat hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions of patients.’

When asked what he thinks about the Vatican’s decision to host this week’s stem cell conference, Dr Hariri told Vatican Radio’s Tracey McClure: ‘It’s important for people to realize that the Vatican is a powerful, powerful advocate for science and technology. It is not interfering or impeding progress in this space and I think that the position in supporting non-embryonic stem cells happens to be a logical one because the tools at our disposal today don’t violate anyone’s personal, moral or ethical standards…these stem cells which can be derived from bone marrow, adipose (fat) tissue or from placenta are readily available, high quality, and can meet the needs of the clinical future.’

But is there enough public support in his country, the United States, for research into adult stem cell research? ‘I think there’s confusion…considerable confusion,’ reflects Dr Hariri. ‘There are underlying political and media agendas which sometimes distort the reality. Simply enough, I think that every scientist, every physician, every politician wants to see people have access to new breakthrough medicines that change the way diseases are treated and this is just one new tool.’

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Excellent interview on stem cell patent ruling

Bioedge this week carries an excellent interview with Professor David Jones of the Anscombe Centre (pictured) on the Brustle stem cell ruling which I blogged about last week. I have reproduced it here.

Last week the European Court of Justice, in the case of Oliver Brüstle v Greenpeace, ruled that research involving the destruction of embryos cannot be patented. This provoked an uproar among stem cell scientists. BioEdge interviewed Dr David Albert Jones, director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, about the judgement.

BioEdge: Oliver Brüstle has described the decision as “an unbelievable setback for biomedical stem cell research." How would you respond?

David Albert Jones: This is an overreaction and also very misleading. The decision of the European Court of Justice does not affect most “biomedical stem cell research" because most such research does not use embryonic stem cells. There are an increasing number of sources of adult stem cells (amniotic fluid, cord blood, bone marrow, eyes, noses, even fat from liposuction!) and cutting-edge research in this area is turning ordinary adult cells into stem cells. These forms of stem cell research will not be set back and may benefit from the diverting of resources away from embryonic stem cells.

BioEdge: Do you think that this will drive profitable research out of Europe?

David Albert Jones:I think most of this research will stay in Europe. Lawyers who represent the interests of embryonic stem cell companies tell me they are already thinking of how to mitigate the effect of this legal decision. I doubt this judgment will make companies uproot, but I hope it will be a “nudge” which will encourage them to look more at other more ethical kinds of stem cells.

BioEdge: How has the decision been greeted in the UK? Is there a different reaction in other countries in Europe?

David Albert Jones: In the United Kingdom the press has widely reported the comments of Oliver Brüstle and similar comments by British scientists. The status of the human embryo is not taken seriously in the United Kingdom and the views of the embryonic stem cell lobby are accepted uncritically. The United Kingdom is also ambivalent about its relationship with Europe and so it is easy to report this case in a way that plays on anti-European feeling. My impression is that the attitude in other European countries, and particularly in Germany, is quite different.

BioEdge: In your opinion, why do human embryos deserve special respect in Germany but not in the UK?

David Albert Jones: This is a complex question and relates not only to religion (Germany is more than 30% Catholic whereas in England the population is less than 10% Catholic) but more importantly to cultural and historical context. In Germany, given their history, there is a reluctance to sacrifice ethical principles for pragmatic considerations.

BioEdge: Why should science and industry care about ethical limits if the result of their research will benefit the economy?

David Albert Jones: Economic wealth is a human good but it is not one that should be pursued at any cost. People may draw a line at different points but everyone draws the line somewhere.

BioEdge: In the English-speaking world, at least, this is a surprising decision, as the plaintiff is not a Christian group, but Greenpeace. What explains the coincidence of interests here?

David Albert Jones: Greens are not generally opposed to legal abortion (though of course some are). As a movement they are concerned primarily not with the embryo as a person but with the manipulation of human nature, as shown by cloning, eugenics, genetic engineering and the patenting of life. Also Greens tend to come to biotechnology with a more critical attitude and are more likely to see through the hype of claims made by companies with a financial interest.

BioEdge: The court declared that ethics must take precedence over commercial interests. Many would say that this is imposing the ethics of a Christian minority upon scientists. How would you respond?

David Albert Jones: This case was not brought by a Christian group and it is extreme permissive views like those in the United Kingdom that seem to be in a minority in this area. Research is allowed in the United Kingdom that is illegal in many countries in Europe and the United Kingdom even allows research that is banned by the European Convention in Human Rights and Biomedicine. Nevertheless, patent protection requires cooperation between countries and part of the price of this cooperation has been the upholding of some minimum ethical standards. A majority in the European Parliament have decided that patents should not be given from the commercialisation of human embryos.

BioEdge: How has the Anscombe Bioethics Centre engaged in the UK's embryo debate?

David Albert Jones: In February 2011, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre had an event to engage with stem cell scientists in closed discussion under “Chatham House” rules. In June we had a letter published in Nature co-signed by 25 professors and directors of ethics centres throughout Europe, expressing the priority of ethics over commercial interests in embryo research. In September we brought professors from Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, United States, and the United Kingdom to a conference in Oxford on the status of the embryo. The Anscombe Bioethics Centre seeks to be a voice within the United Kingdom reminding people of the dignity of human life from its very beginnings.

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‘In praise of stem cell simplicity’ – brilliant New Scientist Editorial

The New Scientist editorial this week, ‘In praise of stem-cell simplicity’, gives a fantastic overview of exciting new avenues in ethical stem cell research which are opening up.

It should be required reading for all UK science journalists who sadly use press releases from the biotechnology industry or briefings from the Science Media Centre as their main (and often sole!) source material.

In so doing they misinform and short change the British public.

I have pasted a lengthy excerpt below but the full article with links is available free on line.

Although the New Scientist is still supporting all forms of stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research (in spite of the EU court ruling this week), it does at least, unlike the British press and the BBC, acknowledge the tremendous advances being made with ethical stem cell approaches.

Read this because you won’t hear about it in any British newspaper!

In praise of stem-cell simplicity

DID you know that you have accessible stem cells up your nose? Or that human fetuses shed stem cells into the fluid around them? Both of these seemingly random facts could spawn novel, personalised stem-cell treatments that, if not simple per se, are simpler than what has gone before.

What marks these treatments out is that they are eminently practical and ethically unquestionable. This is in stark contrast to much previous work, which has focused on human embryonic stem cells, or hESCs.

From the outset, the use of hESCs has been fraught with controversy. Only last week, after years of trying, and the notorious fraud involving Korean researcher Woo Suk Hwang, hESCs were finally created through a variant of the cloning technique that gave us Dolly the sheep. This fused skin and egg cells, leaving the nucleus of the latter intact. Unfortunately, human eggs are still required, embryos still perish in the process and in this case the embryos and resulting hESCs had three sets of chromosomes instead of two, ruling out medical uses.

A promising alternative to hESCs emerged in 2006 when researchers produced so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) from ordinary tissue such as skin. But to convert adult cells into embryonic-like cells means genetic reprogramming, for example with a virus, and the reprogrammed cells do not yet match embryonic stem cells.

Now there are different avenues of research that are simpler in many ways. In ‘Diabetic rats cured with their own stem cells’, we report how researchers cured diabetic rats by turning brain stem cells extracted through the nose into insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. They did this without any genetic trickery.

And in ‘Baby repair kit found inside the womb’, we report how congenital defects such as holes in the diaphragm could be patched up using a baby's own stem cells extracted from the surrounding amniotic fluid.

You have read this article Adult Stem Cells / Stem Cells with the title Stem Cells. You can bookmark this page URL http://celebrityunitedking.blogspot.com/2011/10/in-praise-of-stem-cell-simplicity.html. Thanks!

Stem cell patent ruling is a triumph of ethics over commercial expedience and will open fruitful new areas of research

British scientists are kicking up an enormous stink about yesterday’s court ruling that scientists can’t patent stem cells if they are obtained by destroying human embryos.

Europe’s highest human rights court, the EU Court of Justice, said the use of human embryos ‘for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes which are applied to the human embryo and are useful to it is patentable. But their use for purposes of scientific research is not patentable.’

The EU judges were asked by the German Federal Court of Justice to provide a ruling in a case regarding a German scientist, Oliver Bruestle, whose patent on a method to create nerve cells from human embryonic stem cells was ruled invalid. The court said ‘a process which involves removal of a stem cell from a human embryo at the blastocyst stage, entailing the destruction of that embryo, cannot be patented.’ The ruling mentions 'respect for human dignity'.

The full implications of the judgment are explained in more detail by LifeSite news and C-Fam.

The British media is somewhat predictably filled with reports of scientists condemning the judgment.

A leading article in the Independent calls it ‘A patently poor ruling on stem cells' and a lengthier piece in the same paper says that ‘medicine has been thrown into crisis’.

The Daily Mail leads with the headline ‘Stem cell research in chaos as scientist loses patent battle over extracting cells from human embryos’ and the Times with ‘Europe’s ban on stem-cell patents threat to UK medicine industry’

The BBC declares ‘European court ruling “threatens stem cell work”’.

Most broadcast coverage has been mind-numbingly superficial.

The above articles consist largely of a series of quotes from scientists making the kinds of statements that scientists never used to make:

We are told that Europe is now facing ‘a Dark Age of stem cell research’; that this is 'an unbelievable setback'; that 'Many years of intensive research are being destroyed'; that the decision will ‘will hold back research into new treatments for blindness, paralysis and Parkinson’s disease’; that it is a ‘devastating decision which will stop stem cell therapies use in medicine’ and that ‘emerging regenerative medicine industry that the Government has placed at the heart of its plans for economic recovery could be wrecked’.

The usual warnings about ‘experts’ moving off shore to more favourable jurisdictions are reminiscent of the threats emanating from bankers at the time of the economic crisis of 2008 when it was suggested that the government might like to consider regulating the finance industry.

There is virtually nothing in any of these articles about the new advances in ethically uncontroversial non-embryonic stem cell therapy being made all over the world.

The British media coverage tells us much more about the state of science journalism in Britain than it does about the actual scientific facts. But we have now reached a point where most science journalists in this country writing on this issue simply mindlessly recycle press releases from the biotechnology industry or prepackaged ‘briefings’ and soundbites from the Science Media Centre.

Those who wish to know more about the actual facts will need to take their reading off shore.

The truth is that UK scientists have overhyped embryonic stem cells to a gullible public and parliament for over ten years with very little to show for it in terms of any promise of therapeutic advance. I have urged caution about their conclusions before.

I have blogged about this issue ad nauseam and won't repeat the arguments here but refer readers to my past blogs on spinal cord injury, cord blood, three parent embryos and adult stem cells where they are outlined in some detail.

If you follow the links in these blogs you will be able to access information about the science in this whole arena which you may never learn from the BBC or the press releases of British scientists whose salaries are paid by the biotechnology industry.

The case before the court was originally begun by Greenpeace in Germany.

An adviser to Greenpeace, Dr Christoph Then, said in bringing the case that the organisation was not opposed to all stem cell research: 'We do not think the opinion of the Advocate General is so clear. Our original purpose was to clarify the patent law, especially around the industrial use of embryos.'

It is the commercial exploitation of human life that bothers them. It bothers me too. And I think it would bother thousands more people too if they were able to learn the truth.

Dr Then said after the ruling: 'We wanted a fundamental decision on how the protection of human embryos is to be laid out under EU patenting law. The court has said that ethics take priority over commercial interests.'

The Anscombe Bioethics centre has welcomed the ruling as a ‘triumph of ethical standards over commercial interest’.

The ruling does not stop embryo research but it could well take the wind out of the European biotechnology industry's sails by making it no longer economically viable to fund embryonic stem cell research.

That would mean less money wasted on blind alley research by people with financial and ideological vested interests and more being invested where it is really needed for the good of all - in adult stem cell and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS) technology.

In an opinion column in the French medical daily Le Quotidien du Médecin, Prof Claude Huriet commented earlier this year: ‘While innovations in the field of the life sciences arouse ethical reactions often regarded as obstacles to innovation, it sometimes happens that these ethical objections stimulate the imagination of researchers and finally lead to progress! Who could quarrel with that?’

This court ruling may actually prove to be the best thing that ever happened to stem cell research in Europe by closing ‘a road to nowhere’ and opening a new highway to research that is both ethical and fruitful.

You have read this article Adult Stem Cells / Stem Cells with the title Stem Cells. You can bookmark this page URL http://celebrityunitedking.blogspot.com/2011/10/stem-cell-patent-ruling-is-triumph-of.html. Thanks!