Today

Two New Studies in "Nature" Raise Hopes, Questions

Those who follow these important matters know that, largely because of the impact of rapidly advancing technology, the debate over stem cell research grows more convoluted and more challenging by the day. The latest research--two papers published in the prestigious publication "Nature"--illustrates this perfectly. For immediate purposes, let's just say that some maintain that the results (first reported in the October 17 online edition of "Nature") offer ways around the impasse.

First, the necessary backdrop. Pro-lifers adamantly disapprove of lethally extracting stem cells from human embryos. We do so for panoply of reasons.

Scavenging them for their stem cells kills these early human embryos. To argue that there is less moral significance because, typically, these are "left over" embryos from fertility clinics only compounds the injustice and ignores such life-affirming options as embryo adoption.

And the commodification of human life doesn't end here. Researchers are already arguing that because there are technical problems involved (including the body's natural rejection of foreign tissue), the "solution" is to clone human embryos, which, in theory, would provide an almost perfect match for recipients. To date none of this over-hyped result has produced any positive results in humans.

The secondary effect of this exaggeration is to bury the good news about ethically acceptable, effective alternatives. The lengthy track record of success using such "adult" stem cell sources as umbilical cords blood, bone marrow, amniotic fluids, and nasal tissue is routinely overshadowed, if not ignored altogether.

So, there is a lot of investigation into a "third way." Just a few weeks ago, researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute created embryonic stem cells--without using human ova or creating new embryos--by fusing an adult skin cell with an existing line of embryonic stem cells. (See http://www.nrlc.org/news/2005/NRL09/SkinCells.html)

The result, according to the Harvard News Service, was that the embryonic cells "reset the genetic clock of the adult cells, turning them back to their embryonic form." And there is reason to believe (as one of the researchers told reporters), "If one could just simply understand how that process works, termed reprogramming, one might be able to directly turn adult cells into embryonic stem cells without an embryo or an egg."

Which brings us to the two studies published last week in "Nature." Both were advertised as ways to harvest stem cells without destroying embryos–at least in mice.

Copying a technique used in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, Robert Lanza and his team extracted a single cell (called a blastomere) out of a human embryo at the eight-cell stage. Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, were able to derive new embryonic stem cells from the blastomere. According to Erika Check and Carina Dennis, the mouse embryos, though short one cell, were able to "develop, implant, and produce live births with roughly the same rate of success as non-biopsied IVF embryos."

In the other results reported in "Nature," Alexander Meissner and Rudolf Jaenisch, of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, employed a cloning variant. Ordinarily, cloning means an egg is emptied of its DNA into which the nucleus from the recipient patient's donor cell is inserted.

What Meissner and Jaenisch did was to "switch off" a gene in the donated cell before transferring it into the egg. (To be technical, it lacks Cdx2, which means it can not grow a placenta.)

While the resulting egg grows into a blastocyst (from which stem cells can be extracted), the blastocyst is doomed, because it is unable to implant in a woman's uterus.

As I said at the beginning, these issues are only in a preliminary stage of discussion. Stay tuned here and in National Right to Life News. (If you are not a subscriber, call 202-626-8828.)

Please send any comments to me at dandrusko@nrlc.org