THE DAILY BLADE: Can We Be Adult About Stem Cell Research?
Last week a three-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth’s preliminary injunction halting funding of embryonic stem-cell research, turning back on the spigot of tax dollars flowing to the National Institutes of Health. The NIH is the defendant in a lawsuit by scientists contending that federal funding of work using embryonic stem cells reduces the amount of government grant money available to study adult stem cells - which have already paid off in useful therapies without creating any ethical quandaries - and The New York Times frets that the careers of embryo-killing researchers will be imperiled if the plaintiffs prevail:
At stake are about 1,300 jobs, as well as grants from the National Institutes of Health that this year total more than $200 million and support more than 200 projects. …
The legal roller coaster is raising stress levels and reducing productivity, researchers say. Instead of tending to their test tubes, they find themselves guessing how each member of the Supreme Court might vote on the case. They are also watching the midterm Congressional elections with new interest - and with some dismay, since many believe that new legislation will be required for their work to continue.
Under guidelines authorized by both the Bush and Obama administrations, work that leads directly to destroying the embryos cannot be federally financed. The government can, however, support subsequent research on the cell lines created by that process.
Last year, two scientists filed the lawsuit, arguing that the distinction is a false one and that the guidelines on public financing violated the Dickey-Wicker amendment, first passed in 1996 and renewed by Congress every year since.
Moreover, they said, it siphons limited government resources from research on different types of stem cells, which they and other scientists who share a discomfort with embryonic stem cells view as ethically and scientifically superior. For all the hope vested in them, human embryonic stem cells have yet to yield tangible results for patients. …
Embryonic stem cell researchers who stand to lose their federal grants as a result argue that other types of stem cells do not have the same properties, and that all need to be studied regardless to determine which work best. …
Efforts to rally Congressional support since Judge Lamberth’s ruling have failed to gain momentum among Democrats and moderate Republicans heading into the November elections.
Most inconveniently for researchers who perversely refuse to work with adult stem cells, a couple of days after the appellate court ruling a team of scientists at Children's Hospital Boston announced a groundbreaking technique to easily convert skin cells into cells that are virtually identical to embryonic stem cells. The Washington Post reports:
The researchers published a series of experiments showing they can use laboratory-made versions of naturally occurring biological signals to quickly convert ordinary skin cells into cells that appear virtually identical to embryonic stem cells. Moreover, the same strategy can then coax those cells to morph into specific tissues that would be a perfect match for transplantation into patients. …
"This paper is a major paper, in my view, in the field of regenerative medicine," said Douglas A. Melton, who co-directs the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. …
In 2006, researchers discovered that they could coax adult cells into a state that appeared identical to embryonic stem cells, dubbed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), by activating four genes. Those cells could morph into various tissues in the same way that embryonic stem cells can. But the process involved inserting genes into cells using retroviruses, which raised the risk the cells could cause cancer. …
The new approach involves molecules known as "messenger RNA," or mRNA, which the DNA inside cells use to create proteins they need carry out various vital functions. The researchers created mRNA molecules carrying the instructions for the cell's machinery to produce the four key proteins needed to reprogram themselves into iPS cells. …
The approach converted the cells in about half the time of previous methods - only about 17 days - with surprising economy - up to 100 times more efficient than the standard approach.
As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. By forbidding federal funding for the creation and destruction of embryos to create stem cell lines, Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush created the conditions necessary to incentivize scientists to find alternative sources.
President Barack Hussein Obama, who promised to pursue science-based policies is thwarting invention by chipping away at the Dickey-Wicker amendment.
To Be, Or Not To Be, In The U.S. Legally? That, Is The Question.
In her latest public statement, CA gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s former housekeeper Nicky Diaz Santillan channels The Merchant of Venice: "Housekeepers are human beings too. We laugh, we cry, we have feelings. Blood runs through our veins just like anyone else." Methinks the forged documented alien would do well to ponder Othello's lament about identity theft ("he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed").
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