Dolly gave cloning a name, a woolly face and lots of press. These days, there's a new science star in the news -- the human embryonic stem cell. Researchers at Carolina are taking note, interested in the ethical and medical issues this star has brought into the lime light.
A human embryonic stem cell is a cell with potential. One such cell can become any sort of body cell -- muscle, liver or nerve -- eventually multiplying and dividing into entire organs. Embryonic stem cells (ES) only exist for a short time in our early development before differentiating -- becoming more specific cell types. Because these human ES cells have never been successfully incubated in a lab before, it hasn't been easy to study how they work, and a crucial moment in human development has remained in the dark.
Early in November, a bit of light fell on the subject. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins published results in the journals Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showing that they'd both succeeded in incubating human ES cells in the lab. In the last few weeks, science reporters have hailed this discovery as a powerful new tool for the biotech community. Fran Meyer, director of the Office of Technology Development, supports this assessment.
"It's opening up a whole new area of research with significant implications for patient treatment," Meyer said.
Potential applications range from an increased understanding of human biology, to repairing faulty cells, to creating entire organs. "Conceivably, if cancer was confined to a specific organ, you could take that organ out and insert a new one, built from these stem cells," said Christopher Walsh, assistant professor of medicine.
This sort of therapeutic application is far in the future, though. According to Carolina researchers, there are a few other things to think about first: Scientists need to work on the basic research, and we, as a society, need to address the ethical considerations behind these developments.
Choosing a source for human ES cells is the most pressing ethical consideration. In the research conducted at Wisconsin, cells were obtained from couples who donated extra embryos from in vitro fertilizations. The Johns Hopkins lab used cells from aborted fetal tissue. Because federal funding for embryonic research is prohibited, neither lab received a drop of public money.
Myra Collins, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and an IRB member, questions the wisdom of the federal ban.
"It is time to reopen public debate," Collins said. "We need to explore whether or not some aspects of this research -- so important in terms of medical application -- should be federally funded."
While Collins supports much research of this type, she also believes we should take some time to decide how far we're willing to push these medical advances: "We need to think about the broader aspects," she said. One such aspect is cloning, because, as Collins reminds us, the technology used in the ES research has many similarities to that of cloning. So far, however, the ES researchers have attempted to minimize such worry. Geron, Inc., the company that funded the ES cell research, has said that it will refuse to allow the technology to be used by researchers interested in cloning applications.
Geron and other biotech firms are interested in using these ES cells to create marketable products. Within the next year, Geron hopes to apply this invention toward a drug-testing device.
But Lola Reid, professor of cell and molecular physiology, said she believes that work in the basic science of human ES cells is even more important. She's interested in what these incubated cells will tell us about stem cells at a molecular level -- about the mysteries they may clear up regarding the developmental process an embryo goes through when its cells move from having universal potential toward more specific goals.
Reid, who studies liver stem cells, cautions readers to put this recent announcement into perspective. Mouse ES cells were incubated more than 15 years ago, so the methodology for incubating human ES cells has been around for quite a while. She believes ethical issues have crimped scientists' willingness to work on these cells.
But the major glitch Reid sees in this research is in its immediate clinical application. Until we understand more of the mechanisms for controlling the fates of the cells, Reid feels that no scientist will willingly take an undifferentiated human ES cell and put it back into a person--the potential for disaster is too big. If, for example, an ES cell was put into a liver, it could very likely become cancerous. That problematic potential leaves Reid skeptical of the ES cell's current therapeutic ability.
"As fascinating as these ES cells are," Reid said, "the near future will be the domain of the determined stem cell." (A determined stem cell is a cell whose potential has been limited to a specific tissue group, such as skin, liver or gut.) Reid expects research in this area to reach clinical application in the next one to two years.
Whatever the medical and ethical considerations of the embryonic stem cell, Collins points out that at least some people are willing to approve of this new technology, at least as a moneymaking venture.
"The fact that Geron's stock soared just after the research was published indicates there's at least a segment of the public ready to invest dollars," she said.
FYI Research provided by Graduate Studies and Research.
Writer: Julia Bryan
Editor: Neil Caudle
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