A Brief History Of The Stem Cell Debate
From The Wall Street Journal:
Currently, scientists seeking to study human embryonic stem cells have two options: Accept federal funds and focus only on a handful of cell lines created prior to Aug. 9, 2001, or decline federal dollars and gain access to the much larger, and constantly increasing, number of cell lines created since then — assuming they can find an alternative funding source.
Many of the newer lines grow better in culture, and because they encompass a far broader range of genetic diversity, they provide a greater basis for comparison and mechanistic understanding. The legislation vetoed by the president would have made the new cell lines eligible for federal support.
…Because human embryonic stem cells can develop into any cell type, they have obvious potential for medical therapy. If researchers learned how to turn embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing cells, for example, these cells might be used to treat diabetic patients.
Adult blood stem cells have been used clinically to replace blood cells lost in the treatment of several types of cancer. But adult stem cells may not exist for every tissue type in the body, and thus do not offer the same range of clinical possibilities as embryonic stem cells.
Blood stem cells were identified decades before human embryonic stem cells were first isolated, allowing the technology years to develop. Clearly, this does not mean (as is often claimed) that adult stem cells are effective while embryonic stem cells have failed; nor does it mean that other types of adult stem cells will prove as useful as those from the blood.
The ability to develop cells with properties similar to embryonic stem cells but without the destruction of an embryo — the premise of one of the two less controversial stem-cell bills the president did agree to sign — may be a worthy goal; yet it does not seem likely to be realized in the near future, despite the credible efforts now underway.
From doonesbury.com
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July 30th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Time Magazine’s cover article this week is dedicated to the issue of Embryonic Stem Cell research, titled Stem Cells: The Hope And The Hype that is worth reading.