A bioethics twist: artificial stem cells

New procedure lets adult mouse cells mimic stem cells, bringing hope to anticloning activists.

By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 7, 2007 edition

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Scientists in the United States and Japan announced yesterday that they have developed artificial stem cells from adult mouse cells. If the approach can be retooled for humans, they say, it would avoid the ethical quicksand that surrounds the use of stem cells drawn from nascent human embryos.

Current stem-cell extraction methods destroy these embryos, which during the procedure are microscopic, hollow balls of cells only a few days old. For people who hold that human life begins at the moment of conception, destroying an embryo at any stage of development is tantamount to killing humans.

In addition, another group of US scientists says it has derived embryonic stem cells in mice using an approach that, if scaled to humans, would avoid the need for women to donate unfertilized eggs to produce large numbers of embryonic stem-cells for research. Instead, researchers could use non-viable embryos that fertility clinics and their patients would have disposed of anyway.

Next challenge: Applying this to humans

At this stage, the mouse-cell breakthrough is a proof of concept, researchers caution.

"The real challenge is translating this to human cells, which seem far more resistant" to the kind of manipulation scientists used, notes Clive Svendsen, a stem-cell researcher at the University of Wisconsin's Waisman Center in Madison, Wis. Still, he adds, "it is truly amazing that they can produce cells that look like embryonic stem cells."

For biomedical researchers, understanding how embryonic stem cells transform themselves into all of the various cell types found in an adult human is vital to understanding human development and the problems that can arise during that process. Moreover, if scientists can learn to "steer" stem cells to develop into adult cells of their choosing, they say new therapies might emerge to regenerate diseased or aging tissue.

Many researchers say that progress in the US has been hampered by limits President Bush imposed on federally funded human embryonic stem-cell research nearly six years ago. The limits have prompted several states to set up funding agencies to pay for embryonic stem-cell research within their borders. And this week, the US House was set to vote on a bill that would erase the president's restrictions altogether.

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