Stem-cell cloning takes a big leap
South Koreans develop highly efficient method

By Rick Weiss
THE WASHINGTON POST

May 20, 2005

WASHINGTON – Scientists in South Korea have made nearly a dozen cloned human embryos that are genetic twins of patients with medical problems and have isolated from those embryos batches of stem cells with the potential to replace failing tissues in those patients.

The experiments mark a significant advance in therapeutic cloning, the fast-paced but controversial field that aims to make customized heart tissues for heart attack patients, nerves for patients with spinal cord injuries and a host of other laboratory-grown spare parts genetically tailored to the patients who need them.

The single previous claim that stem cells had been derived from a cloned human embryo, reported last year by the same team at Seoul National University's College of Veterinary Medicine, left some scientists doubting the results.

Moreover, the process appeared to be hopelessly inefficient, requiring almost 250 human eggs extracted from female donors to get one cloned embryo with its precious cache of stem cells.

In the new experiments, described in today's online version of the journal Science, the team needed 17 eggs on average to make each batch of stem cells, which have the capability to develop into any type of tissue. That means a single egg-retrieval procedure of the sort used routinely in fertility clinics is now adequate to produce a colony of personalized cells with the potential to treat a wide spectrum of diseases.

If therapeutic cloning can be achieved with the same efficiency as such a widely accepted medical procedure, it would deeply undercut one of the major ethics arguments against it: that it would require egg donations by countless women – at some risk – to make enough embryos and stem cells to be medically useful.

"I think this paper will have enormous impact on the political discussion," said Rudolf Jaenisch, a stem cell researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

The report comes at a delicate time in the escalating U.S. battle over funding of embryonic stem cell research. In the next week, a closely divided House is expected to vote on legislation that would, for the first time, loosen the restrictions that President Bush imposed on federal funding for the field in 2001.

That legislation would not allow funding of cloning research like that done in South Korea – a kind of research the House has twice voted to ban and which the Senate has deadlocked on for years. Rather, it would facilitate the less-contentious use of frozen embryos about to be discarded by fertility clinics.

Unknown is whether the report will bolster the bill's opponents – who have painted the legislation as a step down a slippery slope that will lead to embryo cloning – or strengthen the bill's supporters by making the pending bill look relatively modest by comparison.

"We've always been a leader in medical research and now we're a follower because our government has chosen to sit on the sidelines," said John C. Reed, president of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, which operates a stem cell research program funded with private money.

Reed is also a member of the oversight committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which voters approved last fall to disperse $3 billion over 10 years to jump-start stem cell research outside of federal restrictions.

Several countries, including South Korea, Singapore and Britain, not only support research on unused fertility clinic embryos but also have given their blessings to research on cloned human embryos and have promulgated ethics rules for such work.

The new research was led by Woo Suk Hwang, a cow cloning expert whose recent rise to international fame for his stem cell work has made him somewhat of a folk hero in South Korea.

To produce a clone, scientists slip the genetic material from a patient's cell into an unfertilized egg from another person whose genetic material has been removed. The genes from the patient's cell take over, directing the egg to divide and develop into an embryo that is genetically identical to the patient, rather than the egg donor. About five days later, when the cloned embryo contains about 100 cells, stem cells appear, looking like a ball of cells encased in a sphere.

In the latest experiments, the team started with 185 eggs donated by 18 women. The women underwent a monthlong series of hormone shots followed by the extraction of about a dozen ripened eggs from their ovaries.

Each egg had its own DNA removed and then was fused to a single skin cell taken from one of 11 patients, then allowed to grow into an early embryo. The patients, ages 2 to 56, had either a spinal cord injury, diabetes or an inborn disease of the immune system.

Of those 185 attempts, 31 grew into embryos in laboratory dishes. The team was able to extract stem cells from 11 of them. Each of the resulting colonies of stem cells is a genetic and immunological match to the patient who supplied the original skin cell.

The overall efficiency was 11 self-perpetuating colonies – or cell lines – from 185 eggs, or about one cell line for every 17 eggs. But the procedure was even more efficient with eggs from the youngest donors. For eggs retrieved from women under 30, one cell line was obtained for every 14 eggs.

In another major advance, the South Koreans said they are cultivating the stem cell lines in dishes without any animal cells. Virtually all other human embryonic stem cell lines to date have been grown for at least a while on mouse cells, which secrete a cocktail of hormones that support the growth of finicky stem cells.

By growing the stem cells on a bed of human support cells instead of mouse cells, the team does not have to worry that animal viruses or other contaminants may prevent transplanting the stem cells, or tissue grown from them, into patients – the ultimate goal.

"We want to find a way to cure devastating diseases, and one of the big points of our research is patients (now) have immune-matched, cloned, embryonic stem cells," Woo said.

The team is now working to transform the cells into various kinds of tissues – a process at which scientists are becoming increasingly adept – but has no plans to put them into patients, Woo said.

Several experts said they were extremely impressed and predicted that the first therapeutic cloning treatment would come more quickly than they'd imagined.

"They have increased the efficiency tenfold over what their paper was a year ago, and this is very important," said John Gearhart, a stem cell researcher at Johns Hopkins University. "It's kind of remarkable. It tells you how quickly things are moving."

Others voiced concerns.

Dr. Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, said in an e-mail that "whatever its technical merit, this research is morally troubling: It creates human embryos solely for research, makes it much easier to produce cloned babies, and exploits women as egg donors not for their benefit."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops shares those concerns, said Richard Doerflinger, director of anti-abortion activities there. He added that he also worried that a cloned baby might be next.

"Up until now, people were beginning to wonder whether human cloning for any purpose was feasible at all," Doerflinger said. "This development makes it feasible enough to be a clear and present danger."

"You're placing the woman at risk to create an embryo that has a 100 percent risk of death, to attempt to treat patients who themselves will face significant risks," Doerflinger added.

There is also a long way to go from stem cells to therapy.

Among many challenges are figuring out how stem cells grow into complex, three-dimensional tissues, and ensuring that the cells transplanted into patients won't develop into cancerous tumors, said Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla.

"We have to really salute this group and the Korean government, but having said that, we are far away from bringing this to the clinic," Belmonte said.

Staff writer Bruce Lieberman and the New York Times News Service contributed to this report.

President Bush said today he would veto a measure that would ease restrictions on federal financing of the embryonic stem cell research if it is approved by Congress.

He also said he was concerned by a report today from South Korean scientists that they are developing a cloning process that would produce human embryos that could then serve as the source of stem cells for medical and scientific uses.

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President Bush said today he would veto a measure that would ease restrictions on federal financing of the embryonic stem cell research if it is approved by Congress.

Well I hope there would be enough votes to override his veto.

He also said he was concerned by a report today from South Korean scientists that they are developing a cloning process that would produce human embryos that could then serve as the source of stem cells for medical and scientific uses.

Article regarding SK already posted.

President Bush said today he would veto a measure that would ease restrictions on federal financing of the embryonic stem cell research if it is approved by Congress.

Well I hope there would be enough votes to override his veto.

One can only hope there would be enough votes...... It's questionable if he would actually veto anything though.... he's threatened to veto any unnecessary spending before and we all know he nas not vetoed anything yet.

He also said he was concerned by a report today from South Korean scientists that they are developing a cloning process that would produce human embryos that could then serve as the source of stem cells for medical and scientific uses.

Article regarding SK already posted.

I read the SK article already, evidently someone told a little something about it to Bush too. There's quite a bit of discussion about his reaction to the news from SK. One comment was that maybe now we might invade those godless South Koreans....

(I'm sure that was just reactionary drivel from some easily excitable malcontent though..)

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WASHINGTON – Scientists in South Korea have made nearly a dozen cloned human embryos that are genetic twins of patients with medical problems and have isolated from those embryos batches of stem cells with the potential to replace failing tissues in those patients.

The experiments mark a significant advance in therapeutic cloning, the fast-paced but controversial field that aims to make customized heart tissues for heart attack patients, nerves for patients with spinal cord injuries and a host of other laboratory-grown spare parts genetically tailored to the patients who need them....

This is pretty big news. This development may be the needed push to put pressure on our government to loosen some restrictions on stem cell and cloning research as well. If that happens, hopefully scientists will be responsible with the power that they will possess.

[edit] Sorry, it looks like I messed up the response somewhat. [/edit]

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Stem cell committee is fighting measure
Legislation pushes for additional control

By Terri Somers
STAFF WRITER

May 24, 2005

SAN JOSE – The committee overseeing California's $3 billion stem cell initiative yesterday attacked a proposed constitutional amendment being fast-tracked through the Legislature in an attempt to increase oversight of how the money is spent.

While the initiative voters approved in November was designed to head off legislative interference, the measure under consideration would impose new rules for picking grant recipients, avoiding conflicts of interest and repaying money to the state.

The committee said in a letter of opposition it drafted yesterday that the rules "would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for scientists to do their job, and it will delay critically needed medical therapies."

Committee members also changed their June meeting location to Sacramento, where they will contact legislators to voice their opposition.

Members said they are baffled and dismayed that attempts to negotiate changes in the bill have been rebuffed by its author, Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, who first proposed the idea of letting Californians vote on whether to fund stem cell research.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Ortiz said no one has contacted her to negotiate changes. However, people have sought to kill it, she said.

She said Californians deserve to vote on whether they should have more oversight of spending, just as they had the chance to vote on whether to fund stem cell research.

"There is no sinister plot here," said Ortiz, adding that the measure would not delay any possible therapies or treatments. "This legislation does not prevent them from moving forward and issuing grants."

Ortiz said a constitutional amendment is the only way to achieve her objective because Proposition 71 was written to exclude any legislative tinkering for three years and to require approval by 70 percent of the Legislature for changes. She said she was not involved when those components were written into the measure by Robert Klein, one of the proposition's key backers and the chairman of the oversight committee.

Ortiz said she continues to support Proposition 71. But she said she will not back down from the legislation she's trying to push through Senate committees to qualify it for a November ballot.

She said she knows getting the needed two-thirds approval in the Senate and Assembly by June 30 is a long shot.

Klein produced a document yesterday that he said Ortiz received in late February, more than two months after she first introduced her legislation, outlining how the oversight committee is attempting to address all of her concerns about Proposition 71 and its public oversight.

He is scheduled to meet with Ortiz tomorrow and said he is hoping she will follow through with her statement that she's willing to negotiate on the measure's wording.

Since Ortiz introduced her legislation in December, Klein has asked that the oversight committee be given time to build the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and its policies, from scratch.

"We've been working as hard as we possibly can," said committee member Joan Samuelson, an advocate for Parkinson's disease patients. "The voters gave it to us (to handle) and we are dealing with it as fast and as intelligently as we can."

Klein said the Ortiz legislation would make public the peer review process used to determine who gets research grants. But committee members and scientists at yesterday's meeting said all other research institutions in the country use a private process.

Keeping the process closed to the public allows scientists to candidly discuss a scientist's proposal, said Nobel laureate researcher Paul Berg of Stanford, who is not on the committee.

In a public meeting, the discussion is likely to be muted and circumspect, Berg said. It would likely limit the quality of proposals submitted, he said, because people would not want their ideas and past research aired for all to see and hear.

"This provision would cripple the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's ability to operate," Berg said.

The presidents of Stanford University, the University of California system, the University of Southern California and Caltech addressed such concerns in a joint letter to Ortiz April 19.

The university presidents also said a plan by Ortiz to require the stem cell institute to adopt the National Institutes of Health conflict-of-interest policies would harm its ability to recruit and retain top scientists.

"Nationally, many in the scientific community and within NIH itself have raised serious concerns about the new NIH conflict-of-interest standards, which many believe are too sweeping and too administratively burdensome," they wrote.

The Ortiz proposal also would mandate affordable drug pricing requirements and reimbursement of the state investment on all grants and loans made under the initiative.

Oversight committee members who work in research institutions where discoveries are made, often funded mostly by taxpayer-funded grants from the National Institutes of Health, pointed out that standard practice is not to require the repayment of these grants.

Likewise, the biotechnology companies that pay to license these discoveries from research institutes often have to invest an additional $800 million to $1 billion to further develop the technology, said committee member Ted Love, chief executive of the Sunnyvale biotech company Nuvelo.

Charging these companies a licensing fee that would reimburse the taxpayers would dissuade many companies from investing in the potential drug, Love said.

Religious people changing views on morality of stem-cell research

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

June 1, 2005

Peggy Willocks describes herself as "a conservative, pro-life Christian in the heart of the Bible Belt," Johnson City, Tenn. So when she considered embryonic stem cell research two years ago, she found it morally repulsive.

That view changed, as it has for other religious Americans. This religious support, or lack of it, could be instrumental as Congress and President Bush grapple with a bill that would expand federal funding of medically promising embryonic stem cell research.

"I was equating it with killing a child," said Willocks, 54, who now gives talks in support of such research. "I thought of it as grinding up fetuses and all of that, so I didn't want any part of it."

What changed Willocks was a personal experience.

She watched a friend and a fellow Parkinson's sufferer get to where she could move only her eyes for two months before dying. Willocks then went back to her Bible, recalled God's compassion for the living and determined that cells in a petri dish aren't sacred because Scripture informs her that "life begins in the womb," she said.

Surveys show Willocks is not alone in her reassessment.

A Gallup poll taken in early May found that 60 percent of Americans say medical research involving stem cells from human embryos is "morally acceptable." That's up significantly from May 2002, when 52 percent held that opinion, according to Gallup research.

As with the abortion issue, much hinges on the moral status of biological material that could one day become a full-fledged human being. Although the moral concerns echo those of firmly entrenched factions in the abortion debate, conclusions reached in the stem cell debate are proving far more tenuous, even for people of faith.

In explaining the discrepancy, observers point to American pragmatism. Americans tingle at the prospect of curing previously deadly diseases, they say, and that potential to save lives has a way of making the protection of embryos a concern of lesser importance.

"The hope for medical breakthroughs is outweighing the destruction of embryos," said Carroll Doherty, editor at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "Is there less concern for the embryo? I don't think so. People are just feeling it's worth it" to attain a greater good.

Polling done by Pew shows the greatest surge in support among Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants, especially those who said they didn't know what to think on the issue two years ago.

In March 2002, for instance, 43 percent of white Catholics said it was more important to conduct embryonic stem cell research than to protect embryos. By December 2004, that climbed to 63 percent. Among non-evangelical Protestants, the percentage prioritizing research grew from 51 percent to 69 percent over the same period.

As Willocks' change of heart shows, developments close to home can play a huge role.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, said he is "adamantly against abortion," but he became a committed advocate for embryonic stem cell research after his wife gave birth to triplets last year via in vitro fertilization. He now believes that "a fertilized egg is not a human being until it is implanted in a mother's womb."

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me@rescam.org

Cloning Pioneer Envisions Stem Cell Bank

By JI-SOO KIM
The Associated Press

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said Wednesday he plans to open a stem cell bank by the end of the year to help speed up the quest to grow replacement tissue to treat diseases.

The bank would consolidate current stem cell lines in one research location. To treat a patient, researchers would look for a cell line that provides a close match to a patient's immune system, Hwang said in an interview with The Associated Press. It would resemble the process now used in finding donors for organ transplants.

"We hope to open a world stem cell bank, as early as this year, in Korea," Hwang said. "We will start with what we have, offering them to those patients who sincerely want them for the right reasons."

Hwang said he was willing to eventually put the bank under the management of an international agency.

"But, it would mean that South Korea is taking the initiative in fighting human disease," he said.

Hwang and his researchers at Seoul National University created the first embryonic stem cells that genetically match injured or sick patients, work that was published in the journal Science last month. That came just a year after his team shocked the world by cloning a human embryo.

The match means the stem cells, the building blocks of all bodily tissues, are unlikely to be rejected by the body's immune system. Researchers hope the cells can be used to repair damage caused by ailments such as spinal cord injuries, diabetes or a genetic immune disease.

Hwang now wants to move his research into making embryonic stem cells grow into specific organs and tissues.

The publication of Hwang's work has made him one of South Korea's busiest and the most celebrated figures, his image gracing newspaper articles and television shows almost daily. His team is notorious for working long hours without weekends or holidays and even sleeping in the lab, but late Wednesday afternoon he found time to talk with a reporter about his project's current status and long-term goals.

Hwang's work is at the center of an international controversy over whether to ban all forms of human cloning or to allow it for medical research _ known as therapeutic cloning _ which South Korea has committed by law to pursue.

Culling stem cells destroys the days-old embryo harboring them, regardless of whether it was cloned or left over in a fertility clinic. Opponents, including President Bush, argue that is the same as destroying life. He has banned federal funding for research on all but a handful of old embryonic stem-cell lines.

Hwang knows he's treading on sensitive territory and rebutted critics who say he is destroying life.

"What we are doing is not creating embryos. An embryo, basically supposes a birth of a life. But we have no intention or goals whatsoever to create life," said Hwang. "When the genetic material is removed from human egg, it becomes a vacant egg shell, I would like to call it that."

Ultimately, though, Hwang said he was a scientist and not a politician.

"Our ultimate goal is for those with incurable disease to lead social lives, and to recover their humane right to happiness."

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me@rescam.org

Stem cell research and Bush's place in history

By Lionel Van Deerlin

June 2, 2005

For what will the presidency of George W. Bush be remembered? What is his likely legacy?

Bush himself may be wondering. He's reportedly given much thought to the matter in recent months. He hoped historians would concentrate on a successful revision he still has in mind for Social Security – or, at sword's point, on his bringing a New Order to parts of the world historically resistant to democracy.

Alas, a president may be as helpless in establishing his legacy as King Canute in rolling back the ocean tide. I cannot believe Warren G. Harding would have chosen to be remembered chiefly for Teapot Dome. Or Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression. Or James Buchanan for frittering away a nation's fading hope to avert civil war. Yet on such unhappy interludes as these, the record of earlier presidents stands.

What history ultimately remembers most clearly of George W. Bush may well be shaped by his anticipated veto of the pending stem cell research bill – the first veto of anything through this president's first five years. Yes, some of us think there have been earlier tests of his compassion and conscience. The prescription drug bill comes to mind – a measure Bush signed dashing chances that Medicare patients will see reduced prices at the drugstore. And there was another measure he felt no reluctance in signing – to put government in charge of Terri Schiavo's health care, indeed her very life. (Instead of a principled veto, we beheld Air Force One hustling Bush back from Texas to approve that one in the middle of the night.)

Thus far the president has guarded his veto virginity as steadfastly as scores of blushing maidens can be recalled preserving their virtue in 19th century literature. But let's look down the road. How will his attitude toward the beckoning stem cell miracle appear 50 years from now? "Taking life to save life," he calls embryonic stem cell research. Yet passage of time could cause his reasoning on this to seem as hopelessly warped as that of a White House predecessor who deplored the life-threatening speed of early steam engines hurtling at 15 miles per hour.

We're offered an early clue, I'd venture, with a glimpse at contending forces in the stem cell confrontation. On one side is a preponderance of U.S. scientists. This array of brainpower sees the use of otherwise wasted embryonic cells as important to understanding diseases of the brain and nervous systems – Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, et al. American savants are reluctant to wait on foreign research for the breakthroughs they hope some day could relieve the pain and suffering of countless older persons and their families.

On the other side: a bachelor of arts who, despite demonstrated leadership qualities, is said to have earned only "gentleman's C's" in academic areas nowhere near Yale's science labs. There followed an MBA from Harvard. On the stem cell issue, he enjoys the support of most (though not all) of a fundamentalist religious base, together with political honcho Karl Rove, who hoists an ever-wetted finger into political breezes.

Bush makes a familiar argument – that taxpayers should not be tapped to fund an activity which a significant number of them might oppose. Oh my – where has he been as billions were poured into a military venture that at least half of us are telling pollsters we think wrong-headed? On a lesser matter, I personally resent blowing $1.5 million in public monies on a Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich. But I won't stop paying my taxes on that account.

In this stem cell fight, Bush may have challenged some political powers almost as potent as his own. Can he cavalierly dismiss Nancy Reagan's plea to consider the years this faithful wife spent at the side of a man sinking deeper into the Alzheimer's abyss (the man whose record Bush cites most often as inspiration for his own conservatism)?

Or what about Arlen Specter, feisty chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Specter never resembled a matinee idol. But his recent TV image – a man left bald by cancer treatments that cry out for a real cure – lends validity to his call for embryonic cell research. Yes, even though this means opposing his president as one-third of House Republicans have done.

A head count tells us Congress can't muster the two-thirds needed in both houses to override a veto. The Constitution lets Bush win this one in the here and now.

But history cautions us to await a final judgment, perhaps decades later.

Anyone betting on Bush?

--Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years.

Stem cell research legislation battle may be close to end

By Bill Ainsworth
STAFF WRITER

June 7, 2005

SACRAMENTO – A clash over legislation on the future of California's stem cell research may be nearing an end.

The committee overseeing California's groundbreaking stem cell effort and a legislator leading an effort to tighten research rules indicated yesterday they have narrowed most of their disagreements to one major policy area: access to the new treatments for the poor.

Further, state Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, said yesterday if an agreement is reached, she would strongly consider dropping a constitutional amendment that stem cell research advocates have heavily criticized.

She said she would insist the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee, which oversees the $3 billion in grants authorized by Proposition 71, adopt regulations.

The tightened rules governing open meetings, conflicts-of-interest and access to care, she said, should be changed by the committee only by a two-thirds vote and only after notifying the Legislature.

In the past, Ortiz and other advocates have argued that changes need to be put into the law, rather than adopted by the committee, to make certain the committee doesn't drop them.

The committee has vigorously opposed her amendment, contending it could slow down efforts to sell $3 billion in bonds that would fund research projects aimed at discovering cures and treatments for diseases. In addition, they argue the rules should be more flexible.

Yesterday, committee members met in Sacramento to focus on Ortiz's Senate Constitutional Amendment 13. They publicly discussed the amendment with legislators in the morning and lobbied against it in private meetings with lawmakers in the afternoon.

Robert Klein, chairman of the oversight committee, welcomed Ortiz's suggestion that she might drop her amendment. "This is a very constructive proposal," he said.

Klein also announced that Ray and Dagmar Dolby, who have made a fortune from sound systems, have donated $5 million to the stem cell research agency to ensure it can keep preparing for grants. The agency's financing has been uncertain because of a delay in issuing bonds caused by lawsuits.

Ortiz told committee members she had dropped efforts in her legislation to spell out how royalties should flow from research because they might jeopardize the tax-exempt status of the bonds.

Instead, she said, she wanted a policy statement ensuring that therapies and treatments resulting from the grants are "affordable and accessible to California residents," particularly those eligible for state and county funded programs.

Unless a policy is adopted, she said, "we will fail the Californians that deserve the treatments and therapies that we have all so embraced."

Committee staff recommended the committee consider a proposal to give preference to grant applicants who agree to make products and treatments affordable to low-income California residents.

Committee member David Baltimore told Ortiz she was going too far. "You are trying to burden this bill with a huge social problem in America, which is the disparity between the health care available to the poor and the health care available to the rich," he said.

Work on stem cells forges ahead
Human cloning not on agenda, director says

By James Brooke
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

June 8, 2005

SEOUL, South Korea – A microneedle had squeezed out all the genetic material from a freshly harvested human egg. Now, in the shadows of a darkened laboratory, a technician in a blue jumpsuit prodded and probed the egg's outer membrane, seeking to introduce a skin cell from a patient with an immune deficiency.

Finally, on the third probe, the rubbery wall gave way. Magnified 250 times on a black-and-white screen, the egg could be seen making room for the new skin cell, with its new genetic code.

"I never destroy any life during my process," said Dr. Woo-Suk Hwang, the laboratory director, his eyes flashing above his surgical mask as he gave a reporter a rare look at the controversial human-cell transfer process developed at this small lab on the sixth floor of Building No. 85 at Seoul National University.

To his supporters, Hwang's May 20 report that he had created new colonies of stem cells that matched the DNA of their donors was a major leap toward the dream of growing replacement tissues for conditions such as spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and congenital immune deficiencies.

But to his detractors – and there are many around the world and here in Korea – Hwang is tampering with human life, pushing science down a slippery slope that will lead one day to the cloning of human babies.

In Rome, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life of the Roman Catholic Church, told Vatican Radio that the research was comparable to cloning embryos, which he called a violation of human rights.

Perspiring in the incubator laboratory, kept at a tropical 79 degrees, Hwang responded to these critics as he often has. "We use only a vacant egg, with no genetic materials," he said, moving back and forth between English and Korean. Eggs are never fertilized, he said, arguing that embryos are never formed.

Touching the core sensitivity, he added, "We have never attempted human cloning."

Debating the ethics

Many scientists and ethicists disagree, saying that whatever the intent of the Korean research, the entities it produces are embryos and the process is human cloning. Still, the choice is simple to Hwang, 52, a veterinarian by training, who has debated the ethics of his research since he started working on cloning pigs and cows a decade ago.

"On one hand, you have 15 micrometers of skin cells, on the other a patient who has suffered from an incurable disease," he said. "Maybe this 15 micrometers of skin cell can relieve and save the life of a human being next to me, someone who has suffered for 50 years or must suffer for 50 years. Of the two, which do you think is ethically reasonable to save?"

The choice is clear to the South Korean authorities, who recently approved a 50 percent increase in the $2 million budget for his biomedical research unit, which has 45 researchers and technicians and has largely been dedicated to animal research. The government also announced that construction would start next year on a six-story, $25 million building here, reserved for Hwang's research. And the government has agreed to open an international stem cell bank by the end of this year.

The choice also is clear to the American, British, Japanese, Swedish and Spanish researchers who are hurrying to this verdant, hilly campus in southern Seoul. The latest roll call of U.S. institutions seeking collaborations with Hwang includes Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Deeply immersed in their research, the Koreans often work seven days a week, sometimes spending nights at the laboratory. Hwang gave an interview in an office where a wash basin held a toothbrush and a full toiletry kit.

With his laboratory handling 1,400 eggs a day from cows and pigs, he has already produced five genetically modified cows in the hope that they will be resistant to mad cow disease.

Now, he said, he wants to speed up practical applications of his human stem cell research. This year, he hopes to use animal stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries in rats, dogs and, possibly, monkeys. If the animal trials go well, he hopes to apply for permission in South Korea and the United States to start conducting human trials in two to three years.

"I hope we can apply these wonderful technologies, not only for my generation, but also for my mother's generation," Hwang said.

Hwang's mother, widowed when her son was 5, supported her six children by helping neighbors care for their cows. (She is 89 now.) On the wall of his office is an old black-and-white photograph of Hwang as a boy with cows.

"I could communicate to cows eye to eye," Hwang, the father of two sons, said. "I want my laboratory to communicate with cells heart to heart."

Of the human material cultivated with the new genetic codes, he said: "If there are no humans beside the incubators, they may feel very lonely. So I discussed with my members. We decided that someone has to be beside the incubators and talking to the cells."

Stem cell research and America's war wounded

By Peter J. Bryant
EDITORIAL

June 10, 2005

Over 12,000 U.S. military personnel have been seriously wounded in the Iraq war since it began in 2003. Because of improvements in body armor since the Vietnam War, more soldiers in Iraq can survive bombings and sniper attacks, but this leaves a greater number of survivors with gruesome damage to the head, arms and legs caused by blast and shrapnel wounds. Soldiers who would have died in previous wars are coming home with traumatic brain injury or as amputees.

The military does not break down the statistics by type of wound, but it is mostly legs according to the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Bullets and shrapnel embedded in the brain are another common type of injury, and the metal is often left in place because removing it can do more damage than the injury itself.

Human limbs, brains and spinal cords are capable of only very limited repair following traumatic injury, so a lifetime of disability faces many of the victims. But many scientists are confident that with enough research we will be able to harness the abilities of embryonic stem cells to form all of the cell types in the body, so that limbs could be regenerated just as they can in a salamander, and neurons could be replaced and reconnected with each other and the organs they control.

Although the prospect of complete regeneration may seem far-fetched, recent discoveries show that stem cells may have beneficial effects even if they can't yet replace lost body parts. After a traumatic injury to the central nervous system, many neurons survive the immediate injury but are then lost as a result of inflammation and demyelination (loss of the myelin sheath that surrounds the axon and provides it with protection and electrical insulation).

Drs. Hans Keirstead and Oswald Steward, at the University of California Irvine, have now shown that some of this secondary damage in the spinal cord can be prevented in animal models by treatment with specialized cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. Videos clearly show how rats retain much more mobility following spinal cord injury if they are given stem cell therapy soon after the injury.

The new results suggest that therapy with embryonic stem cells could reduce the amount of damage following traumatic injury to the central nervous system in humans, but the procedure must be more thoroughly tested on animals before it can be safely used on human patients. Unfortunately, many of our best biologists, who could be working to make such therapies available, are hampered by Bush administration policies that do not allow federal funds to be used to generate new embryonic stem cell lines or to work on any embryonic stem cell lines that have been generated since President Bush established the restrictions, based on his personal religious reasons, in August 2001.

Some scientists are finding ways to continue their embryonic stem cell work with funding from private companies; while others are planning to take advantage of funds freed up by the states, especially California, to compensate for the lack of federal funds. And other nations with more liberal stem cell policies are forging ahead and making the discoveries we need. Last month that was clearly happening – scientists in South Korea announced that they had solved the crucial problem of replacing the genes of stem cells with those of a potential patient, so the stem cell products will not be rejected by the patient's immune system. Scientists all over the world had been eagerly anticipating that discovery, which removes a major scientific roadblock to cell-based therapy.

The United States has the most powerful federally funded health research program in the world. As President Bush indicated (as he announced his decision to block federal support for research on embryonic stem cells), "Federal dollars help attract the best and brightest scientists. They ensure new discoveries are widely shared at the largest number of research facilities and that the research is directed toward the greatest public good.

"The United States has a long and proud record of leading the world toward advances in science and medicine that improve human life. And the United States has a long and proud record of upholding the highest standards of ethics as we expand the limits of science and knowledge."

Clearly, without the federal funding restrictions the U.S. scientific community could be forging ahead to develop cellular therapies using embryonic stem cells.

In anticipating that stem cell research could lead to a society that creates human beings as a convenient source of spare body parts, President Bush wrote "I worry about a culture that devalues life."

Many of us see a painful irony in that statement coming from the president who sent those 12,000 soldiers and many others to the battlefield in the first place. In devoting their careers to stem cell research and to developing therapies without the help of federal funds, scientists are not devaluing life but are recognizing the value of existing human lives and the potential of embryonic stem cells to transform the way that we treat not only battlefield injuries, but a host of other medical problems and genetic diseases as well.

Unfortunately, unless the administration comes to its senses, those treatments may never be available to the maimed veterans in VA hospitals.

- Bryant is a professor of developmental and cell biology at the University of California Irvine.

June 13, 2005

Parents believe umbilical cord blood injections help their son with cerebral palsy, but doctors warn of ethics violations, faulty science

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me@rescam.org

Despite veto threat, Nancy Reagan may prod senators on stem cell bill

By Laurie Kellman
ASSOCIATED PRESS

June 17, 2005

WASHINGTON – Nancy Reagan is poised for a quiet entrance into the Senate's embryonic stem cell debate in much the same role she played during the fierce fight in the House, calling up wavering lawmakers to help win passage of legislation in the shadow of President Bush's veto threat.

"This is a very important issue to her and I know she remains committed to the cause and will do what she can at the right time," her spokeswoman, Joanne Drake, said in an interview Thursday.

Douglas Wick, the Hollywood producer who said he persuaded President Reagan's widow to speak out on the issue last year, agreed.

"Certainly when the Senate fight becomes clear, she will be involved again," said Wick, whose father, Charles, was director of the U.S. Information Agency during the Reagan administration.

"She prefers to work behind the scenes, as she did in the House," Wick said.

Acknowledged by those on both sides of the stem cell issue to be the most powerful advocate involved, the former first lady wields her influence quietly – a rarity in a loud debate pitting advocates who believe stem cell research could lead to cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's against opponents, like Bush, who say it is wrong to destroy human embryos to possibly save lives.

Congress is working on legislation that would lift Bush's 2001 restrictions on federal funding for new stem cell lines developed from days-old embryos. The bill passed the GOP-controlled House by a comfortable margin, but it did not attract enough votes to overcome a presidential veto.

Now Mrs. Reagan and other advocates have turned their sights on the Senate, where a bipartisan group of sponsors say they have at lest 58 votes in favor of the House-passed bill – two short of the number required to stop a promised filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician and White House ally, said he expects the chamber to act on the bill next month.

For Mrs. Reagan, the stem cell issue is personal: Six years after his second term ended, President Reagan announced in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Millions watched a decade later when Mrs. Reagan escorted his body on a cross-country memorial tour and finally collapsed, weeping, over the flag-draped coffin.

Supporters of the stem cell bill say embryonic research carries great promise in the search for cures for diseases that afflict millions of Americans, including diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Opponents say taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for research that destroys the days-old fertilized embryos from which the stem cells are extracted. Instead, many of them support federally funded research on other kinds of stem cells, such as those derived from umbilical cord blood and adults.

Central to Mrs. Reagan's message is the notion that supporting the bill is consistent with anti-abortion policy, say those who have spoken with her.

"She makes a very good case for why this is something that somebody who cares very much about respect for life also cares very much for the respect for the living," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Issa, who said he already had made up his mind to vote for the House bill last year, said he got a call from her seeking advice on strategy.

Opponents and supporters of the House bill said it was unclear whether her phone calls changed any votes.

What is clear, Issa said, is that Mrs. Reagan "is hard to say no to," especially for lawmakers who like to point to her husband as their conservative role model.

"There can be no doubt," he added, "that she knows exactly what Ronald Reagan would want."

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me@rescam.org

June 17, 2005

Attempt to amend stem cell law averted
SACRAMENTO – Democratic senators this week effectively ended a colleague's bid to amend the law governing the state's new $3 billion stem cell research agency. Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, proposed legislation that would have put a measure on the November ballot that would close perceived loopholes in Proposition 71, which created the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. Institute officials opposed the legislation, saying it would open the agency to lawsuits and hinder its ability to dole out $300 million in annual research grants. Ortiz wanted the Senate to pass her legislation this week, but fellow Democrats sent it to a committee.

From aol:

Scientists have taken the first step towards creating human eggs and sperm in the laboratory using stem cells.

The breakthrough raises the possibility of one day growing sperm and eggs artificially for IVF treatment, therapeutic cloning and medical research.

Stem cells are "master" cells that, under the right conditions, can develop into different kinds of tissue.

Those extracted from early stage embryos can potentially become any of the 165 different kinds of cell in the body.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have already shown that embryonic stem cells from mice can be coaxed into becoming eggs and sperm.

Now a first step towards the same goal has been achieved with humans.

Scientists identified developing stem cells containing the genetic signature of primordial germ cells (PGCs), the ancestors of eggs and sperm.

Some cells also produced proteins only found in maturing sperm.

However, much work still needs to be done before human sperm and eggs can be successfully grown in the laboratory.

Some time in the future, they could be used in IVF treatments - but only if proved to be safe.

There is an acute shortage of eggs and sperm. Earlier this year, the Government launched a campaign aimed at attracting more donors.

The Department of Health said donations from just 0.01 per cent of the UK's fertile population would satisfy the current demand.

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randomthoughts:
I glide upon the evening and dance upon the dawn with Sirius asmy guide and Canopus asmy friend

Some fear the dark but with friends like Orion,Cygnus and Andromeda one needs no fear

To me nature was mute, until i saw the stars

Can you imagine little clones of Misfit or Siran running all over the place!

"My God the Stars"

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