Introduction

Are conservatives more concerned about a tiny clump of cells than the suffering of their fellow human beings? Is embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) really the cure-all for countless diseases? If you haven't kept up with the science involved in ESCR, this paper will jump-start your knowledge of the issues.

Embryonic stem cell research is a hot topic that seems to pit anti-abortion conservatives against pro-abortion liberals. The conservatives claim that there are better alternatives to embryonic stem cells, while the liberals claim that conservatives are blocking research that will provide cures to many tragic diseases. Much of the rhetoric is designed to muddy the waters to invoke emotional responses of those within each camp. This paper is designed to break through sound-bites and go the heart of the matter - what are the scientific issues that impact the question of stem cell research.

Much of what is promoted as being news is actually an oversimplification of the issues. Many news articles about stem cell research never distinguish between the kind of stem cell research that is being promoted. For example, the media often reports of breakthrough treatment for patients without mentioning that, in all cases, the source of stem cells is adult tissues. We know this to be true, because embryonic stem cells have never been used in human patients, and won't likely be used in the near future (see reasons, below).

Stem cells are classified as being pluripotent or multipotent. Stem cells that are pluripotent are capable of forming virtually all of the possible tissue types found in human beings. These stem cells can only be found in a certain stage (a blastocyst) in human embryos. Multipotent stem cells are partially differentiated, so that they can form a limited number of tissue types. Multipotent stem cells can be found in the fetus, in umbilical cord blood, and numerous adult tissues. A summary of this information can be found in the Table 1.

A list of the sources of stem cells, along with their advantages and disadvantages can be found in Table 2.

Although the controversy of stem cell research is only recent, research first began in the 1960's. The primary source of early human stem cells was adult bone marrow, the tissue that makes red and white blood cells. Since scientists realized that bone marrow was a good source of stem cells, early transplants were initiated in the early 1970's to treat diseases that involved the immune system (genetic immunodeficiencies and cancers of the immune system). Bone marrow-derived stem cell therapy has been extremely successful, with dozens of diseases being treated and cured through the use of these adult stem cells. However, because the donor tissue type must be closely matched to the patient, finding a compatible donor can be problematic. If you haven't already done so, you should become part of the Bone Marrow Registry.

With the advent of animal cloning, scientists had thought that patient-specific human cloning might provide cures without the tissue incompatibility problems usually associated with transplants. Specific stem cells, developed using clones genetically identical to the patient, would integrate optimally into the patient's body. Although ideal in theory, problems associated with human cloning have been quite formidable. After many years of trying to produce human clones, a South Korean group claimed to have done so in 2004,2 followed by a claim that they had produced patient-specific clones. However, subsequent questions revealed that all the research was fraudulent. Contrary to the original claims, the researchers failed to produce even one clone after over 2,000 attempts. Although a number of labs are working on producing human clones, none have succeeded - even after several years of additional attempts. At a cost of $1,000-$2,000 just to produce each human egg,3 therapeutic cloning would easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, for each patient. Therefore, these kinds of therapies would only be available to the wealthy, assuming the technical difficulties will eventually be eliminated.

Three separate groups of researchers showed recently that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice.4 The fact that these iPS cells were pluripotent was proved by producing fetuses derived entirely from these transformed skin cells. Just five months after the mouse study was published, the feat was repeated by two separate laboratories using human skin cells.5 The ability to produce embryonic stem cell-like lines from individual patients removes the possibility of tissues rejection and avoids the high costs and moral problems associated with cloned embryos. Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, one of the study leaders later commented, "When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters... I thought, we cant keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way." The moral problem of destroying a human embryo encouraged Dr. Yamanaka to pursue a more ethical way to generate human stem cell lines. See the full report.

Stem cells have been promoted as a cure for numerous diseases in the popular press, although the reality of the science suggests otherwise. For example, claims that stem cells might cure Alzheimers disease are certainly untrue. According to Michael Shelanski, Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain (Columbia University Medical Center), I think the chance of doing repairs to Alzheimer's brains by putting in stem cells is small. Ronald D.G. McKay, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke says, To start with, people need a fairy tale.6 Stem cell research is widely promoted as a possible cure for type I and type II diabetes. However, these diseases involve the destruction of islet pancreatic cells by the patient's immune system. Even if tissue-compatible islet cells can be produced, transplanting them into a patient will be a very temporary cure, since the patient's immune system will attack the transplant in short order. So, a total cure for diabetes might have to involve a total immune compartment replacement (with its risks), in addition to an islet cell transplant. Parkinsons disease is another disease that is often mentioned as potentially curable through stem cell research. Proponents of ESCR cite studies in which embryonic stem cells produce dopamine in the brain of rats. However, only 50% of the rats had improvement of function and 25% developed brain tumors and died!7 A main problem for ESCR is that these stem cells spontaneously form tumors in virtually all studies that have been conducted to date. In addition, it seems that the number of dopamine-producing neurons declined over time, suggesting that the cure might be just temporary.8

Read more from the original source:
What is Wrong With Embryonic Stem Cell Research?