When George W. Bush praised scientists as having the talent and ability to discover and harness the healing potential of regenerative medicine ethically, that is, without needing to destroy embryos–his enemies scoffed. What a dope. His religion got in the way of the understanding that ESCR was the only hope.
That was then. Now, scientists are working with a number of techniques that are already providing hope in human trials–adult stem and umbilical cord stem cells–as they develop astonishing techniques that can reprogram normal cells into pluritpotent stem cells–IPSC, now being used in drug testing and to study disease–or now, even skip the stem cell stage altogether with direct reprogramming or “direct conversion.” More advances have been made on the latter front. From the story:
Suppose you could repair tissue damaged by a heart attack by magically turning other cells into heart muscle, so the organ could pump effectively again. Scientists aren’t quite ready to do that. But they are reporting early success at transforming one kind of specialized cell directly into another kind, a feat of biological alchemy that doctors may one day perform inside a patient’s body. “I think everyone believes this is really the future of so-called stem-cell biology,” says John Gearhart of the University of Pennsylvania, one of many researchers pursuing this approach.
The concept is two steps beyond the familiar story of embryonic stem cells, versatile entities that can be coaxed to become cells of all types, like brain and blood. Scientists are learning to guide those transformations, which someday may provide transplant tissue for treating diseases like Parkinson’s or diabetes. It’s still experimental. But at its root, it’s really just harnessing and speeding up what happens in nature: a versatile but immature cell matures into a more specialized one.
That isn’t to say that that studying ES cells wouldn’t have any scientific interest, as the story notes, and there is still a long way to go. But the CURES! angle would become obsolete–and with it, the politics of hype–as the scientific focus, and the research dollars shifted–and just perhaps, the resulting ethical regenerative medicine would stall the drive toward Brave New World
November 29th, 2010 | 11:28 am
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November 29th, 2010 | 12:48 pm
We already have another human clinical trial for ESC that has received approval from the FDA:
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/regulators-finally-green-light-acts-stem-cell-trial/2010-11-22
and
http://www.liebertpub.com/media/pdf/Cloning_8_3_p189-199.pdf
Given that human ESCs were discovered about 10 years ago and we are ALREADY entering two human clinical trials, the progress has been astounding.
Compare ESC biotechnology with RNAi biotechnology. RNAi was also discovered about 10 years ago (technically it was observed in petunias a few years earlier with chalcone synthase studies), and much excitement ensued regarding cures, treatments and Nobel prizes. Yet, the biotherapeutic industry is largely abandoning RNAi approaches, despite intense previous efforts.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/88/i48/8848notw6.html
ESCs may be the real deal, we don’t know for sure. It’s not just blind hype, though – it’s holding up quite well. It’s a shame we lost so many years under “Bush’s” stalled/punted approach to ESC research. Perhaps we’d have a dozen ESC human clinical trials now. Perhaps we’d now have a better idea if ESC are worth pursuing further.
What’s nice about these studies is the potential to use ESCs to treat macular degeneration. With a rapidly aging population, expect the incidence of macular degeneration to increase. It would be wonderful if ESCs could be used to treat blindness in the elderly – restoring some autonomy to their lives. We are all potential victims at risk.
November 29th, 2010 | 4:19 pm
How would it stall the drive to Brave New World? People still want to make genetically engineered designer babies, people still want to intervene to alter the human genome to increase the intelligence and beauty of people, people still want to conceive offspring with someone of their same sex. None of those desires will go away just because iPSC’s are able to restore damaged hearts and whatever else. In fact, since iPSC’s might be used to make egg cells and sperm cells, these advances might bring us closer to Brave New World, if the opposition to artificial genetically engineered gametes is too closely tied to opposition to embryo destruction.
But perhaps the silver lining is that, if you are now confident that ESC’s will become unnecessary, you could now support a ban on reproductive cloning and GE, instead of refusing to support a ban that didn’t also ban ESCR. Or are you feeling that a ban on all forms of cloning is now close, including ESCR and other methods of creating embryos other than the union of a man and a woman’s unmodified gametes?
November 29th, 2010 | 5:00 pm
ESC’s are obsolete for anything other than research these days. I understand the “pro-life” objections to ESC research. However, the “pro-life” argument cannot be legitimately used as an opposition to SENS, which does not use ESC’s at all. Opposition to SENS is completely illegitimate.
November 29th, 2010 | 5:42 pm
Well, David, IPSCs are only a few years old and are already being used in clinical trials. So I think they are making terrific progress, don’t you? Oh, you don’t see that? Your ideological glasses got in the way? Oops, sorry, I forgot.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
IPSCs are not in human trials. They are being used in drug testing and other testing on tailor made, disease specific research. This was what we were once told only human cloning could do.
November 30th, 2010 | 11:47 am
Actually, I think IPSC are being used in clinical trials – but with non-hominid animals. If I recall, there is at least one animal trial in rats for Parkinson’s, but I can’t hold to it. IPSCs have enjoyed much progress.
safepres,
My comment was in strict regard to ESCs; I said nothing about IPSCs. Let us reconnect the dots.
“Bush’s” decision* to essentially delay a decision on ESC research slowed down research on ESC’s. During this time, scientists said, “Well, let’s see what we can do…” This means time, effort, and resources were diverted to hopefully satisfy the moral/ethical concerns of society and policy. Eventually, a solution may or may not have been found – IPSCs may or may not be the answer (likewise with ESCs), however, they appear to have satisfied the moral/ethical concerns of society/policy. Given the time, effort, and resources that were diverted, it is a safe assumption that if researchers were able to go all out with ESCs from the beginning, we may have more human clinical trials underway this very day. This also means IPSCs may not have been resolved until 10 years later, for example. Therefore, if all the progress that has been made with IPSCs (which is a lot) were instead placed entirely upon ESCs, we may have more human clinical trials, experimental therapy, or enough setbacks to make us think twice about stem cell approaches – like what is happening with RNAi. Given that we have used adult stem cells for over 50 years now, whereas RNAi is totally new, it seems reasonable to have assumed ESCs could hold tremendous promise. The ability to pursue this potential with ESCs was hindered.
Your comment about IPSC progress undermines your implied argument. Think through it carefully. If it is true (and it is) that IPSCs have made much progress, consider what progress could have been made (for better or worse) with ESCs during the both time it took to develop IPSCs and with the lack of restraints IPSCs enjoy.
*while the ultimate praise or blame rests with Bush, he was hardly acting alone
November 30th, 2010 | 1:40 pm
The reason why I do not expect ESC’s to be used for therapies is that they are expensive to make. iPS’s and direct conversion are cheaper. Microfluidics devices can be made to automate the manufacture of iPS’s and direct converison cells, further reducing costs. We are hitting the cost barrier in medical treatment. Cheaper therapies will predominate over more expensive ones. BioTime has developed a method of rejuvenating iPS’s so that they are just as “young” as ESC’s and will begin clinical trials in China next year. This will futher reduce the attractiveness of ESC’s for medical treatment.
November 30th, 2010 | 2:20 pm
As has been pointed out before, Bush did not and does not want science to become completely severed from ethics. Were there not an ethical problem with ESCR, he would have placed even fewer restrictions on it than he did.
November 30th, 2010 | 2:31 pm
kurt9,
I’ve wondered the same thing, but I would caution that preliminary science research rarely has concern for cost. Engineering and scale up attempt to deal with costs later in the pipeline- the same argument could be applied for penicillin. The initial doses of penicillin cost more than gold or platinum.
November 30th, 2010 | 6:02 pm
Conservatives have, for reasons that escape me, been trying for some time to promote the idea that IPSC’s replace embryonic stem cells, or may make the research obsolete as Wes said in his headline. Neither idea is true.
The truth is that IPSC’s and other adult stem cells are more promising for therapies because they avoid the tissue rejection problem. However, embryonic stem cells can become a wider variety of cells, so they may be better for some therapies.
Regardless of therapeutic value, all significant work on IPSC’s derives directly from ESCR, so that will have to continue if we want to enjoy the benefits of IPSC’s. The limited number of lines allowed by Bush meant there were a great number of conditions that could not be addressed because they didn’t happen to occur in that small number of cell lines. So the number of cell lines will have to increase also.
If you’d like to see an example of how people working on curing blindness are using both kinds of stem cells, see:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/stem-cells-give-sight-to-blind-mice-raising-hope-for-aging-humans/article1818396/
Now I know there will be those that think sacrificing frozen IVF embryos in order to help living, breathing blind children see, and that they think I am unethical for preferring to help blind children see. I’m prepared to live with that.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 30th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
padraig: Note This quote: “I think everyone believes this is really the future of so-called stem-cell biology,” says John Gearhart of the University of Pennsylvania, one of many researchers pursuing this approach. Gearhart is one of the top stem cell scientists.
My headline said “may” become obsolete. No different than what Gearhart said. If and when IPSCs and now, programming without the stem cell stage, work, we won’t need ESCs for therapies–even assuming the tumor problem can be overcome using ES cells or IPSCs. But as we have stated over and over again–unplug your ears–it isn’t just leftovers. The NAS wants to create embryos for research, as does the main stem cell society. It may already have been done, as far as we know, and it has certainly been tried with cloning. That is what cloning does, after all, and that’s promoted, too. And we already see some early promotion of gestation in artificial uterine environments beyond the time an embryo can be maintained in a Petri dish.
The problem is using human life as an object. As a resource. Once that principle is accepted, everything changes. It is already promoted at the nascent life level, and now being done. It is actively promoted for those who become profoundly cognitively disabled (redefining death, experimenting on the PVS), etc., not yet being done. Such utilitarian considerations impact everything. The “leftover” excuse is just a misdirection and is not intended to remain a permanent line.
November 30th, 2010 | 11:07 pm
Wes: ‘My headline said “may” become obsolete.’
And you were wrong, for the reasons I stated. Plus I didn’t mention that ESCR has barely scratched the surface. Any talk of ‘obsolescence’ is wishful thinking on your part. It’s like an x-ray technician claiming MRI’s will become obsolete.
“The NAS wants to create embryos for research, as does the main stem cell society.”
I understand your concerns, but you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Almost literally. Putting a sperm and an egg together in a Petri dish is not reproduction. If using the result of that process leads to therapy for previously untreatable diseases, whether it uses IPSC’s or embryonic cells, that is a tremendous advantage to humanity.
Like I said, I expect that some people will not agree with me, and I’m fine with that. Nothing worthwhile was ever done without opposition.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
November 30th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Padraig. So, it isn’t about left overs. So quit using that justification.
December 1st, 2010 | 10:43 am
“Putting a sperm and an egg together in a Petri dish is not reproduction.”
…actually, it totally is.
December 1st, 2010 | 12:23 pm
Me: ‘“Putting a sperm and an egg together in a Petri dish is not reproduction.”
bmmg39: ‘…actually, it totally is.’
Totally? OK, then, put some sperm and an egg in a dish and leave it there and let me know when the baby’s born.
December 1st, 2010 | 12:37 pm
Wes: ‘Padraig. So, it isn’t about left overs. So quit using that justification.’
This doesn’t need that justification. I’ve cited it (not in this thread, btw, and I certainly didn’t use the term “leftovers”) just to show the insanity of prioritizing doomed IVF embryos over living breathing children. I personally don’t have a problem with ESCR even if the embryo is created specifically for the research, but some do, so this is one way of reassuring them that no embryo that ever had any realistic chance of becoming a baby was sacrificed.
If you don’t like IVF embryos being used for research, then you should also be insisting that they all be implanted instead of destroyed. And you should call the Octomom and offer to pay for her day care on her current and future brood. Oh wait, you’re opposed to the Octomom having more children. And health care for her children. Oh wait, you’re opposed to universal health care. Never mind.
December 1st, 2010 | 1:32 pm
“Totally? OK, then, put some sperm and an egg in a dish and leave it there and let me know when the baby’s born.”
The baby’s typically born about nine months after reproduction takes place. But you knew that.
December 1st, 2010 | 1:39 pm
“If you don’t like IVF embryos being used for research, then you should also be insisting that they all be implanted instead of destroyed.”
It is my position that every embryo be given a chance to be implanted. If you don’t want eleven kids, don’t create eleven embryos. “Oh wait,” you’re acknowledging how problematic IVF is by saying we need to create more than we want. “Never mind.”
“And you should call the Octomom and offer to pay for her day care on her current and future brood.”
Sure, that makes sense! I guess if I’m against the lady across the street drowning her kids then I should then put them through college.
December 1st, 2010 | 10:00 pm
bmmg39: “It is my position that every embryo be given a chance to be implanted. ”
Well, get to it then. Plenty out there waiting to be adopted.
December 1st, 2010 | 11:07 pm
If someone condemns spousal abuse in your presence, do you demand that (s)he adopt or financially aid every abused woman, man, and child in the world?
December 2nd, 2010 | 9:25 am
bmmg39: So you’re saying that if you put an egg and some sperm into a petri dish a baby will result? What an interesting thought.
December 2nd, 2010 | 1:28 pm
“So you’re saying that if you allow a child to grow and develop in a healthy manner, an adult will result? What an interesting thought.”
Yup.
December 2nd, 2010 | 6:55 pm
I don’t think we have an ethical obligation to find a woman to carry every embryo that some jerks created. I think there is no way to justify creating embryos or implanting an existing embryo in a woman, even if it is a homologous conception. The IVF industry should be shut down completely.
Without the IVF industry, would people still want to be making embryos for stem cell research, or would we see that as unethical?
December 2nd, 2010 | 10:07 pm
bmmg39: “If someone condemns spousal abuse in your presence, do you demand that (s)he adopt or financially aid every abused woman, man, and child in the world?”
No. But, to carry your silly logic forward, if I made a law that all abused persons had to be removed from their home, I’d make sure they had someplace to go.
You, on the other hand, want to compel women to implant all their IVF embryos, and don’t bother thinking about who’s going to support all these babies.
All I’m saying is, if that’s what you want, you’d better be ready to step up to the plate. Kids are great but they’re expensive.
December 2nd, 2010 | 10:18 pm
John Howard: “I don’t think we have an ethical obligation to find a woman to carry every embryo that some jerks created. I think there is no way to justify creating embryos or implanting an existing embryo in a woman, even if it is a homologous conception. The IVF industry should be shut down completely.”
John, I suggest you look into the IVF phenomenon, particularly how many children are born that way each year. It’s in the millions. Do you really want to tell that many women they’re not going to be allowed to have their own babies, even though we know how to do it?
If so, I hope you’re single. Garages are really cold to sleep in.
“Without the IVF industry, would people still want to be making embryos for stem cell research, or would we see that as unethical?”
OK, first, nobody makes embryos for the purpose of stem cell research. All that have been used so far were surplus embryos from the IVF process, which makes a lot of embryos due to a high failure rate and the limited window of women’s childbearing age. Lately the failure rate has dropped to the point that implanted IVF embryos actually have a slightly better chance than a natural fertilization. This ironically means there are that many more surplus embryos.
Second, it’s possible someone may want to make an embryo for research. Someone with a nasty genetic disease may decide to donate eggs & sperm to enable research on their disease and testing of solutions. At the moment that’s forbidden, largely because Wes & like-minded folks consider it unethical.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:30 pm
padraig: That’s not right. There have been a total of 3.5 million born (I looked it up). It’s isn’t millions every year. It’s about 200,000 worldwide. Just for the record.
December 3rd, 2010 | 12:12 am
Padraig, yes, I think we should tell people that they are out of luck if they cannot procreate naturally through intercourse. They should be allowed to seek medical treatment to restore their health, but there is no right to make embryos any other way than through marital intercourse.
There is no way to justify all the energy and money spent on IVF, it has a huge carbon footprint and is entirely unnecessary.
We should protect people’s fertility so that people are not forced to use IVF.
December 3rd, 2010 | 12:13 am
Could “Direct Conversion” make an embryo that could be implanted to grow into a baby? In theory, it could, right? What does that do to the moral arguments about how it is different from ESCR?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
December 3rd, 2010 at 1:11 am
John Howard: Direct conversion could not. It turns a skin cell into a heart cell, for example. SCNT takes a nucleus from a skin cell and inserts it into a denucleated egg. The skin cell in either case isn’t immoral. It is the use of the cell that differs. IPSCs can be used in a cloning process. But again, the IPSC itself is not unethical. It has a potentially unethical use. Ditto ESCs. The cells aren’t unethical, how they are derived is.
December 3rd, 2010 | 12:27 am
padraig writes:
“John, I suggest you look into the IVF phenomenon, particularly how many children are born that way each year. It’s in the millions. Do you really want to tell that many women they’re not going to be allowed to have their own babies, even though we know how to do it?”
Yes and yes.
I can do many things, ‘we’ know how to do many things, but that doesn’t mean they ought to be done.
“If so, I hope you’re single. Garages are really cold to sleep in.”
If it is at this point now (and I am inclined to agree that it is) then we live in a very sad, sad culture.
December 3rd, 2010 | 10:35 am
Padraig: “Do you really want to tell that many women they’re not going to be allowed to have their own babies, even though we know how to do it?”
Not at all. So if you want two born children, you create two embryos, and then implant them. You don’t create several more than you need, pick a few to implant, and then destroy the rest. That’s not really any different from taking fertility drugs, giving birth to septuplets, choosing the “best two,” and terminating the rest.
December 3rd, 2010 | 10:42 am
Wes, thanks for the corrected numbers. They seem a bit low seeing as I know 4-6 kids myself that were likely conceived that way (I don’t ask but it can be pretty obvious from circumstances). Turns out the 3.5 million figure is from 2007, so it is probably a bit low, and the births are around 250,000 per year.
source: http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/at_least_250000_ivf_babies_born_each_year/
John: “yes, I think we should tell people that they are out of luck if they cannot procreate naturally through intercourse. ”
Avdotya: “If it is at this point now (and I am inclined to agree that it is) then we live in a very sad, sad culture.”
If you are going to deny women children who can’t have them without IVF, then it will be very sad. Once the kids are here it doesn’t matter how they were made as far as I’m concerned. Thank heavens the people making the law aren’t as lacking in compassion for the fertility-challenged as you two. There’d be a lot of beautiful children missing from this world.
December 3rd, 2010 | 3:35 pm
There will also be a lot of beautiful children missing from this world if we continue to destroy them while they’re still in the embryonic stage.
December 5th, 2010 | 12:16 am
“Thank heavens the people making the law aren’t as lacking in compassion for the fertility-challenged as you two.”
Lack of compassion? Well that would make me a pretty horrible daughter to my ‘fertility-challenged’ adoptive parents. Also, thank goodness my birth mother was ‘compassionate’ enough to see beyond her own selfish will and allow this ‘unwanted child’ the chance at life.
If society is to accept that destroying and creating human beings are acts of compassion, we must also admit that this compassion is not directed to all parties involved, but only to those that will the destruction or creation of life, and not the human being whose life is being created or destroyed. More particularly in the case of destruction, where is the compassion for them, the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society (and this seems to be the necessary outcome of IVF as well as abortion)! If there is no compassion for them are we not simply favouring the able-bodied, the strong, the willful and so on (and note this is the logical conclusion to your notion of ‘compassion’ which in turn raises the question of precisely what you mean by compassion, since in this instance and to my mind it seems rather misplaced).
You might also want to note that as abortion and IVF become more popular (ingrained as a social good, societal norm etc), adoption rates do and will continue to decrease. Why? For one thing, there is no longer a place for children that would otherwise be adopted by ‘fertility-challenged’ parents, who were born to women that would rather give the child up for adoption than kill it (if it came to this point).
And I completely agree that all human beings that exist, have the right to exist…or what bmmg39 said.
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