Oh good grief. As I recounted in detail in Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World, the human cloning/embryonic stem cell research company, Advanced Cell Technology, has been masterful at getting itself–and its chief scientist Robert Lanza–in the news. Here, for example, is a quote about a hagiographic article published in US News and World Report. From CGBNW, page 113 (citations deleted):
U.S. News and World Report: ACT scored a public relations coup when the December 3, 2001, U.S. News and World Report published a nine-page puff piece extolling the alleged creation by the company of the first human cloned embryo. ACT had secretly permitted reporter Joannie Fischer to look over the shoulders of its researchers as they attempted to begin human life through SCNT. Perhaps having become too familiar with her subjects, Fisher wrote as an enthusiastic booster rather than an objective journalist, breathlessly asserting that ACT’s supposed achievement “will be hailed as the hugest medical breakthrough of the last half century.”
From her embedded observation post at ACT, Fisher all but canonized the men who, she claimed, had created the first human cloned embryo: Jose Cibelli, “the instigator,” who first foresaw “therapeutic cloning” as the future of medicine;” CEO Michael West, “the visionary,” who “seized on the concept [of therapeutic cloning] to allow patients to have access “to their very own cells” as regenerative medical treatments —which, as we have seen, was a scientifically inaccurate description. Finally, Robert Lanza, “the activist,” described by Fisher as “a living embodiment of the character played by Matt Daman in the movie Good Will Hunting.” Cue the heroic music.
Except there was no cloned embryo. And that was just the first, and not nearly the most egregious, of such PR masking as journalism pieces about ACT.
Hilariously, it’s happened again in Nature. At least this story is journalistic–although as has happened oft before, there isn’t any actual news reported. From “Stem Cells: Never Say Die:”
Lanza and his company have had plenty of experience in the spotlight, but the attention has not always been flattering. Since the late 1990s, ACT has gained a reputation as a renegade company, accused of overhyping results to raise attention and money. Critics say that the company has damaged the field more than once with its high-profile, controversial announcements, such as one describing the company’s attempts to clone a human embryo in 2001. ACT’s actions — and the highly politicized nature of stem-cell research — scared off investors, leaving the company teetering on the verge of bankruptcy for most of the past decade.
But the scrappy biotech refused to die, in part because of Lanza’s doggedness. ACT is now performing early-phase clinical trials testing the safety of implanting retinal cells derived from human ES cells into the eye to treat certain types of blindness.
The story reports ACT’s long history of triumphs and travails–I’ll let you read that for yourselves–and then gets into the business at hand, showing the hope for a profitable future:
Now, the company’s future hinges on the outcome of the trials. Final results won’t be out until 2013, and they will show mainly whether the cell transplants are safe. The patients enrolled in the trial are in the late stages of vision loss, so the chances of dramatic improvement are remote, experts say.
Still, Rabin and Lanza are optimistic. If the treatment is safe and even moderately effective, they say they would consider partnering with a pharmaceutical company to help take the programme forward — although they are still working out their plan. Scott, with Stanford’s Program on Stem Cells and Society, says that positive results could fire up patient advocacy groups, which can be powerful in building support. And a good outcome could encourage investment in other stem-cell therapy companies, says Bonfiglio, who is now managing partner at Proteus Venture Partners in Palo Alto, California. But even if the trial results are positive, ACT will face enormous challenges in commercializing the technology. The company will have to show the FDA that its RPE cells can slow vision loss in bigger and more expensive clinical trials.
Ah, but have no fear:
Still, some who have tracked ACT’s trajectory say that the company might have what it takes to succeed. “What has kept ACT going is persistence, tenacity and vision,” says Ronald Green, ACT’s long-time ethics adviser and a professor of religion and ethics at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Lanza says that at times he considered giving up and working on something less controversial. “If I wasn’t a stubborn Italian,” he says, “I would have thrown up my hands at least 25 times.”
Oh please. So much of the controversy was self generated with PR aforethought.
Methinks ACT is on the prowl for investors. If so, we will likely see more published profiles about the company–and always Lanza–soon. When the next one of these “the-little-biotech-that-could” stories arrives in my in-box–if history is any guide, within months, if not weeks–I’ll bring it to our collective attention.
January 15th, 2012 | 10:57 pm
[...] Could – First Things (blog)Posted January 16, 2012 in New Content by Michael Conniff0 TweetFirst Things (blog)Advanced Cell Technology Touted Again as the The Little Bioetech That CouldFirst Things (blog)As I [...]
January 15th, 2012 | 11:31 pm
Is your blog simply copy and paste from other articles? If I owned those copyrights I’d sue you. Beyond the copy and paste you stick in “LOLs” and “listen to me” blubs.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 15th, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Fair use big guy.
Ed Meat Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 10:46 am
“Unless you have Macmillan’s prior written permission, you are not permitted to copy, broadcast, make available to the public, download, store (in any medium), transmit, show or play in public, adapt or change in any way the material (or any part of it) contained on this Web Site for any purpose whatsoever.” SOPA might shut you down.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 10:55 am
Are you really that ignorant? This is very well settled constitutional law. First Amendment permits “fair use,” particularly in the discussion of public affairs and events. If I could be shut down, so could every blogger and many newspapers that quote books and works without explicit consent. Heck, I could shut down others who have extensively quoted my books without consent. Dude, hire a lawyer to explain free speech to you.
January 15th, 2012 | 11:34 pm
Wouldn’t it be more lucrative if ACT switched over to pluripotent stem cell research? Do you think an uptick in these types of stories are coming in anticipation of Obama losing the election? This is one of the best blogs to follow stem cell stuff–thanks.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 15th, 2012 at 11:49 pm
No. ACT is the PETA of stem cell companies.
David Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 1:07 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, except they have therapeutics in human clinical trials.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Not proven, but not relevant to the post.
January 16th, 2012 | 7:29 am
When those who are blinded by stargardts or AMD can see again I wonder what you will write…Stem cells will change medical science, they are on the cusp right now. Others have already wrote about “migrating and engraftment”…maybe you missed that article..If in fact the cells did so, I wonder what that outcome will be, I wonder why those who have been injected are demanding they treat the other eye…hmmm…could it be thier vision has improved?? This little company has great potential to change how we practice medicine. We will all know soon enough.
January 16th, 2012 | 7:32 am
At it again Wesley?This may be your last chance at cheap shots aimed at scientists who’ve commited their lives to the relief of human suffering.
As if you didn’t already know,it was mentioned by a competing Atherys scientist that ACTC has achieved both migration and engraftment to the retina in the first two patients injected.Even someone with a closed mind like you can see the handwriting on the wall.How are you going to spin this “miracle” into something negative.
Don’t worry Wesley,I’m sure the scientists and doctors doing this reseach would be happy to treat even a flatearther like you,despite your attempts to disparage them.Their compassion is greater than your fearmongering and naysaying.
Get in your final shots,you’re about to get smacked with reality!
Hope you like crow?
Happy Fella
January 16th, 2012 | 11:07 am
Why did you decide on reporting only negative aspects of ACTC’s past that they have admittedly made some mistakes with? What about the recent successess such as extracting lines from an embryo without destroying it that is patented? How about the ACTC orphan drug status received after review of the research findings in both the U.S. and Europe? How about the work on blood platelets that have some much promise for the future blood supply needs of the world? How about the current trials (only ones in the US right now involving hiESC) in progress at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the UCLA campus? You will soon get the opportunity to see this little giant change the world of medicine that will benefit millions around the globe. Complete reporting of all facts, positive and negative, are the markings of a good reporter which you are clearly not.
January 16th, 2012 | 12:32 pm
The Bible tells us that lying began with the devil and that he is the father of lies.
John 8:43-47 says, “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.”
Amen
January 16th, 2012 | 12:39 pm
Happy: “Don’t worry Wesley,I’m sure the scientists and doctors doing this reseach would be happy to treat even a flatearther like you…”
“Flat-earther”?
The flat-earthers are the people who are in denial of the elementary scientific fact that human embryos are human beings.
But keep waiting around that corner. With any luck, your unethically obtained embryonic stem cells may, in forty or fifty years, do something that adult stem cells are already doing now.
January 16th, 2012 | 12:56 pm
I am a now retired, former consultant to the ophthalmic industry, who writes an online Journal about new ophthalmic technologies for treating retinal diseases.
I have written a Primer on the Use of Stem Cells in Ophthalmology and extensively on ACT and others involved in this field. I have just published a complete list of clinical trials underway using stem cells in ophthalmology (link:http://tinyurl.com/ophthstemcells-Update14) and also have one for the use of gene therapy in ophthalmology (link: http://tinyurl.com/genetherapy-Update7).
Irv Arons
January 16th, 2012 | 1:20 pm
How come you did not post my last comment?
Do facts and the truth upset you Wesley????Put my first comments up.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
You wish. It probably went into SPAM. I would rescue it had you asked, but you are rude. So repost it yourself.
January 16th, 2012 | 1:25 pm
A good defense of abortion rights from an atheist perspective is here: http://crossexaminedblog.com/2012/01/04/a-defense-of-abortion-rights-the-spectrum-argument/
January 16th, 2012 | 3:16 pm
You state ACT did not clone human embryos*?
This would be flat-wrong.
They did clone human embryos; then destroyed them. Until you can demonstrate ACT did not clone human embryos, this claim is another prevarication.
From the paper:
“Eggs from seven volunteers were used for NT procedures. A total of 19 eggs were reconstructed using
nucleus from fibroblasts and cumulus cells. Twelve hours after reconstruction with a fibroblast nucleus,
seven eggs (69%, as a percentage of reconstructed eggs) exhibited a single, large pronucleus, morphologically
similar to those observed in eggs fertilized with sperm. Only one pronucleus with prominent nucleoli
(up to 10) was observed in each reconstructed egg. Four of eight eggs injected with cumulus cells developed
pronuclei, and three of those cleaved to four or six cells (Fig. 2 and Table 3).”
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/152489001753262168
*unless “embryo” does not equal “blastocyte” by your definition, or you do not consider cellular or therapeutic cloning to be cloning.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
No David. It was deemed not proved after the paper came out and ACT never demonstrated how they did it, nor was it repeated. Indeed, at the time people were saying it was probably parthenogenisis, or at least, could not be distinguished from it. Rudolph Jaenish was particularly furious, as I recall.
If you had read the article I linked, you would see that Nature gave it the most charitable interpretation:
“Scientists, meanwhile, dismissed the finding. The ACT team hadn’t gained new insight into the human developmental process, says George Daley, a stem-cell researcher at Children’s Hospital Boston in Massachusetts. “I was not in a position to defend the cloning that they were doing because it was ineffective in what they were trying to do,” he says. “It was more for publicity than for science.”
Jose Cibelli, who was first author on the paper and left ACT in 2002 for a faculty position at Michigan State University in East Lansing, says that in an ideal world he would have waited until the team could grow the embryos to the blastocyst stage before publishing the work. But he had heard rumours that other groups were pursuing the same goal, and he was worried about getting scooped. (A successful derivation of stem cells from a cloned human embryo was not reported until October 2011, and these stem cells had three sets of chromosomes rather than two2.)
West says that he pushed ahead with publication in the interest of transparency. “It was our policy not to hide what we were doing and why,” he says. “We wanted to be honest, accurate and open.”
The announcement ended up hurting the company, however. ACT was trying to raise a needed round of venture-capital financing when the cloning news broke. The negative attention combined with the political uncertainty around stem-cell funding killed the deal, says Greg Bonfiglio, who was with Anthem Venture Partners of Santa Monica, California, at the time, and would have been the lead investor on that round.”
Of course, we know that these science papers are never wrong, don’t we? It was a debacle for ACT, and for good reasons.
David Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 9:13 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, it is critical to understand the claims here.
There is a difference between cloning an embryo vs. getting stem cells from said cloned embryo. ACT claims to have cloned human embryos. The first time they just discarded the embryos without characterizing them (why?) and their technique is proprietary because it’s a company. I accept their scant data, because of their differentiation between parthenotes and clones. I leave the door open to fraud, though. (peer-review is for science quality control, it cannot safeguard against fraud)
George Daley is right. He said ACT failed at what they wanted to get. ACT wanted to get a stable human embryo they could derive stem cells from. They weren’t able to get stem cells. However, this does not mean they never cloned embryos. Daley is right as nothing was learned scientifically, either. A company seems to have cloned some embryos and then destroyed them… ok, whatever. A heavenly host of many other scientists yawned as well.
Read the follow up work*. ACT has since claimed to have cloned human embryos (and human/other-animal hybrids!) and apparently characterized them this time. This suggests they know how to clone human embryos, making their previous claim plausible.
*http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19186982
Here’s some other interesting reading of claims of cloned human embryos (again, all of this could be fraud, but few have been exposed despite high scrutiny):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18492373?dopt=Abstract&holding=npg
http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/7/1982.long
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1634/stemcells.2007-0252/abstract;jsessionid=9D235475227588C332DEAFD94A4C38E4.d01t02
So, show us precisely where and how it has been definitively determined that ACT did not clone embryos and committed fraud or made a major mistake.
ACT has weakly shown it did clone human embryos.
You said they didn’t clone embryos. Well, prove it.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 9:41 pm
No. it showed very little at all. I don’t have anything to prove about an already discredited study that the broader science community rejected as hype, and not just because they didn’t produce stem cells. The claim that they had accomplished a human embryo was not proved nor validated. Nor repeated as far as I have seen.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 16th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
Well, the US Government’s Genome Project doesn’t see it that way, Mr. “Science is a Philosophy.”
http://www.genome.gov/25020028#al-8 “Despite several highly publicized claims, human cloning still appears to be fiction. There currently is no solid scientific evidence that anyone has cloned human embryos.” So, I guess the Genome Project should prove it too. Really, David. You want to waste time in your life you will never have again arguing this?
January 17th, 2012 | 7:37 am
If there have been no cloned human embryos, then it should be easy to debunk directly the work I posted, in which these scientists claim to have cloned embryos. So, is there a reason you cannot do this?
An unauthored web page aimed at after-school programs is your answer?
The cereal-box web page you cite doesn’t have any information presented past January of 2006.
I posted work published after mid-2007.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
January 17th, 2012 at 10:08 am
Can’t prove a negative, David. Hearken to the scientific consensus! No embryos yet cloned.
David Reply:
January 17th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
@Wesley J. Smith I didn’t ask you to prove a negative. I said “debunk the work”. Can’t back up your claims with evidence, again.
Did you read the posted 2008 Stem Cells paper?
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1704580,00.html
Human embryos have been cloned.
January 19th, 2012 | 6:09 am
[...] at finding itself–and its chief scientist Robert Lanza–in the news. … Read more on 1st Items (weblog) Filed Under: Article On Stem Cell Research Tagged With: Analysis, Article, Cell, Latest, News, [...]
January 19th, 2012 | 10:01 am
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