| Adult Stem Cell Research Shows More Promise Treating Heart Attacks |
| Adult Stem Cell Research Shows More Promise Treating Heart Attacks |
| by Steven Ertelt |
| LifeNews.com Editor |
| November 14, 2006 |
| Baltimore, MD (LifeNews.com) -- Scientists at Johns Hopkins University continue to show the promise that adult stem cells have in treating the effects of heart attacks. The successfully grew adult stem cells from healthy heart tissue and used it to repair some of the tissue damage done to organs by heart attacks. |
| The researchers conducted the experiments on pigs as pigs' hearts closely resemble those in humans, making them a useful model in such research. |
| Following up on previous studies, Hopkins cardiologists used a thin tube to extract samples of heart tissue no bigger than a grain of rice within hours of the animals' heart attacks. They then grew large numbers of cardiac stem cells in the lab from tissue obtained through biopsy, and within a month implanted the cells into the pigs' hearts. |
| With help from a blue-dye tracking system, the scientists have shown that within two months the cells had developed into mature heart cells and vessel-forming endothelial cells. |
| Eduardo Marb?n, M.D., Ph.D., senior study author and professor and chief of cardiology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute, says that is similar studies show the same success in humans, it would be easy to help numerous patients. |
| "This is a relatively simple method of stem cell extraction that can be used in any community-based clinic, and if further studies show the same kind of organ repair that we see in pigs, it could be performed on an outpatient basis," he said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained. |
| "Starting with just a small amount of tissue, we demonstrated that it was possible, very soon after a heart attack, to use the healthy parts of the heart to regenerate some of the damaged parts," he added. |
| Marb?n cautions that no overall improvements in heart function have yet been shown in these studies, which were not designed to establish such changes and used relatively low numbers of infused cells (10 million or less). |
| "But we have proof of principle, and we are planning to use larger numbers of cells implanted in different sites of the heart to test whether we can restore function as well," he says. "If the answer is yes, we could see the first phase of studies in people in late 2007." |
| The latest Hopkins findings are scheduled to be presented Nov. 13 at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago. |
| They are believed to be the first results in animal studies to show that so-called cardiac stem cell therapy can be successfully applied with minimally invasive methods to circumstances closely resembling those in humans. |
| * * * * * * |
| Adult Stem Cells Completely Cure Sickle Cell Patient |
| Pittsburgh, PA -- Stem cells are thought of as the Holy Grail of medicine. |
| One young boy agrees with that. He made medical history because he's been |
| cured of his life-threatening disease. The key to his cure did not come |
| from a human embryo, where all the controversy is, but from something that |
| is routinely toss in the garbage - an umbilical cord. Umbilical cords were |
| always considered medical waste. |
| Not anymore. |
| That's why new parents like Pam Dorne and Stephen Ayers of suburban |
| Chicago have decided to save their children's umbilical cord blood. Dorne |
| gave birth last spring to a baby boy, Kyle. |
| After a baby is born, there is just a 15-minute window to retrieve the |
| four to six ounces of blood in the umbilical cord. And in that blood are |
| potentially lifesaving stem cells that can be saved for future use. |
| "This is really where, I think, so much of biomedicine is going to be |
| going in the 21st century," says Dr. Andrew Yeager of the University of |
| Pittsburgh. |
| For instance, when stem cells from umbilical cord blood are injected into |
| a person's vein, they migrate to the bone marrow and can create what Dr. |
| Yeager calls a blood factory, replacing diseased blood with healthy blood. |
| According to the National Institutes of Health, stem cells may one day be |
| able repair the body's tissue and muscle and cure everything from spinal |
| cord injuries to Alzheimer's. |
| "It's not just pie-in-the-sky speculation," says Yeager. "There are |
| studies that would suggest that other organ dysfunction - nerve damage, |
| heart damage, brain-cell damage - might actually be fixed." |
| It has the potential to make paralyzed patients walk and make Alzheimer's |
| sufferers remember. |
| That potential is what Dr. Yeager was counting on to cure a young patient |
| named Keone Penn. |
| Keone suffers from a case of sickle cell, a painful genetic blood disease. |
| He was diagnosed when he was 6 months old. He was 5 when his sickle cell |
| caused a stroke. |
| "All I remember is I woke up and my mama was beside me and there was a |
| basket beside me and a teddy bear," he says. "It was very scary, I mean, |
| whew." |
| For six years, Keone and his mother, Leslie Penn, were constantly in and |
| out of an Atlanta hospital to receive transfusions to stave off another |
| potentially deadly stroke. By the time Keone was 11, the transfusions were |
| becoming less effective and he had excruciating pain in his joints and |
| lower back. |
| "The pain is usually so intense that even morphine, Demerol, those |
| heavy-duty medicines don't really touch it," Leslie Penn says. "All you |
| can really do is pray that he'll just go to sleep." |
| Keone says he's tough, but at 15, he looks much younger. Sickle cell |
| stunted his growth - he's just 4 feet, 9 inches, tall - and restricted |
| what he could do. |
| "I was impaired from doing a lot of things that normal kids do, like |
| sports or anything or run," he says. "Couldn't play basketball. Because, |
| you know, some people like roughhousing when they play basketball and they |
| can knock you over and push you and that could really hurt me." |
| The odds were that Keone had, at best, only five years to live. So Yeager |
| decided to take a chance on a new procedure. Never before had stem cells |
| from umbilical cord blood been used to treat sickle cell. |
| "The goal here is that these stem cells, which are in a relatively high |
| proportion in cord blood - higher than they would be in our own bone |
| marrow and definitely higher than in our own circulating blood - could |
| then be injected and would take hold and again, make more of themselves. |
| And make a whole new blood factory." |
| Yeager told the family he wasn't sure the procedure would work. |
| "He just basically said, 'This is just a 50-50 chance and it's up to you |
| all if you want to do it, I can't offer you any guarantees.'" recalls |
| Leslie Penn. |
| Keone Penn remembers how his mother told him: "She came in the room |
| looking very depressed. Pulled the chair up sat beside me in the bed and |
| told me everything. And I almost started to cry. But she was very calm |
| about it. She told me everything, said, 'You got-you may - have five years |
| to live,' you know." |
| Ordinarily, patients with a severe case of sickle cell, like Keone's, |
| would have had a bone-marrow transplant.That's because until recently bone |
| marrow was the only source for stem cells. |
| But bone marrow transplants can be tricky because there must be a precise |
| match between the person donating the bone marrow and the patient |
| receiving it. In Keone's case, no match could be found. |
| Stem cells from umbilical cord blood don't need an exact match. |
| Dr. Yeager and his team found a match that was close enough in a cryogenic |
| tank at the New York Public Blood Bank, which since 1992 has slowly been |
| collecting donations of umbilical cord blood. |
| Over Christmas vacation of 1998, after intensive chemotherapy to destroy |
| Keone's bad blood, he was injected with the stem cells. |
| After a few weeks, something extraordinary happened - the stem cells |
| changed his entire blood system from type O to type B. |
| "That concept there is the one that really blows my mind," says Leslie |
| Penn. "The thought that your whole blood type is changed. The umbilical |
| cord cell's donor, he took on their blood type. |
| A year later, doctors declared that the sickle cells in Keone's body had |
| disappeared. Today, he is considered cured. |
| It was umbilical cord stem cells that cured Keone, not stem cells from |
| human embryos. While the use of embryonic stem cells has generated fierce |
| controversy, umbilical cord stem cells have attracted little attention and |
| no political debate. And now it seems, more and more new parents have |
| decided to bank their hopes on the stem cells in their newborn's cord |
| blood. |
| Moments after Pam Dorne gave birth to a baby Kyle, his cord blood was |
| sealed, packed in dry ice, and given to a courier. Within hours, the |
| package was on a plane bound for Tucson, Arizona, where the largest |
| privately run cord blood bank in the country is located. |
| There, a child's umbilical-cord blood is stored in a cryogenic tank at a |
| temperature of minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit. |
| Dr. David Harris, laboratory director of the Cord Blood Registry, says it |
| takes only a small vial of cord blood to change a person's entire system. |
| So far, Cord Blood Registry has collected about 30,000 samples from |
| families willing to pay a $1,300 flat fee and $95 a year to analyze and |
| privately store their baby's cord blood. The company has taken in over $40 |
| million so far, selling a kind of biological insurance. |
| "Part of the issue when people bank," says Harris, "it is because they |
| have a family history or they work or live in a place where there is a |
| potential for cancer. But part of it is for peace of mind." |
| According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, that peace of mind isn't |
| worth the money. The academy says the chances a family will ever need to |
| use its frozen cord blood are very small. What they say makes more sense |
| is to donate cord blood to a public bank, the kind where Keone Penn got |
| his stem cells. |
| That is something Pam Dorne, an obstetrician, says she understands in her |
| professional life. But her own personal choice was a private bank, she |
| says, for one reason. |
| "If the American Academy of Pediatrics could tell me that none of my |
| children would ever have a problem," she says. "Or that if they had a |
| problem, I would be guaranteed that there would be enough donors and |
| somebody would match them, that would be perfectly reasonable. But I don't |
| think anybody has that crystal ball." |
| What saved Keone Penn's life, Dr. Yeager says, is a public blood bank and |
| the umbilical cord blood from an anonymous donor. |
| "If they wish to pay, that's absolutely fine." He says of patients. "But |
| to look at a larger, greatest good for greatest number, I would contend |
| that a volunteer donation to a public blood bank would make the most |
| sense." |
| Meanwhile, Keone, a pioneer, is doing things he's never done before. |
| "I discovered the other day that I like playing basketball, " Keone says. |
| "I never played basketball, 'cause I've always been disabled to play it |
| and to have fun." |
| Keone, who one day hopes to become a chef, still has some major health |
| problems as a result of infections that occur in most stem-cell |
| transplants. Because of steroids and other medication, he has arthritis, |
| walks with a limp and will need joint replacement in his hips and knee. |
| But the good news is the sickle cell that was killing him is gone. |
| "I love stem cells," he says. "I mean they saved my life. If it weren't |
| for them I wouldn't, you never know, I probably wouldn't be here today." |
| Keone doesn't know where the cord blood came from or who is the owner. He |
| says he would like to know, just so he could say, "Thank You." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Adult Stem Cells Completely Cure Sickle Cell Patient |
| Source: CBS News; November 28, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Stem cell therapy repairs a heart |
| by Hannah Cleaver and David Derbyshire |
| (Filed: 25/08/2001) |
| DOCTORS have patched up a patient's failing heart using stem cells taken |
| from his bone marrow, it was disclosed yesterday. |
| In the first operation of its kind, bone marrow stem cells were removed from |
| a 46-year-old man's pelvis and injected into arteries near his heart. The |
| cells should have developed into the constituents of blood. Instead, they |
| migrated to areas damaged by a heart attack and turned into healthy muscle |
| cells which began to beat. |
| The operation highlights the potential for adult stem cells as a treatment |
| for many problems, including heart disease, kidney failure or Parkinson's |
| disease. But it will also be seized upon by pro life campaigners who object |
| to plans to use stem cells taken from embryos as a source of tissue for |
| transplant. |
| Prof Bodo Eckehard Strauer carried out the treatment at the Dusseldorf |
| University Cardiac Clinic where he is director. He said: "Ten weeks after |
| the transplantation the size of the damage has reduced by nearly a third and |
| the capacity of the heart itself has clearly improved. |
| "Stem cell therapy could be more successful than all other previous |
| treatments put together. "Even patients with the most seriously damaged |
| hearts can be treated with their own stem cells instead of waiting and |
| hoping on a transplant." |
| Gaynor Dewsnap, spokeswoman for the British Heart Foundation, said the |
| development was exciting. "If this is proved to have worked and can be |
| repeated, then this would be excellent news for heart patients, particularly |
| as it avoids the ethical issues which some people have worries about. |
| "The cells used would have the same DNA as the rest of the body, leading to |
| no risk of rejection. It seems very promising." Stem cells are the body's |
| master cells. They have the ability to turn into a wide variety of other |
| cell types. |
| Those found in embryos, which are at the centre of an ethical row between |
| scientists and pro lifers, are the most flexible and easiest to culture. But |
| more specialised stem cells are also found in adults. Last month a team of |
| British researchers showed for the first time that bone marrow stem cells |
| were capable of turning into kidney cells. |
| The German heart operation was carried out four days after the unnamed man |
| suffered a serious heart attack. He lost a quarter of his heart muscle after |
| the organ was starved of oxygen. The team took stem cells from his pelvis - |
| an abundant source of bone marrow - and injected them into his coronary |
| arteries. |
| Prof Strauer said further tests were needed to confirm the success of the |
| procedure. He has treated six patients, aged between 38 and 67, with their |
| own stem cells since March and said that after a short period they showed |
| similar improvement. |
| Last month doctors attempted another form of stem cell therapy by injecting |
| cells directly into the heart tissue. "Our results should show that it is |
| possible to do this work without the ethically controversial embryonic stem |
| cells," said Prof Strauer. |
| http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$RDCPIMAAAAM5BQFIQMGSF |
| FOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2001/08/25/wstem25.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/08/25/ixhome.html |
| Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 23:05:22 -0400 |
| From: "Jules Duguay" <dug@idirect.com> |
| To: <cinlife@cin.org> |
| Subject: Stem cell therapy repairs a heart (Filed: 25/08/2001) |
| * * * * * * |
| Researchers Find Adult Stem Cells in Mouse Brains |
| San Francisco, CA -- Researchers say they have found a way to sift stem |
| cells from mouse brains, a feat that promises to speed study of the cells |
| and could lead to drugs to help the brain repair itself. |
| The researchers extracted almost pure adult stem cell samples samples from |
| the lining of brain cavities known as ventricles. That will allow |
| scientists to study the cells to learn how to trigger them to develop into |
| cells a patient needs. |
| "The Holy Grail is to find drugs which can stimulate the stem cells that |
| are already in the brain to produce new nerve cells," said lead author |
| Perry Bartlett. |
| The work is reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. |
| The researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical |
| Research in Melbourne, Australia, used a combination of filtering |
| techniques to produce samples that contain 80 percent neural stem cells. |
| Previously, researchers had achieved only 5 percent. |
| Fred Gage, a stem cell researcher at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, |
| Calif., who was not involved in the study, said the most important finding |
| was the ability to produce relatively pure samples of neural stem cells. |
| "What they've done is for the first time ... identify the source of stem |
| cells. We now have markers and we have techniques to pull them out with," |
| Gage said. |
| The Australian researchers also prompted the neural stem cells to begin |
| forming muscle cells, confirming previous studies. |
| The brain cells are examples of adult stem cells because they were |
| recovered from adult animals. They are different from "embryonic" stem |
| cells, which are taken from embryos. |
| Ronald McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institutes of Health, |
| said the new work does not eliminate the need for embryonic stem cell |
| research. "It's still going to take a lot of work to figure out how adult |
| cells can be turned into all the cells we need," McKay said. "This kind of |
| work on the adult cell needs to be greatly extended if we are going to |
| find out how to take an adult cell and get it to do anything we want." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Researchers Find Adult Stem Cells in Mouse Brains |
| Source: Associated Press; August 15, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Canadian Scientists Find Versatile Adult Stem Cells From Skin |
| Toronoto, CA -- Canadian scientists may have found yet another alternative |
| to embryonic stem cell research that can offer new treatment for |
| neurological conditions. They have isolated stem cells on the skin of |
| adult mice that can grow into brain cells according to a study published |
| on Monday. |
| "The hope is that the adult stem cells will provide an alternative |
| approach to using embryonic stem cells, but that still has to be proven," |
| Karl Fernandes, one of the researchers, told Reuters. |
| The Canadian team found that stem cells isolated in the skin of adult mice |
| can grow into brain cells, fat cells or muscle cells. The research, led by |
| the Montreal Neurological Institute affiliated with McGill University, is |
| seen giving scientists new avenues to pursue in continuing stem cell |
| research. |
| "We believe our discovery is important as we have identified an exciting |
| new stem cell from a noncontroversial source that holds considerable |
| promise for scientific and therapeutic use," said Freda Miller, the lead |
| researcher. |
| The team has started preliminary experiments with human skin to see if |
| transplants of cells would eventually be possible, said Fernandes. |
| "We can isolate a population of cells from human skin, which at first |
| glance appear to be similar to the ones we get from rodents," said |
| Fernandes. He said the team has started "promising" transplants of |
| skin-type cells on rodents, focusing mostly on brain functions. |
| The study, published in the scientific journal "Nature Cell Biology," said |
| patients might be able to use stem cells from their own skin to repair |
| dysfunctions elsewhere in the body, avoiding the complications of organ |
| rejection linked to donor transplants. |
| The study shows that highly versatile adult stem cells may be easy to |
| access. "You could potentially take a small biopsy of skin and harvest the |
| patient's own stem cells, expand them (in a process that allows them to |
| proliferate in a laboratory dish) and then use them to treat that |
| patient," scientist Freda Miller said. |
| Unlike many other adult stem cells that have been studied, the ones Miller |
| worked with proliferated impressively in the laboratory. Being able to |
| generate large numbers of stem cells would be vital to allow for any |
| future transplantation of them into damaged tissue with the aim of |
| regeneration. In Miller's study, the only broad grouping of cells that the |
| mouse skin stem cells did not become was cells from organs such as the |
| liver. "And we're working very hard now to ask if they can become those |
| things as well," she said. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Canadian Scientists Find Versatile Adult Stem Cells From Skin |
| Source: Reuters; August 13, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Adult Stem Cells Cure Sickle Cell in Mice |
| Washington, DC -- Researchers have cured laboratory mice of sickle cell |
| anemia, the inherited blood disorder that affects more than 70,000 |
| Americans, in an experiment using adult stem cells from bone marrow, genes |
| and a modified HIV virus. |
| Although the treatment is years away from being tested on humans, experts |
| called the experiment a milestone. |
| ``It corrected the sickling problem throughout the bodies of these mice,'' |
| said Philippe Leboulch, a Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts |
| Institute of Technology scientist who led the research team. ``All of the |
| mice were cured permanently.'' |
| Leboulch said additional study is needed before the technique can be tried |
| on humans and the first clinical trial could come in about two years. A |
| report on the study appears Friday in the journal Science. |
| The disease causes intense pain. It damages the liver, lungs and kidneys |
| and can trigger stroke or infections. There is no cure in humans, and |
| treatment consists of combatting the symptoms with antibiotics, blood |
| transfusions and surgery. A drug, called hydroxyurea, helps control some |
| symptoms in adults, but it has not been approved for children. |
| About 1.2 million Americans carry one sickle cell gene. They are said to |
| have the sickle cell trait and are not affected by the disease. A person |
| must inherit two sickle cell genes - one from each parent - to have the |
| disease. A child born to two parents with the sickle cell trait has one |
| chance in four of inheriting the disease. |
| Sickle cell anemia is most common in people of African heritage. It also |
| is found in people of Greek, Indian and Italian origin and can occur in |
| any race. |
| ``Although much more research is needed before human application, this is |
| a significant achievement that brings us closer to human gene therapy for |
| what is a very serious genetic blood disorder,'' said Dr. Claude Lenfant, |
| director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, one of the |
| National Institutes of Health. |
| ``This is an exciting result,'' said Dr. Michel Sadelain of the Memorial |
| Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. ``It is an important milestone |
| in gene therapy.'' |
| Sadelain earlier achieved a similar success in mice by correcting the |
| genetic flaw that causes thalassemia, a blood disorder related to sickle |
| cell anemia. |
| In the new study, researchers used two types of mice that are bred to have |
| a blood disease closely resembling the sickle cell anemia disease in |
| humans. |
| They removed from the mice samples of the bone marrow, which makes blood, |
| and then irradiated the mice to kill the remaining abnormal bone marrow. |
| The researchers mixed with the removed bone marrow a fragment of the HIV |
| virus that had been manipulated to contain a normal red blood cell gene. |
| The virus infected the bone marrow, carrying into the blood-making cells |
| the normal red blood cell gene. The bone marrow was then reinjected into |
| the mice. |
| Once in the animals, the genetically altered bone marrow cells produced |
| normal red blood cells and corrected the sickling disease. |
| After 10 months, the mice were killed and their organs and blood examined. |
| Leboulch said there was no evidence of abnormal blood nor of the organ |
| damage that is common with sickle cell anemia. |
| The gene therapy technique will not be tried in humans, said Leboulch, |
| until the researchers learn how to safely neutralize the abnormal |
| blood-making gene in patients. Radiation was used in the mouse experiment |
| to kill the animal's bone marrow, but this would not be appropriate for |
| human sickle cell disease patients, said Leboulch. |
| Greg Evans of the NHLBI said that research is under way to find a safe way |
| to partially destroy the abnormal bone marrow in patients. The technique |
| would then make room for the genetically corrected bone marrow. |
| Sadelain said that earlier studies showed that the genetically corrected |
| bone marrow is ineffective against the blood disorder unless most of the |
| abnormal bone marrow is neutralized. |
| Both sickle cell anemia and thalassemia are caused by a failure of a gene |
| that helps to make hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries |
| oxygen. |
| In thalassemia, the gene fails to make enough hemoglobin. |
| In sickle cell disease, the gene makes an abnormal hemoglobin that is |
| sticky and stiff. Instead of the soft, doughnut-shaped, normal hemoglobin, |
| the abnormal protein often forms into a distinctive sickle shape with a |
| sharp point. The abnormal hemoglobin tends to clog small vessels, blocking |
| the flow of blood. This starves tissues of oxygen and can cause damage |
| throughout the body. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Adult Stem Cells Cure Sickle Cell in Mice |
| Source: Associated Press; December 13, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Adult Stem Cells Hold Hope for Autoimmune Patients |
| Chicago, IL -- Adult stem cells extracted from the blood of two Crohn's |
| patients have been used to rebuild their faulty immune systems, the latest |
| success with a technique that is being tested at several U.S. hospitals. |
| While the debate over the use and funding of embryonic stem cells |
| continues, doctors are already using adult stem cells to counteract |
| autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's, multiple sclerosis and lupus. |
| Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago said Thursday that a |
| 22-year-old female Crohn's patient, whose white blood cells were attacking |
| her digestive system, was doing "phenomenally well" 2-1/2 months after the |
| undergoing the procedure. |
| Doctors were so pleased with her progress that they performed the |
| procedure on a second Crohn's patient, a 16-year-old boy, earlier this |
| week. |
| Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect any part |
| of the gastrointestinal tract, afflicts some 50,000 Americans and is most |
| common in adolescents and young adults. |
| For treating patients, using a person's own stem cells may be preferable |
| to using embryonic stem cells since there is no risk of the body rejecting |
| its own cells. The experimental technique has been used by doctors on |
| people with autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system inexplicably |
| attacks the body's own tissues. |
| Immunologist Richard Burt of Northwestern, who performed the procedure on |
| the Crohn's patients, said early results in both of them were very |
| encouraging. |
| "This is a patient who had bloody, watery diarrhea about 10 times a day |
| for nine years, with a lot of abdominal pain. Since the procedure, she has |
| had no diarrhea, is eating and is in no pain," Burt said of the first |
| patient. |
| "But we have to be very careful. This is experimental, one patient never |
| means anything. We can't say we've cured anybody. Only time will tell. But |
| this is obviously the best thing we could have wished for," he added. |
| Multiple sclerosis patients who underwent a similar procedure at another |
| hospital to rebuild their immune systems with their own stem cells showed |
| progress, Burt said. Though the therapy did not repair existing damage to |
| their nervous systems, it halted the development of new lesions, he said. |
| However, stem cell therapy on lupus patients elsewhere did repair the |
| damage to their organs, Burt said. |
| Robert Craig, a gastroenterologist at Northwestern working with Burt on |
| Crohn's disease, said it took him three years to find suitable patients |
| for this experimental therapy. |
| "They need to be very sick. They have to have failed on other therapies. |
| There aren't that many people who are ill enough to warrant this type of |
| therapy because the therapy itself is life threatening," he said. |
| The process is risky because it involves destroying the patient's |
| defective immune system with chemotherapy and a protein that drives down |
| the number of infection-fighting white blood cells. A growth factor is |
| introduced to stimulate the bone marrow to produce stem cells, which are |
| then harvested from the bloodstream. Finally, the stem cells are injected |
| into a central vein, either in the neck or arm. |
| The whole process, including recovery, takes three weeks. |
| "It scares me," Craig said. "I sweat bullets with these patients. When |
| their white blood count is that low they're very susceptible to |
| infection." |
| Burt, the chief of Northwestern Hospital's division of Immune Therapy and |
| Autoimmune Diseases, began studying the process of regenerating the immune |
| systems of animal test subjects more than a decade ago. |
| For instance, scientists have manipulated blood stem cells from adult mice |
| to grow into tissue and that bone marrow stem cells can be made to |
| regenerate heart muscle. |
| Whether the process will work on human beings is not known, he said. |
| "Can we use blood stem cells for tissue genesis to repair organs? If we |
| can get a person's adult stem cells to do that from their blood then this |
| whole problem of embryonic stem cells in terms of the ethical problem is |
| not an issue," he said. |
| "If you're able to use your own stem cells, then this debate about |
| embryonic stem cells in not only moot, it's economically much better to |
| use your own because you don't have to have the extensive bank and ... |
| trying to see if you have a match, and all the quality control of |
| preserving the tissue. It's not just ethically moot, it's practically |
| moot." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Adult Stem Cells Hold Hope for Autoimmune Patients |
| Source: Reuters; August 11, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| British Study Says Adult Stem Cells Can Change to Kidney Cells |
| London, England -- Stem cells from bone marrow can change into kidney |
| cells and may provide a new method to treat kidney disease that could |
| reduce the need for transplants, British scientists said on Wednesday. |
| Stem cells are master cells in the body that can transform into most other |
| cell types. Researchers at Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) |
| showed that kidney cells can be derived from stem cells in bone marrow. |
| "Until now people weren't entirely sure how the kidney took care of its |
| normal wear and tear. People assumed that it was all done within the |
| kidney. What we've shown is that cells from outside the kidney are able to |
| contribute to the repair process," molecular biologist Dr Richard Poulsom |
| said in a telephone interview. |
| The finding opens up the possibility of mobilising a patient's own bone |
| marrow stem cells to repair or replace kidney cells destroyed through |
| disease or injury. It could also pave the way for using bone marrow stem |
| cells containing genes resistant to cancer or other diseases to protect |
| the kidney from further damage. |
| "In people whose kidneys are failing, we might be able to generate more |
| functional kidney cells. That is something that has not been known |
| before," Poulsom added. |
| Scientists believe stem cells could revolutionise medicine and provide new |
| therapies for diseases like Alzheimer's and diabetes and severe injuries. |
| Poulsom and his colleagues studied adult bone marrow stem cells in mice |
| and humans. Their research is published in the Journal of Pathology Online |
| (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0022-3417/). |
| The scientists found kidney cells derived from donated male bone marrow in |
| female mice whose own bone marrow had been destroyed by radiation. |
| In the human studies, biopsies from male kidney transplant patients who |
| had received a kidney donated by a woman showed male kidney cells among |
| the female cells. The man's bone marrow cells had transformed into kidney |
| tissue. |
| "They are cells that could have only have come from the man, migrated |
| around and set up shop and differentiated into functional kidney cells," |
| said Poulsom. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: British Study Says Adult Stem Cells Can Change to Kidney Cells |
| Source: Reuters; July 24, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Harvard Researcher: Adult Stem Cells May Eliminate Need Embryonic Ones |
| Boston, MA -- The permanent reversal of Type 1 diabetes in mice may end |
| the wrenching debate over harvesting stem cells from the unborn to treat |
| adult diseases. Researchers at Harvard Medical School killed cells |
| responsible for the diabetes, then the animals' adult stem cells took over |
| and regenerated missing cells needed to produce insulin and eliminate the |
| disease. |
| "It should be possible to use the same method to reverse Type 1 diabetes |
| in humans," says Denise Faustman, the associate professor of medicine who |
| leads the research. Setting up a trial for patients has already begun at |
| Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. |
| Type 1 diabetes is an "autoimmune" disease in which the body's blood cells |
| attack its own organs and tissues. Such maladies include rheumatoid |
| arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and more than 50 other ailments. |
| Faustman believes that many of them may be similarly cured by poisoning |
| the offending cells and letting adult stem cells regrow replacement |
| organs. |
| "Once the disease is out of the way, adult stem cells regenerate normal |
| organs and tissues," Faustman says. "What is more, we should be able to |
| replace damaged organs and tissues by using adult stem cells, thus |
| eliminating, at least temporarily, the need to harvest and transplant stem |
| cells from embryos and fetuses. Of course, it will take years before we |
| know for sure if we can do this in humans." |
| Stem cells from embryos have the ability to grow into all other types of |
| cells. They may be able to mature into brain cells to repair damage from |
| strokes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases; into heart cells to heal |
| the ravages of heart attacks; and into organs to replace those ruined by |
| cancer. But problems exist in getting such cells to mature into a specific |
| type of cell and to home in on a specific place. There's also the problem |
| of stopping them from growing once the repair is made. Uncontrolled growth |
| may lead to tumors. |
| The existence of adult stem cells raises the question of why the body |
| doesn't use them on a regular basis to heal itself. It may be because |
| adult stem-cell populations are small and need some sort of outside |
| stimulation. There's recent evidence that additional adult cells injected |
| into mice start to repair heart attack and stroke damage. |
| In the diabetes experiments, cells that attack insulin-producing islet |
| cells in the pancreas were destroyed. The researchers intended to follow |
| up the killings with transplants of healthy islet cells but, to their |
| surprise, this turned out to be unnecessary because adult stem cells took |
| over the work. |
| "It was a miracle that we didn't expect," Faustman comments. |
| An estimated 16 million people have diabetes in the United States. About |
| 10 percent of these patients suffer from Type 1, which used to be called |
| juvenile diabetes because it commonly appears between ages 10 and 16. Type |
| 1 diabetics cannot make insulin to convert blood sugars into energy, so |
| they must inject themselves daily with the hormone to survive. New cases |
| have tripled in the United States in the past 50 years. |
| Type 2, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, usually occurs gradually |
| after age 40, and often can be managed by diet and exercise. The two types |
| together are the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and |
| limb amputation, as well as major risk factors for heart disease, strokes, |
| and birth defects. |
| Faustman isn't sure if her technique will work with Type 2 diabetes. "We |
| really don't know if replacing the islet cells will do the job," she says. |
| "Some experts think that the resistance to insulin comes from outside the |
| pancreas. There's also the possibility that Type 2 diabetics used up their |
| stem cells at a faster rate," which decreases their repair capacity. |
| The Harvard-Massachusetts General Hospital team believes they can move |
| from mice to humans because the same defective pathways exist in both |
| species. "We always begin our projects with human cells," Faustman |
| explains. "When we observe something important but can't experiment with |
| patients, we go to mice." |
| The defective pathway in both humans and mice has been known for years. |
| It's been well-studied in cancer and AIDS research, but everyone missed |
| its connection to autoimmune disease until Faustman's lab hit upon it. |
| The defect involves a genetic mutation that causes white blood cells to |
| attack the insulin-producing cells. It's as if the body rejects part of |
| itself because it cannot tell the difference between normal cells and |
| foreign invaders like viruses or bacteria. Faustman's team found they |
| could destroy the offending cells with drugs. |
| When given to the mice, a compound known as CFA boosted the production of |
| another substance known as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF). Years ago, |
| researchers tested TNF as a cancer drug, then as an AIDS treatment, but |
| have abandoned it since. |
| TNF wiped out cells that couldn't tell self from nonself, but this was |
| believed to be only a temporary respite. Everyone thought it could only |
| last until the body made new white blood cells with the same defect. To |
| counter this inevitability, they planned another treatment to re-educate |
| the new cells so they would not attack insulin-making tissues in the |
| pancreas. |
| Once the diseased cells were out of the way, however, adult stem cells |
| took over and grew new islets in 40 days. |
| "At first we thought we had failed," Faustman recalls. She and her |
| colleagues planned to follow up by transplanting healthy islet cells grown |
| in their laboratory. "But the biological indicators we saw were not what |
| we wanted for such transplants. Then we gradually realized that there were |
| now islet cells where none had existed 40 days before. It was astonishing! |
| We had reversed the disease without the need for transplants." |
| "These results are remarkable and surprising," comments David M. Nathan, |
| the Harvard professor of medicine who will attempt to do the same |
| experiments with humans at Massachusetts General Hospital. "We need |
| careful studies to find out if we can delete the offending blood cells in |
| humans in the same way that it was done in mice. Adult stem cells in these |
| mice were apparently inactive or suppressed until cells that attacked the |
| pancreas were removed. We don't know yet if human adult stem cells can |
| accomplish the same regeneration. If they can, and it will take years to |
| find out, that opens the way to treating other autoimmune diseases like |
| multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Harvard Researcher: Adult Stem Cells May Eliminate Need Embryonic Ones |
| Source: Hrvard University Gazette; July 19, 2001 |
| * * * * * * * * |
| Hard Cell -- Science Does Better With Adult Stem Cells |
| by Richard Miniter |
| [Pro-Life Infonet Note: Mr. Miniter is an editorial page writer for The |
| Wall Street Journal Europe. His column appears Fridays.] |
| When President Bush meets the pope today, one of the issues they're sure |
| to discuss is the controversy over embryonic stem-cell research. Mr. Bush |
| is reportedly struggling with the decision of whether to accept a |
| last-minute Clinton decision that would effectively lift the ban on |
| federal funding of such research. During his campaign, Mr. Bush promised |
| to uphold the ban. |
| Proponents of such research, and the media, frame the issue as one of |
| religion vs. science, arguing that if the president keeps his promise, he |
| will set back new medical advances and sacrifice potential cures for |
| diseases like Parkinson's. |
| But science isn't on their side, and Mr. Bush doesn't have to choose |
| between convictions and cures. While federal funding for embryo research |
| is banned, the research itself is not. The private sector lavishly funds |
| research on stem cells drawn from both embryos and adults. Yet research on |
| embryonic stem cells is no more developed than the embryos themselves -- |
| while research on adult stem cells is close to delivering miraculous |
| treatments. |
| Consider these recent advances: |
| * Surgeons in Taiwan restored vision to patients with severe eye damage by |
| using stem cells from the patients' own eyes. Their vision improved from |
| 20/112 to 20/45, according to results published in the New England Journal |
| of Medicine. |
| * British scientists found that adult stem cells in bone marrow can turn |
| into liver tissue, a first step toward developing new treatments for liver |
| damage. Their work was reported in the journal Nature. |
| * Two recent studies show that adult stem cells in bone marrow |
| transplanted into the brain of mice can develop into neurons and have been |
| reprogrammed into healthy brain cells in lab rats. Previous research had |
| shown this transformation was possible in cultured cells, but these |
| studies, one of which was published in the journal Science, show it can |
| happen in living animals. |
| * Scientists found that adult stem cells in bone marrow injected into a |
| damaged mouse heart could become functional heart muscle cells, and that |
| these new cells partially restored the heart's pumping ability. One of the |
| scientists predicted that after successful follow-up studies, human |
| clinical trials could start in three years. The results were published in |
| Nature. |
| These findings were all reported within the past year. And they are only a |
| few examples of the breathtaking medical breakthroughs occurring after |
| years of research on adult stem cells -- stroke victims' brains repaired |
| with adult stem cells becoming fully functional neurons connecting with |
| existing brain cells, new cartilage grown to repair damaged knees. |
| We are on the verge of astounding human applications using adult stem |
| cells. Embryonic stem cells, by contrast, have yet to save a single life. |
| Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the ability to transform |
| themselves, in varying degrees, into many other types of cells. Thus a |
| single stem cell could become a skin cell, a hair cell, a liver cell and |
| so on. All of us were once stem cells, and our bodies still hold many |
| forms of these cells. |
| It appears that every organ and tissue in the body has undifferentiated |
| stem cells. These cells may exist to repair organs when they are |
| traumatized or damaged, but scientists are still puzzled by how they work |
| and what exactly they are supposed to do. If scientists can improve this |
| natural repair process with adult stem cells, people may be able to grow |
| new livers from stem cells extracted from their own liver. Another source |
| of adult stem cells is body fat. And umbilical cords provide a large |
| supply of stem cells -- without political or moral controversy. |
| A National Institutes of Health report, released just in time for last |
| week's congressional hearings, argues that stem cells from embryos are |
| better. But on closer examination, the evidence is shaky and speculative, |
| while the unique drawbacks of embryo stem cells are becoming clearer. |
| The case for the superiority of embryo stem cells rests on three pillars: |
| They are easier to harvest, there are more stem cells in embryos than in |
| adults, and they can be more easily changed into every organ and tissue in |
| the body. |
| The first two claims are misleading. Harvesting is a nonproblem. |
| Scientists have been extracting some types of human adult stem cells for |
| almost a decade, while human embryo stem cells weren't successfully |
| isolated until 1998. Several biotech companies have developed proprietary |
| methods to make adult-cell isolation and extraction even easier. "We've |
| been here in the background while all the noise was going on, and there's |
| been a pressure on us to provide a solution," John Wong, CEO of MorphoGen |
| Pharmaceuticals, told BioWorld Today last August. "We believe we've |
| provided that solution. The technology has just moved beyond stem cells |
| from embryonic tissue." |
| While it's true that embryos have a higher ratio of stem to nonstem cells, |
| that doesn't mean much. Scientists have discovered stem cells in adults in |
| virtually every major organ, including the brain and body, and researchers |
| last year identified conditions that would allow for the multiplication of |
| adult stem cells in culture by a billion-fold in a few weeks. |
| The real argument for using stem cells from embryos is they are more |
| "plastic" -- that is, they are easier to change into other types of cells. |
| This is a hard claim to evaluate because, as last week's NIH report notes, |
| "the field of stem-cell biology is advancing at an incredible pace with |
| new discoveries being reported in the scientific literature on a weekly |
| basis." Any distinguishing advantage from using embryo stem cells today |
| may already have been overtaken by a lab that is waiting for its results |
| to be published. |
| Indeed, scientists have already proved adept at turning adult stem cells |
| into a variety of seemingly unrelated cells. Jonas Frisen, a scientist |
| working at NeuroNova AB, a Stockholm-based biotech firm, published some |
| exciting work in one of the world's leading scientific journals, Science, |
| in June 2000. "We have demonstrated that the potency of these [adult stem] |
| cells was far greater than expected and what seemed to be a fairly |
| restricted cell type can give rise to many different types of cells. These |
| recent findings may turn some previous concepts upside down," Dr. Frisen |
| said in a press release. Already, human adult stem cells have been |
| transformed into cartilage, muscle, bone, cardiac tissues, neural cells, |
| liver tissues and blood vessels. Research with animal adult stem cells |
| indicate the ability to transform them into kidney, heart, lung, intestine |
| and nervous-system tissues. |
| While adult stem cells may never be as completely "plastic" as embryo stem |
| cells they will almost certainly be plastic enough for all practical |
| applications. "These adult tissues don't appear to be as restricted in |
| their fate as we thought they were," Dennis Steindler, a professor of |
| neuroscience and neurosurgery at the University of Tennessee-Memphis, told |
| Blood Weekly magazine in May. "In some ways they may not have the same |
| potential as embryonic cells, but once we figure out their molecular |
| genetics, we should be able to coax them into becoming almost anything we |
| want them to be." |
| Diane Krause of the Yale School of Medicine -- a supporter of embryonic |
| stem-cell research -- says she was "surprised" by her own research on |
| adult stem cells. "It went against our dogma," Dr. Krause says. Stem cells |
| found in the liver were believed to be limited to making liver tissue, |
| stem cells in the skin more skin and so on. "But at least for stem cells |
| found in bone marrow, that is not true." Scientists, who previously |
| underestimated the potential of adult stem cells, are "searching for a new |
| paradigm," she adds. |
| What's more, new research suggests that embryonic stem cells may be a |
| little too plastic. "The emerging truth in the lab is that pluripotent |
| [embryonic] stem cells are hard to rein in," University of Pennsylvania |
| bioethicist Glenn McGee told MIT's Technology Review. "The potential that |
| they would explode into a cancerous mass after a stem-cell transplant |
| might turn out to be the Pandora's box of stem-cell research." In a recent |
| Weekly Standard article, author Wesley J. Smith, who opposes embryonic |
| stem-cell research on moral grounds, cites a chilling report from China in |
| a study in the May 1996 edition of Neurology, the official journal of the |
| American Academy of Neurology, in which implanted embryonic and fetal stem |
| cells became bone, skin and hair cells -- inside a test subject's brain. |
| He died. |
| Then there is the problem of rejection. Transplant patients know that they |
| must take antirejection drugs for years and, in some cases, for life. New |
| tissues developed from embryonic stem cells may require a long-term |
| regimen of drugs to suppress the body's immune system. These drugs have |
| side effects, and a suppressed immune systems can increase the risk of |
| infection. This is not a problem of adult stem cells because they can be |
| drawn from the patient's own body. |
| Adult stem cells appear to be easier to control than embryonic cells, are |
| closer to commercial application, and have a history of proven benefits -- |
| including bone-marrow applications. It's easier to transform, say, a |
| pancreatic adult stem cell into pancreatic tissue than to turn an |
| embryonic stem cell into pancreatic tissue. "It is inherently a shorter |
| biological step to make a beta cell from a duct [adult stem] cell than it |
| is from other possible cells, such as embryonic stem cells," according to |
| the British Medical Journal. Human adult pancreatic stem cells have |
| already been grown in culture and differentiated into insulin-producing |
| cells. |
| Adult stem cells are also being used in human clinical trials and |
| applications to treat multiple sclerosis, leukemia, liver disease, cardiac |
| damage, brain tumors, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, arthritis, lupus and |
| other conditions. French physicians used a patient's own adult muscle stem |
| cells to treat heart disease, with promising results. |
| Little wonder, then, that the private sector is focusing almost |
| exclusively on adult stem-cell research. Of the 15 U.S. biotech companies |
| solely devoted to developing cures using stem cells, only two focus on |
| embryos. "While the embryonic cells are rumored to have broad potential, |
| so far only adult stem cells have demonstrated wide uses," writes Scott |
| Gottlieb, a physician and staff writer for the British Medical Journal, in |
| The American Spectator. |
| In the race to cure Parkinson's disease, cancer and other age-old |
| scourges, the private sector is more than a few laps ahead. And perhaps a |
| dozen private-sector projects are within a few years of human trials. |
| StemCells Inc. is using adult stem-cell research to develop methods for |
| regenerating damaged central nervous systems and restoring function to |
| kidneys and livers. Baltimore-based Osiris Therapeutic Inc. has already |
| developed technology for isolating adult stem cells, found adult stem |
| cells in the body's connective tissues and conducted a clinical trial of |
| adult stem-cell infusion for breast cancer patients who'd had |
| chemotherapy. "The practical use of adult stem cells is not 10- to 15 |
| years away but well along in the commercialization process," Osiris |
| president James Burns told Transplant News in March 1999. "We believe that |
| adult stem cells will become a routine treatment for cancer, immune |
| disorders, orthopedic injuries, transplant medicine, congestive heart |
| failure and degenerative diseases." |
| By contrast embryo stem-cell research is at the drawing-board stage -- not |
| for lack of funds but for lack of promising research to finance. Venture |
| capitalists have no agenda beyond making money; if they see embryo |
| projects that are likely to bear fruit over the next five to seven years |
| -- the usual VC time horizon -- they will fund them. |
| That the market is speaking so loudly against embryo stem-cell research |
| probably explains why embryo researchers are so eager to reverse the ban |
| on government funding. But medical science will continue to advance even |
| if Mr. Bush keeps his word. |
| Whatever the president decides, though, the NIH should put more funds into |
| adult stem-cell research. That would give the most promising research a |
| big push -- and isn't that what's most important? |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Hard Cell: Science Does Better With Adult Stem Cells |
| Source: Wall St. Journal; July 23, 2001 |
| * * * * * * * * |
| Nat Henthoff: Adult Stem Cell Research Deserves Support |
| [Pro-Life Infonet Note: Nat Henthoff is widely respected as a leading |
| pro-life liberal Democrat voice. He writes regularly for the Village Voice |
| and a weekly column for the Washington Times.] |
| Not even the national debates about abortion or the patients bill of |
| rights equal in intensity -- and in future impact -- the controversy as to |
| whether there should be full-scale federal funding of embryonic stem cell |
| research, which appears to have great promise for remarkable therapy for |
| especially serious diseases. These embryonic stem cells can turn into any |
| kind of cell or tissue in the body. |
| Such dread conditions as Alzheimer's, strokes or muscular dystrophy might, |
| in time, be treated by these embryonic stem cells if enough federal |
| research funds will be committed for this research. |
| What has caused, however, intense controversy about this use of human |
| embryos -- even those extra embryos frozen in fertility clinics and likely |
| to be destroyed -- is illustrated by this definition of an embryo from the |
| 1989 edition of the "American Medical Association Encyclopedia of |
| Medicine" -- "From the time of conception until the eighth week, the |
| developing baby is known as an embryo." |
| Such technical scientific names as blastocyst (the embryo four days after |
| fertilization) are not emphasized in that widely known medical reference |
| book's definition. The word, "baby," is at the heart of this debate. |
| >From the very beginning of human life -- as Professor Dianne Irving has |
| written in "When Do Humans Beings Begin?" in the International Journal of |
| Sociology and Social Policy (1999): "This new human being -- the |
| single-cell human zygote -- is biologically an individual, a living |
| organism -- an individual member of the human species." |
| Or, as Georgetown University bioethicist Patricia King, who is in favor of |
| abortion rights, told the New York Times: "I think the early embryo is not |
| nothing. I don't think of it as just tissue." |
| In 1996, the National Advisory Bioethics Commission recommended that |
| federal funds be used for embryonic stem cell research, but the commission |
| said clearly that federal funding is "justifiable only if no less morally |
| problematic alternatives are available for advancing the research." |
| Now, as pressure increases -- even from such pro-life advocates as Sen. |
| Orrin Hatch -- there is increasing evidence of an alternative that would |
| not require the use of human embryos for this research. On PBS's "Jim |
| Lehrer News Hour," David Prentice, a professor of Life Sciences at Indiana |
| State University and a founding member of Do No Harm, The Coalition of |
| Americans for Research Ethics, reported that scientific evidence does |
| indicate that adult stem cells are a viable alternative. |
| "They're actually being used now," he said, "to treat human patients for |
| new corneas for restoring sight to the blind. In the animal models and |
| actually the adults themselves, I believe they have shown more success |
| than in any of the embryonic cells -- reversing diabetes in mice, treating |
| Parkinson's spinal cord injury, repairing heart damage. So I do think we |
| have a less morally problematic alternative here." |
| As for the claim that discarded frozen embryos used in research would have |
| otherwise been destroyed, Mr. Prentice noted that "there are embryo |
| adoption options -- the Snowflake program, for example, in California, and |
| others." |
| And in a recent letter to President Bush, Rep. Chris Smith and 13 other |
| House members -- as reported in the Wall Street Journal -- asked the |
| president to meet with three young children that had been "kept in |
| storage, as frozen embryos, until they were adopted by infertile couples." |
| Moreover, as The Washington Post reported, research for an article in the |
| prestigious journal Science showed that "embryonic stem cells are |
| surprisingly unstable, at least in mice. If the same is true for human |
| embryonic stem cells, researchers said, then scientists may face |
| unexpected challenges as they try to turn the controversial cells into |
| treatments for various degenerative conditions." Part of that finding was |
| deleted from the article in Science at the last minute, said The |
| Washington Post, to not give ammunition to opponents of embryonic stem |
| cell research. |
| Also, the widely respected journal Cell notes: "Several recent reports |
| suggest that there is far more plasticity than previously believed in the |
| developmental potential of many different adult cell types." Adult bone |
| marrow cells, for example, "have tremendous differentiative capacity" as |
| they can turn into "cells of the liver, lung," and other parts of the |
| body. |
| Both scientific and ethical priorities require federal funding of adult |
| stem cell research that has such potential for the lives of all of us. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Nat Henthoff: Adult Stem Cell Research Deserves Support |
| Source: Washington Times; July 23, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Source: Associated Press, MSNBC; March 7, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Source: Reuters; September 19, 2000 |
| precious gift of human life from fertilization to natural death. |
| Source: Right to Life of Michigan; July 27, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |