Will New Research End Stem Cell Debate?

As we reported in late November, the publication of two new studies that show that it’s possible to “reset” adult stem cells to an embryonic state has caused quite a stir in the media, the scientific community and among the conservative Christian opponents of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). The papers were published by teams working on similar techniques on two different continents — one from Kyoto, Japan, and the other from Madison, Wis. The Japanese team published in Cell, while the Madison team published in Science.

You can see a description of both papers in this AP report. Both labs began with adult cells — skin cells in the Japanese experiment, foreskin cells in the American experiment — and used viruses to introduce new genes into the cell, genes that essentially reprogram these adult stem cells and reset them to their embryonic state. Theoretically, this will allow them to be differentiated into the full range of human cells just like embryonic stem cells — without having to destroy an embryo to do so. This is a key issue in Michigan, where the Legislature is considering a bill that would legalize the development of new embryonic stem cell lines in the state; under current law, doing so can result in 10 years in prison and a $10 million fine.

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These experiments are what scientists refer to as “proof of principle” or “proof of concept” experiments. In this case, they’ve found a means of switching on those genes that are switched off in adult cells, but this particular means of doing so also makes them useless for therapeutic medical treatments. If cells modified in this way were introduced into a patient, the risk of viral-induced cancer would be very high. But the breakthrough is important because it provides proof that those genes can be switched on, which is a key to the promise of future medical treatments. These researchers are already at work on alternative ways to achieve that result.

Sean Morrison, a cell and developmental biology researcher at the University of Michigan, told the Michigan Messenger the importance of this new research. “This is a huge breakthrough,” Morrison said. “No one thought it would be this easy to reprogram adult human cells to pluripotency.” Pluripotency means that the cell can be induced to become any type of tissue, from skin to hair to a particular organ. But he also cautions that it is far too early to think that this is a replacement for embryonic stem cell research:

“The first is the virus problem, the fact that at least with existing technology these cells are predisposed to turning into cancer and therefore cannot be introduced into patients. A lot more work is going to be required on these cells to understand exactly how similar they are to embryonic stem cells and whether they really can do the same things. Scientists have studied these cells for only a few months, so there are other questions. Are they really pluripotent? Are they really stable in culture or do they fall apart in a way that embryonic stem cells wouldn’t? It would be a real tragedy for scientists to stop working on embryonic stem cells and then learn two years down the road that there’s a fatal flaw with these reprogrammed cells that no one anticipated. Once those questions are answered, scientists will gladly grab hold of them for research purposes.”

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research have seized on these new studies as a reason to stop using stem cells derived from blastocysts (fertilized embryos fewer than five days old, composed of only a few dozen cells) from clinics that do in vitro fertilization and to focus solely on adult stem cell research. Ed Rivet, legislative director of Right to Life of Michigan, told the Messenger: “For a long time now, proponents of embryonic stem cell research have said that if we only had another source of pluripotent stem cells other than embryos, we