ACT's ES Cell Experiment Gets Smellier and Smellier
ACT received an infusion of more than $10 million only days after its "big (non) breakthrough" generated screaming headlines in the world's papers.
A cynic might say, mission accomplished. And now there's more news to back up the suspicion that the experiment was more snow job than actual scientific achievement. Pardon me, but this will take a little high science: Please don't let your eyes glaze over.
ACT strongly implied that it had removed one blastomere (a type of early embryonic cell) and obtained ES cells without destroying the embryo. As discussed extensively here at Secondhand Smoke, that purported breakthrough was flat-out false. ACT's scientists had actually destroyed 16 embryos and removed 4-7 blastomeres from each, placing them in a medium in which they were not in direct contact, but in such a manner that the cells might have been able to communicate with each other.
A failed experiment, similar to that conducted by ACT, appears to demonstrate that this potential communication may have been key to the derivation of two ESC lines--casting doubt on whether ES cells will be able to derived from just one blastomere as ACT claims. In the experiment, scientists tried to create ES cells using two blastomeres. But when the two were removed from being able to communicate with several others, the experiment didn't take. According to the science paper published about the effort: "The results showed that it might not be possible to derive hESC lines directly from paired blastomeres. A minimum number of blastomeres in close contact with one another may be required to successfully generate an hESC line."
Of course, if that is so about two blastomeres, it is more than true about one. If other efforts show similar results--and it must be said that we don't know whether they will--ACT's experiment may have been worth not very much at all. Well, other than generating bounteous free publicity and obtaining millions in venture capital.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:31 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I am hearing there may also be problems with the Nature paper. Don't know yet. Will tell folks here at Secondhand Smoke if there is anything more to report about this particular aspect of this scandal.
Couple of questions:
Is this stage that at which artificial twinning has been carried out in vitro with animals?
Are the cells removed in this experiment totipotent or pluripotent?
I'm looking at a different angle--the question of whether, *even if* the "concept" in question is correct, the derived cells themselves should be regarded as embryonic entities. I honestly don't know but have heard speculation to this effect and wonder what its biological basis is.
Lydia: Can't tell you about animal studies in this regard. At least when they are removed, they are not embryonic entities, they are cells. Some believe that they could become embryonic entities in the Petri dish at that stage. I don't believe that has been scientifically demonstrated (nor should it ever be).
I have never considered the ability to twin to be that significant from a moral or ethical perspective. An entity is what it is. If it is a cell, it is just a cell, regardless of a potential capacity to become something different. If it is an organism, than it is an organism, which is a different matter altoghether than a mere cell.
If anyone knows better regarding the current state of the science in this regard, please feel free to contribute. Thanks.
I agree with you, if there's a genuine biological distinction at this stage between a cell and an embryonic organism. That's fine. I'm a total amateur and just trying to figure out the science. I mean--the zygote is single-celled to begin with, right? Everyone begins as a single cell. A very special cell, though, to be sure! So I suppose one question would be, what does twinning (artificial or natural) look like at this stage? Would it involve the separation of a single cell which, because it was totipotent, was biologically indistinguishable from a single-celled zygote and which proceeded to demonstrate that fact (if left alone in the proper environment) by developing naturally into a fetus?
I have no idea, so that's why I asked.
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