Lead Into Gold: No Viruses Needed to Change Cells into Stem Cells
It is still less than a year since the first human IPSCs were derived. One of its supposed downsides as a technique was the need to use retro viruses to effectuate the change from differentiated cell (e.g., skin, or other type of body cell) into pluritpotent stem cell. The fear was this could lead to cancer if the cells were used in therapies.
Then, as reported here at SHS, in mouse studies scientists discovered how to use viruses that disappeared. Now, they have been able to make the change using mouse cells without using viruses at all. From the story:
Japanese scientists have demonstrated a new way to reprogram cells without viruses, an important advance toward the goal of one day turning our own cells into a powerful tool to fight a wide range of diseases.Let us concede that more work has to be done, including translating these approaches from the animal to human model. But this is great news.
The new technique, reported Thursday in the journal Science, appears to be both safer and simpler than previous methods, bypassing the cancer risk associated with using viruses and genes that remain inside a cell.
The Japanese team, led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, delivered the reprogramming genes into mouse cells with plasmids. Plasmids are essentially small, very stable circles of DNA...
"I think it's very significant," Alexander Meissner, an assistant professor at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, said of the new paper. "It shows you really can make these cells without any use of viruses. . . . All of these things are the most basic biology that can be done."
It looks increasingly to me that Shinya Yamanaka deserves a Nobel Prize for this amazing work.
But would be human cloners need not be too depressed. Just move to California. Thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of SB 1565, once we have borrowed money to pay for the most expensive buildings money can buy, we will still shell out $300 million a year we don't have for your research-even if the science moves completely into the IPSC pasture.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:16 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Thank you Wesley Smith for being one of the principal and principled people leading the charge against unethical stem cell research which kills embryonic human beings and for providing cover for ethical research to proliferate. If it weren't for people like you, we'd be mired down in embryonic stem cell research. Thanks for your leadership and commitment. Thanks for being such an outstanding information provider and commentator for those of us waging war downstream and across the fruited plain. You're the best.
I cant help but think that those japanese scientists were influenced by the Bioshock game... plasmids play a considerable role in the story there... hehe :)
"If it weren't for people like you, we'd be mired down in embryonic stem cell research."
If Wesley had his way, the exact research he is discussing in a optimistic view would never have been discovered because he wanted to put all of his eggs in the ASCr basket and ban ALL ESCr.
Well fortunately for everyone - scientists continued to study Embryonic Stem Cells and discovered more effective ways of generating the stem cells needed to research the entire lifecycle of a cell.
For years this blog has ridiculed scientists for attempting to focus on anything besides ASCr because the potential of pluripotent cells was a meaningless pursuit.
Nice to see you all fall in line finally.
Here are some further advancements with Embryonic Stem Cells in the past few weeks reported at MIT
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21414/
DS: It is a useless enterprise to respond to you, since all I would ever do is correct your misstatements. But newer SHSers might be misled, so once in a while it is worth correcting the record.
First, I supported the Bush funding Policy, which did not ban all ESCR, nor did it attempt to. Indeed, much of the preliminary research leading to the human IPSc brekthrough was accomplished using Bush-approved lines, and indeed, had NIH funding. Other lines used were created by private money, which I have do not argue should be banned legally by the Feds. Second, I did call for banning human cloning (SCNT) throughout the world, which had nothing to do with the IPSC breakthrough. Cloning is not embryonic stem cell research, it is asexual reproduction, one potential use of which is ESCR. That hasn't been accomplished yet (and hopefully never will be) and hence, had no impact on the IPSC breakthrough. Third, I didn't ridicule scientists for wanting to do ESCR instead of ASCR. Rather, I ridiculed media for ignoring the major advances being made in ASC research and I castigated politicalized scientists that kept pooh-poohing these advances for political reasons. Fourth, I have repeatedly stated that this is an ethics debate, not a science debate.
I shall now return to generally ignoring you. Carry on.
I wonder if there will be a bailout for ESCR if Obama is president. There's a lot invested in that without much results while ethical stem cell research steams ahead. Maybe we'll see a bailout of those bad investments too.
First, I supported the Bush funding Policy, which did not ban all ESCR...
OK -Now you say that you supported some federal funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research.
Your position on ESCr has become a maze of contradictions and viewpoints. for example a few days ago you said:
I doubt whether introducing genes to change the expression of a differentiated cell, which is what IPSC is, will ever result in an embryo. If it could, doing that, not dedifferentiating, should be outlawed.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=10381465&postID=7338666656981655847&isPopup=true
Do you have any basis for why you assume totipotent reprogramming wont become possible or is this another uncalculated 'guess'?
ITSC is the next step on the genetic path of dedifferentiation. I've tried to discuss this several times but you're too sure of yourself to listen to my opinion. Or maybe you realize how bad it will sound for your position to argue that reprogrammed skin is worthy of personhood.
and think, just a few years ago you pro-lifers insisted that only sperm and egg fertilization constituted life. What is the point of arbitrary ethics?
Second,...Cloning is not embryonic stem cell research, it is asexual reproduction, ... and hence, had no impact on the IPSC breakthrough.
Tell me Wesley, what word is used to describe the process of undifferentiated IPSCs multiplying in vitro?
Third, I didn't ridicule scientists for wanting to do ESCR instead of ASCR... I castigated politicalized scientists that kept pooh-poohing these advances for political reasons.
All you did was criticize several highly regarded Scientists who pointed out that the unscrupulous pro-life politicization of ASCr in attempt to discredit ESCr was bogus.
Fourth, I have repeatedly stated that this is an ethics debate, not a science debate.
So if you support the Bush ESC lines then there is no ethic debate, but I'll contend that you probably don't really mean what you said.
Furthermore you could have fooled me with your articles on ESCR as HYPE!
ESCR and SCNT, often wildly hyped the potential for CURES! CURES! CURES!...
...Well, those CURES! have not even appeared as distant silhouettes on the horizon yet, and finally, a few in the media are beginning to notice.
From a story in The Scotsman:
STEM cell research, we have long been told, should pave the way for revolutionary new treatments to help millions of patients around the world. Yet despite the years of study and debate about the potential, therapies have been slow to materialise.
Even the head of the UK National Stem Cell Network has now conceded that stem cell research may never deliver new treatments.
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/04/stem-cell-hype-being-reported-finally.html
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home