This is wonderful news! I'd love to hear Fr. Derrick Hassert say 
something about this. When he was here at All Saints, he and Deacon 
Gene Godbold taught a very popular class on Bio Ethics.
gms+


-----Original Message-----
From: John S. Longcamp <jlongcamp@...>
To: faithandlife@...
Sent: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:11 pm
Subject: [FaithandLife] Breakthrough?













Brothers+
 
If this discovery holds up, we have something to be
very thankful for this Thanksgiving.  However, I doubt this news will 
be
received with universal joy, for liberals seem determined to fight for 
the right
to destroy human embyos in the name of science.  Let us pray but watch 
and
see.
 
John+
 

Stem–Cell Breakthrough
Wall Street
Journal
November 23,
2007
By
Maureen
Condic
And
Markus Grompe
For almost a decade now,
embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have been heralded as a panacea for a range 
of
ailments—­from neurological disorders such as Parkinson's to failing 
organs
in can­cer patients. These remarkable cells do have the potential to 
bring
medical advances: They can turn into every cell type of the body, and 
can
provide a potentially unlimited supply of transplantable cells.

The trouble has been that
ESC research came with a heavy price-the cells could only be obtained 
by
destroying human embryos.
This ignited an intensely
polarized debate be­tween those opposed to embryo-destructive re­search
and others who thought that the thera­peutic potential of the work 
justified
the use of human embryos.
From early on, however,
there were voices­—Stanford University's William B. Hurlbut, a mem­ber
of the President's Council on Bioethics, fore­most among 
them-suggesting
that this moral and political dispute could have a solution that was 
both
scientifically and ethically acceptable; that science could solve the 
dilemma it
created.
Now that hope appears to
have been dramati­cally realized, and the landscape has radically 
changed.
Two major scientific papers published this week in Science and Cell 
magazines
unveil a proven way to generate patient-matched, human pluripotent stem 
cells
without human cloning, and without the use of human embryos or human or 
animal
eggs. Researchers have generated "in­duced pluripotent state" cells 
with the
proper­ties of human embryonic stem cells by direct "re­programming" of
adult cells. They produced cells like those derived from embryos, but 
without
any ethical controversy.
Reprogramming now allows
us to exploit the advantages of embryonic stem cells without 
de­stroying
human embryos. Here's how it works: Adult cells are obtained from a 
skin biopsy
by a procedure no more painful than a blood draw. The skin cells are 
grown in
culture and then treated with a combination of four reprogram­ming 
factors,
inserted into the adult cells with a gene-therapy virus. Within two to 
three
weeks, the combined effect of these factors converts some of the adult 
skin
cells into induced pluripo­tent state cells (iPSCs).
Remarkably, iPSCs have
all the relevant prop­erties that make embryonic stem cells so
attrac­tive: They grow indefinitely and can produce all cell types. The
senior scientist of the American team is James Thomson, who first 
described
hu­man embryonic stem cells in 1998. Thus, his con­clusion that iPSCs
are virtually identical to embryo-derived stem cells carries special 
weight.

The induced pluripotent
cells are actually su­perior to embryo-derived stem cells in one 
critical
respect: They are patient-specific and hence will not be rejected by 
the immune
system of the person from whom they are derived. The ability to 
generate
embryonic stem cells matched to a particular person was the main reason 
for
efforts to produce human embryos by so-called therapeutic cloning. Now 
even the
scientist who generated "Dolly" the sheep and developed mammalian 
cloning, Ian
Wilmut from Scotland, has concluded that direct
reprogramming is a superior method for this purpose. He recently 
announced that
he is abandoning cloning research and is focusing his efforts on direct
reprogramming.
It should be cautioned
that this astonishing break-through will not produce immediate cures. 
The
therapeutic potential of all human pluripo­tent stem cells, including 
those
generated by direct reprogramming, remains uncertain. The risk for 
tumor
formation (a feature common to all pluripotent stem cells) is a grave 
concern,
and the risk may be higher in iPSCs than in embryo-derived stem cells, 
because
the genes used for re­programming remain inserted in the cell.

In addition, the
efficient conversion of pluri­potent stem cells to transplantable cells 
that
will be useful in the clinic is not yet possible for any human cell 
type,
although much progress has been made. Thus, no immediate therapies 
should be
expected from human pluripotent stem cell-based therapy, either embryo 
derived
or iPSC.
Still, pluripotent stem
cells have very impor­tant uses apart from therapy, and here iPSCs are
clearly superior to embryo-derived ESCs. Pluripo­tent stem cells can be 
used
to study "developmen­tal biology in a dish." They enable researchers to
observe how human organs and tissues form.
The insights garnered
 from such studies are likely to lead to the development of new drugs 
and
strategies which can benefit human health.
Direct reprogramming
techniques make it possible to generate pluripotent cells from specific
individuals, including those with particular diseases. It will be 
possible to
make iPSCs from children with Fanconi's anemia, a devastating genetic 
disease,
and to study the effects of candidate drugs on the formation of human 
blood.
These kinds of experiments are now immediately possible and likely will 
be the
first practical appli­cation of iPSCs.
The exciting finding that
patient-specific pluripotent stem cells can be generated easily and 
efficiently
through direct reprogramming, without the use of human eggs or the 
generation of
human embryos, is a tremendous leap forward. Science has provided a 
resolution
to the ethical and political debate, and all parties emerge victorious.
Scientists have access to an ethically uncompromised source of 
pluripotent stem
cells for research, patients may ultimately benefit from therapies 
using these
cells, and all citizens are spared the corrosive effects of ongoing 
cultural
warfare over embryo-destructive research.
This new finding offers
the best possible out­come to a debate that for too long pitted science 
and
ethics against each other.
Dr. Condie is professor
of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah. Dr. Grompe, 
M.D., is professor of
molecular and medical genet­ics at Oregon
Health and Science University and director of Oregon Stem Cell
Center. Both are senior
fellows of the Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person.

 


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