Did you watch the President's national TV address announcing his decision about the funding of stem cell research in the U.S.? Do you agree or disagree with his decision, and why?

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2001

Answers

He really had a tightrope to walk, at least politically. I generally agree with his limited approach. I'm glad I didn't have his job at that moment. And I appreciate the fact that he actually made a decision, good or bad.

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2001

I understand that Bush had to walk a tightrope, and he did quite well politically. I feel, however, that I must explain why his decision really limits what can be done. This is something about my peers that really pisses me off. We just do our work and never explain anything to the public and then wonder why people freak out so much.

First, I totally agree with his decision to not federally fund human cloning. I also think that it will be very difficult for anyone to try to do it with private funding or outside the U.S. Those kinds of experiments are unbelievably expensive to perform. It would take years to even do it. Dolly, the sheep, was the product of over 250 failed attempts. World experts in the field, who have already said they would never try to clone humans, performed the Dolly experiments. The three people claiming they will try it simply don’t have the knowledge, resources or funding to do it. Most research in the U.S., is funded by the federal agency NIH, the National Institutes of Health.

Additionally, they are finding that as the clones of the various species mature, very serious defects have begun to show up. How unethical can these people be, wanting to take that kind of risk with a human life? One guy was stupid enough to say that he could detect any abnormalities that might ever occur. That is absolutely ludicrous. There are not tests to detect all possible abnormalities, and certainly not the ones they are seeing in the cloned animals. The excuse of one of these people that human cloning is for benefiting infertile couples is baloney. If a couple wants a baby, there are several options currently available.

There is absolutely no other reason to clone a human. If someone is very sick enough to think they can do it to identically replace a child, or whomever has died, they are extremely mistaken. A cloned human would look like the person they were derived from, but just like identical twins, personality is formed by so much more than genes.

On to stem cell research. First, I don’t do stem cell work, but people who do feel that while stem cells can be derived adults, work with embryonic stem cells hold the most promise. This is probably because embryonic stem cells are certain to have not gone though any kind of differentiation. Differentiation is when the stem cell changes into a specific tissue type, like liver, or eyes or whatever. And, embryonic stem cells would not be influenced by the age of the person. The cells in your body are continuously getting new or different signals which produce different proteins, causing changes as you grow and age.

So Bush said we could use stem cell lines. Cell lines are abnormal by definition. They are immortal, as long as they are fed and cared for properly, they will live forever. That is because they have become the equivalent of tumor cells. In fact, one of the most used and studied cell lines, HeLa cells, was derived from the cervical cancer of Helen La-something. Unless there is a trauma, like a cut, all of our cells undergo programmed cell death by a very, very specific mechanism called apoptosis. Cancer cells, and a cell induced to become a cell line, have figured out a variety of mechanisms to override the signals to die, hence, the cells proliferate, or grow, and become immortal. Therefore, using the 60 embryonic stem cell lines for research is limiting because they are immortal cell lines, thus abnormal.

This worked for Bush because a baby could never be made from these cells lines, the signals to make a baby are gone. Cell lines are used all the time in research. And, in many applications they work great, producing proteins, studying viruses, studying cancer. But, they aren’t so great for trying to find answers to Alzheimer’s and the other diseases that the work is for.

There are 100,000 frozen embryos, or maybe some are unfertilized eggs, left over from in vitro fertilization. True, babies could be made from them, but I imagine most of them will be trashed someday. It is a terrible shame to waste the opportunity to use them for research which could benefit so many living people, and those yet to be born.

Sorry for this long post. But I really believe science can be explained to anyone without having to bullshit. I hate it when people bullshit, especially science.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2001

Awesome post, Vicki!

How long can frozen embryos created in vitro be kept frozen before they are incapable of becoming a human being once thawed? I think that's something I would have yielded on, using embryos that in the past have been thrown away.

What about cord blood? I understand its applications are even more limited, but it shows promise and is being used even now. (I just learned last night that Denver has the world's second largest stock of cord blood for research and treatment.)

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2001

This was awesome!

Actually, this is only the second time I have heard of HeLa cells. The first time was in a book called Genome, which, considering I have no real mathematical / scientific bent (but love science and logic and interesting facts), I found to be good, as it was IMHO well- written, and it educated me (and refreshed my education in other areas) and made it easy for me to understand things I had no practical experience with.

And Vicki's post was similarly well- written, so I wanted to give kudos on that.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Ah, thanks guys. This weekend, I'm going to do some searches on cord blood so I can answer Paul W.'s question. I do want to highly encourage anyone out there who is pregnant, to preserve cord blood from their newborn. Right now, the final, extreme treatment for leukemias is a bone marrow transplant. This is a pretty terrible procedure which, in and of itself carries a high mortality rate. The donor bone marrow is currently derived from another individual who is a close genetic match. But just like any tissue transplant from a genetically different person, there is the chance of rejection and a life-time of taking anti-graft rejection drugs. If a child developed leukemia and had cord blood (which contains the precursors to all blood cells) frozen away, then, after completely eliminating their immune system (a first step in any bone marrow transplant) they could be transfused with their own cord blood, completely eliminating any chance of rejection and the need for a life-time of anti-rejection drugs who themselves, have side-effects. I imagine a time in the future, when an individual's cord blood stem cells could be possibly used to regenerate organs that have failed, liver, kidneys even heart.

Paul W. asked about the time line for viability of frozen embryos. They are stored at -80 degrees C in liquid nitrogen. Therefore, I would expect them to last nearly indefinitely.

Harvesting cord blood doesn't hurt the baby at all. The cells are taken from the clipped cord. More on cord blood or whatever you have questions about later- And thanks again for the compliment:) Vicki

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

For anyone feeling like a bad parent for not saving it, there's a flip side to preserving cord blood, yes? The $1200 or so to arrange such preservation would be spent for a procedure #1 that hasn't ever been successfully been performed, and #2 to treat life-threatening illnesses a tiny fraction of children are going to go through. Unless $1200 is something you can walk away from (which if you can, good for you) it looks like you're probably better off stashing it away for college, and falling back on current medicine.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2001