Why would such a heated controversy suddenly fade away?  I think there are two primary reasons.  First, the wildly exaggerated promise of imminent CURES! CURES! CURES! that so marked the early years of the public debate have gone wholly unfulfilled.  This lack of visible progress may have taken a toll on Big Biotech’s credibility.  Indeed, the first sign that the bloom may have come off the rose occurred last year when New Jersey voters stunned the political world by rejecting Question 2, a $450 million bond proposal to borrow $450 million to fund ESCR and human cloning research.

The second—and larger issue—is that contrary to embryonic and human cloning research, ethical areas of stem cell experimentation that do not involve the creation and/or destruction of nascent human life have advanced at astonishing speed.  Most recently, for example, embryonic like stem cells have been found in human testicles, offering the potential for men to be treated by their own cells without fear of tissue rejection.  But even that potentially important medical advance may turn out to be unnecessary thanks to the most important breakthrough in stem cell research since the initial discovery of human embryonic stem cells in 1998—the invention of human induced pluripotent stem cell, announced only a year ago in November 2007.

IPSCs are not adult stem cells.  Rather, they are pluripotent stem cells—meaning that theoretically than can be turned into any cell type in the body—made by injecting genes into “differentiated” stem cells (specific cell types such as skin), causing them to morph into stem cells. This matters morally because it does not involve the destruction of embryos.  Indeed, if one were to be treated by one’s own IPSCs, it would be no more morally problematic than receiving a transfusion of one’s own blood during surgery.

The main benefit of IPSC research is that it looks to make human cloning for stem cells superfluous. Indeed, using IPSCs, scientists have already accomplished much of what they once believed would only be obtained from therapeutic cloning.  First, they have created pluripotent stem cells from specific patients with conditions such as Alzheimer’s.  Second, these cells are now being used to study conditions such as Lou Gehrig’s disease and for use in drug and other medical testing.  Third, were these cells ready for injection into patients—they cannot be because, like embryonic stem cells, they could cause tumors—they would not be rejected because they would literally be the patient’s own cells. 

In the year since IPSCs were invented in humans, one by one the problems associated with their creation and use have, at lightning speed, moved steadily toward resolution.  Retroviruses, which could have caused cancer, are apparently no longer necessary in their creation, for example.  The efficiency of the process—once very poor—has steadily increased. Indeed, the ability to make these cells may eventually become wholly unproblematic as they have now been created from hair follicles! Talk about taking the wind out of the cloning and ESCR sails!

At the same time, adult stem cell research has continued to advance exponentially in human trials, with potentially outstanding results.  Here is a small sampling of successes announced in the last half year alone:

• In a small early human trial of using adult stem cells to treat alcohol related sclerosis of the liver, the livers of most patients responded positively, with a few having their livers all but repaired.
• The near blind from eye injuries have had their vision restored.
• Progressive multiple sclerosis has been stopped from advancing, with some patients improving.
• Bone has been regrown in the treatment of wounded soldiers.

In earlier research, paralyzed spinal cord injury patients have had feeling restored, heart disease has been treated, and diabetics have gone off their insulin.

It is important to stress here that these are early trials and may not result ultimately in efficacious medical treatments.  But unquestionably adult stem cell research and IPSCs have advanced well beyond what has been seen with embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.

And that has driven a stake through the heart of the ESCR/therapeutic cloning boosters’ false charge that the stem cell debate was between compassionate modernists who want “cures” struggling against anti-science Luddites who have no concern for those struggling with difficult diseases and disabilities.  Unable to credibly demagogue their opposition, apologists for ESCR merely let the controversy drop and moved onto other campaign agendas.

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Stem Cell Breakthrough: Mass-Production Of 'Embryonic' Stem Cells From A Human Hair

The first reports of the successful reprogramming of adult human cells back into so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which by all appearances looked and acted like embryonic stem cells, created a media stir. But the process was woefully inefficient: Only one out of 10,000 cells could be persuaded to turn back the clock.

Now, a team of researchers led by Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, succeeded in boosting the reprogramming efficiency more than 100-fold, while cutting the time it takes in half. In fact, they repeatedly generated iPS cells from the tiny number of keratinocytes attached to a single hair plucked from a human scalp.

Their method, published ahead of print in the Oct. 17, 2008 online edition of Nature Biotechnology, not only provides a practical and simple alternative for the generation of patient- and disease-specific stem cells, which had been hampered by the low efficiency of the reprogramming process, but also spares patients invasive procedures to collect suitable starting material, since the process only requires a single human hair.
Science Daily News

A renowned British stem-cell expert is to leave the UK to pursue his research in France, claiming that there is insufficient support for his work here.

Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University and an expert in adult stem cells, this week hit out at both his university and UK funding agencies. He said that they were prioritising embryonic stem-cell research above work with adult stem cells, despite the more immediate clinical benefits offered by his work.

Professor McGuckin plans to leave for the University of Lyon in January, taking a research team of about ten from Newcastle, including his research partner Nico Forraz. He will open the world's biggest institute devoted to cord blood and adult stem-cell research at Lyon.

Professor McGuckin is the UK's leading scientist working on stem cells derived from babies' umbilical cord blood. This method of extraction yields cells similar to embryonic stem cells, but is far less controversial because no embryo is destroyed in the process. Professor McGuckin, a Catholic, pioneered this method with colleagues in 2005, and has used the cells to grow liver tissue.

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