Lead Into Gold: More IPSC Advances Announced

Do you wonder why the stem cell dispute that was supposed to propel Democrats into the White House is now a non issue? Credit the Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells that can be made from normal skin cells. After this astonishing breakthrough was announced, some among "the scientists" continued to insist that cloning was necessary because the IPSCs might cause cancer. That excuse is withering on the vine. From the story:

The main obstacle to using "reprogrammed" human stem cells--the danger that they might turn cancerous--has been solved, claims a US company. PrimeGen, based in Irvine, California, says that its scientists have converted specialised adult human cells back to a seemingly embryonic state--using methods that are much less likely to trigger cancer than those deployed previously. The company also claims to be able to produce reprogrammed cells faster and much more efficiently than other scientists. Right now, the hottest area in stem cell biology is that of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which have the ability to develop into several different tissue types.

It is always wise to take such press releases issued by companies that may be looking for investment capital with a grain of salt. Still, while we are not home free yet, the foundation of the cloning agenda is cracking under our feet. If scientists want to clone, pretty soon they will have to honestly explain how they hope to use the technology to learn how to genetically engineer the human race, use cloning for fetal farming, and permit reproductive cloning. The stem cell excuse won't fly for much longer.

Lead Into Gold; MORE Progress on IPSCs

Good news on a Saturday morning: A new paper is out touting more advances in understanding the mechanisms of IPSCs. It is written in pure scienceze and is way over my head. But a scientist friend of mine translated it and it appears that the paper's authors have discovered that two potential obstacles to the full use of these new cells--the use of viruses to introduce the genes that reprogram the skin or other cells into stem cells and concerns about the genes themselves--may not be serious problems after all.

In an article called "Defining Molecular Cornerstonesduring Fibroblast to iPS Cell Reprogramming in Mouse," published in Cell Stem Cell (2, 1-11), scientists apparently found that the viral expression shut down after 10 days and that the added genes only needed 10 days to achieve full and stable reprogramming. If the virus expression is shut down it means they become dormant (I think). And the genes seem to have completed their work are no longer a factor after 10 days because the IPSC become stable and can be multiplied in culture as IPSCs. Of course, that still leaves tumor formation, but that is true of embryonic stem cells as well.

The "need" for therapeutic cloning is becoming an increasingly difficult argument to make--if all you want from cloning are tailor made, patient specific pluripotent stem cells. Of course, that has never been all "the scientists" (by which I mean the intelligentsia and the brave new worlders) wanted. Rather, their ultimate goals, in my opinion, have always been fetal farming, genetic engineering, reproductive cloning, and all that jazz.

Three cheers! We may be getting to the place where a ban on all human cloning will be politically viable.

P.S. I have the PDF. If anyone would like it, send me a private -e-mail and it will be on its way to you.

Lead Into Gold: More Advances on ISPCs

As I alluded to earlier this week, research into ISPCs are advancing in the animal models. From the story:

Stem cells are considered a potential magic bullet cure for a host of diseases because they can be transformed into nearly any cell in the body and used to help replace damaged or diseased cells, tissues and organs. However, stem cell research is highly controversial because, until recently, viable human embryos were destroyed in the process of extracting the most flexible stem cells. Two groups of scientists recently bypassed this problem by transforming human skin cells into stem cells which had the same properties as embryonic stem cells. This offered the promise of treatments tailored to the specific genetic code of a patient--anything from blood transfusions to transplantable organs grown in a petri dish--without the need for harmful drugs to prevent rejection.

But the skin cells were regressed using a method which caused tumors and the potential for genetic mutation, which meant those induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS, were not safe for clinical use. One of those teams has now managed to induce stem cells without causing tumors and in a way which may not cause as much genetic disruption. They again used a retrovirus to introduce four genes, this time experimenting with adult mouse liver and stomach lining cells.

Mice implanted with these induced pluripotent stem cells remained tumor free after six months, according to the study published online in Science Express. And the researchers showed that the retrovirus did not need to burrow into the adult cell genome at a specific sites. This could help scientists develop avoid viral integration at sites prone to trigger tumors.

Embryonic stem cells cause tumors too, which seems to be a product of pluripotency. But if the IPSC breakthrough can get around that problem, and they can be tailor made from every patient, what wonders medicine may hold.

Lead Into Gold: More Research Successes for IPSCs

ULCA is the latest research center to successfully create induced pluripotent stem cells. From the story:

Researchers at UCLA have become the first in the state to successfully create skin cells that can be used to treat a number of fatal or debilitating conditions without the use of human embryos or eggs. The work, which has broad political and ethical implications, appears today in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings confirm earlier research by Wisconsin and Japanese scientists reported last fall.

The manufacture of these cells provides a potential coup for opponents of embryonic stem cell research, which involves destroying cells that some equate to destroying human life and raises ethical issues associated with regeneration of cells through human cloning. The laboratory cells created at UCLA "were virtually indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells," said Kathrin Plath, an assistant professor of biological chemistry at UCLA and lead author of the study. "We're very excited about the implications of this."

The reporter gets too much wrong in this story. For example, it isn't the destruction of the cells that is a problem, but of the embryos. But let's give her a break: It's a college newspaper.

Supporters of human cloning are quick to point out that IPSCs can't be used in human therapies because they cause tumors. Yet, that is the very problem that has kept embryonic stem cells from being used in humans--and we were told then that this would not be a serious impediment in the long term.

As to the difficulty of creating these cells, alluded to in the story, that is being worked on too. There will be a study published later in this week involving mice and rats--currently embargoed--that will indicate continued advances in this technology. You would think "the scientists" would be happy. But as the story mentioned, many seem truculent. Gee, I wonder why.

Lead Into Gold: Koreans Improve Upon IPSC Technique in Mouse Studies

Korean scientists have created pluripotent stem cells from normal skin cells and have further improved the technique. From the story:

Park said the overall process of making the stem cells is similar to those by U.S. and Japanese scientists, there has been a marked improvement in the success rate. "Foreign scientists used the so-called retrovirus, but we made headway by attaching the lentivirus to the transporting vector, and inserted it into the somatic cell of the lab animal," he said.

This process resulted in a stem cell being confirmed by a fluorescent microscope. The team claimed it was able to push these stem cells to differentiate into liver, nerve and muscle tissues. They said efforts are underway to recreate the process using human somatic cells.

Patent applications are also being filed. The lawsuits to come as various bioetechnology companies vie to become the next Microsoft or Google are sure to keep lawyers happily litigating for years to come.