Geron today (Nov 5th) announced the results of two research programs
1)DERIVATION OF HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS
2) DERIVATION OF HUMAN PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS FROM CULTURED PRIMORDIAL GERM
CELLS
see-
http://www.geron.com/Special/Frame.SpecialReport.html
The stock price has risen substantially, and judging from the excitement on
the Yahoo message board for GERN (about 200 messages in the last 12 hours at
last count) the stock is going to see a lot of activity tomorrow.
Thomas B. Okarma, Ph.D., M.D., Geron’s vice president of research and
development said "... the company has pursued the derivation of human
pluripotent stem cells via two different strategies: human embryonic stem
(hES) cells derived from donated in vitro fertilized blastocysts and human
embryonic germ (hEG) cells derived by a different process from human fetal
tissue. Both approaches have now resulted in the successful derivation of
pluripotent stem cells."
My question regards the application of this research. If embryonic stem cells
are harvested from an embryo and can be encouraged to replicate
without differentiating, it may be possible to provide a
suitable volume of cells which can then be encouraged to differentiate into
bone marrow cells for a bone marrow transplant(as an example). What about
issues of rejection? How many different lines of stem cells is it necessary to
maintain to ensure that one of them is compatible with a given patient.
I note that the hES cells came from in vitro fertilized blastocysts, not from
aborted fetuses, getting around one ethical problem. However it raises the
possibility that the best source for compatible hES cells for a given patient
would be an in vitro fertilised embryo with the patient being one parent. An
even better would be a cloned embryo formed using the nucleus of a
differentiated cell from the patient(as per Dolly the sheep).
How much of an ethical problem will this raise? If an embryo is allowed to
replicate its cells in vitro only a few times before the hES cells are
harvested, but it was created with the sole intent of harvesting those cells,
will this be viewed by some as unethical? Or will it result in a relaxing of
the restriction on human cloning if the clone is never intended to progress
past the level of blastocyst?
Andrew
Andrew
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