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Biotech News

Stem Cells Cultivated Free of Animal Contaminants 444

Posted by samzenpus from the grow-me-a-new-liver dept.
qewl writes "In a follow-up to this story, researchers at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology have created a new method of growing human embryonic stem cells that has overcome the major obstacle of animal contaminants to their use for human treatments. As President George W Bush has restricted federal funding of this research to limited cell lines existing since 2001, scientists have strived to find ways to keep the lines pure. Irina Klimanskaya and colleagues at ACT grew the stem cells from the beginning on a cell and serum-free mixture called an extracellular matrix. "The importance of this work, of course, is that by eliminating contact with animal and human cells, you minimize the risk of contamination with pathogens that could be transmitted to patients and the population at large," Dr. Lanza at ATC said."
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Stem Cells Cultivated Free of Animal Contaminants More

Stem Cells Cultivated Free of Animal Contaminants

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  • Interesting logic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10, 2005 @12:59AM (#11897183)
    I see... so allowing, for the first time, any federal funding for embryonic stem cells is "restricting."

    • Re:Interesting logic (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nes11 ( 767888 )
      Exactly. It's so funny how many thoughtless drones are out there that just can't comprehend that Bush is the first President to ever provide federal funding for stem cells research in the first place.

      • Re:Interesting logic (Score:4, Funny)

        by jim_v2000 ( 818799 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:06AM (#11897222)
        But Bush is evil! It doesn't matter if what he does actually happens to be good! It's still bad!

      • Re:Interesting logic (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Because it was called something else before 2000. Since the name change to "stem-cell research fund", yes W was the first to fund it. Before him, 2 other presidents have funded it under a different name.

        • Re:Interesting logic (Score:3, Informative)

          by Cat_Byte ( 621676 )
          From here [nih.gov]. In November 1998, two different groups of scientists reported the successful isolation and culturing of human embryonic stem cells. Generally referred to as pluripotent stem cells, these cells have the ability to develop into most of the specialized cells or tissues in the human body and can divide for indefinite periods in culture.

          What was it called before? I'm curious since 2 presidents before Bush would be around 1986.

      • Well, he did restrict the rules from what Clinton wanted.

        Hehe. Thoughtless drones.

    • Re:Interesting logic (Score:4, Informative)

      by ckemp.org ( 667117 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:09AM (#11897233) Homepage
      Perhaps... restricting relative to other countries? [cbsnews.com]

    • Re:Interesting logic (Score:4, Informative)

      by geneing ( 756949 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:17AM (#11897269)
      Please, stop listening to "propaganda". Read the full story is below. I would say that if Gore became president the funding for stem cell research would be much less restricted.

      From Wikipedia: "In 1995, Congress passed the Dickey Amendment, prohibiting federal funding of research that involves the use of a human embryo. Privately funded research lead to the breakthrough which made embryonic stem cell research possible in 1998, however, prompting the Clinton Administration to develop federal regulations for its funding. Preparations for this funding were completed in 2001."

    • Re:Interesting logic (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BWJones ( 18351 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:21AM (#11897291) Homepage Journal
      Incorrect. Stem cell research has been going on for years in the U.S. and other countries. Bush is just the first president that has said anything about it because stem cell research became politicized round about when he was running for office.

  • Aborted babies are not human beings (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @12:59AM (#11897188) Journal
    They may be human, but without life they are no more "beings" than corpses. We have no qualms about harvesting organs from dead donors, but seem to have some knee jerk reaction to harvesting a few extremely useful cells from dead, young, human flesh.

    You can't even say it's a "respect for human life" thing, because if that were the case those babies wouldn't have been aborted in the first place. The ban on harvesting of fetal stem cells is a huge setback to the progress of science.

    While this development may be useful in the short term, hopefully in the longterm our politicians will be able to remove the blinders and fundamentalist yokes that they have placed on scientists in this century.

    Stem cells save lives. What better way to honor those who died to contribute them than to pass on the benefits of their organs?
    • Stem cells aren't harvested from babies already aborted. They are harvested from human embryos, "aborted" for the purpose of harvesting. At that point, however, they really are no more than a handful of cells.

      See the wiki. [wikipedia.org]
      • It's the notion of "harvesting" that I think offends people the most with regards to stem cell research. For people who are against abortion, it's bad enough that abortion is even allowed (in their view), but allowing stem cell research would result in some people specifically getting pregnant for the very _purpose_ of aborting the baby.
        • The solution is not to allow people to make money or otherwise directly profit from stem cells being harvested from their abortion. IE they don't get any say in how they are used. That would take care of the motivation to have children so you can get them aborted and get something out of it.
          • Well, somebody makes a decision at some point, and somebody makes money at some point. The person who makes the money will try to influence the person who makes the decision. There is an obvious conflict of interest there. You can't just magically seperate the two with a law.
    • Since you are obviously aware of things the rest of aren't would you please be so good as to inform us exactly when life begins?
      • ... would you please be so good as to inform us exactly when life begins?

        The correct age is exactly 1/x, where x represents the age when someone is old enough to drive, to start working, to drink, to get married, to view pornography, to have sex, etc. Can you give the exact value of "x" for all those cases?

    • Who has the blinders on now? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DrKyle ( 818035 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:20AM (#11897282)
      People don't have a problem with organ donation (for the most part) because 1: It is a decision made by the person who's organs they are to donate them and 2: It is obvious that the donaters life was not created for the purpose of donating that organ.

      Contrast this with aborted tissue and you will see there are HUGE differences, can you guarantee that if aborted tissue is OK'd by the goverment that eggs won't be fertilized for the sole purpose of aborting and harvesting them? I find it so amazing the lengths people will go to to devalue human life, blaming religion for hindering science. I'm sure some of the people reading this will think I'm a crazy prolifer too, well I'm not, in fact I have a PhD in genetics and understand better than 99.999% of the population the potential benefits of stem cell research. Stem cells ARE going to be the miracle cure they've been hyped up to be, but unlike scientific revolutions where lives are not at stake, we need to make sure to take the time to consider all the ramifications our decisions will have to ensure we don't end up doing a lot of harm just to speed things up a few years.
    • Point of order: organ donors give their permission before they die.

    • This has nothing to do with aborted babies (Score:5, Informative)

      by qewl ( 671495 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:37AM (#11897371)
      I have no idea what you're talking about, but embryonic stem cells are harvested from left over in-vitro cells (and harvested at the blastocyst stage) that would otherwise be discarded. This has nothing to do with abortion or fetuses!
    • harvesting a few extremely useful cells from dead, young, human flesh.

      Stem cells are not dead. If they were dead, they wouldn't be potentially useful.

      Stem cells save lives.

      Name one person who has been saved or even helped in any way by any kind of stem cell therapy, ever. You can't, because that person doesn't exist. Not only that, but an adult will most likely reject stem cells from another person the same way that a donor organ is rejected. So the most promising techniques would be taking adult

      • the most promising [?] techniques would be taking adult stem cells from person A, isolating them, growing them to larger numbers in a lab, then re-implanting them in person A to replace damaged tissues ... So why isn't that research being pushed by the pro-stem cell activists or research companies who want the tax-supported research grants?

        I seem to remember it's because adult stem cells are not as versatile as infant stem cells. They cannot be used to repair nerve damage for instance, so they are useless

    • Re:Aborted babies are not human beings (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ortcutt ( 711694 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:51AM (#11897417)
      Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics council, once noted that:
      If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined.

    • Re:Aborted babies are not human beings (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ohithere ( 662779 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @02:18AM (#11897517)
      Stem cells are commonly harvested from fertilized embryos, long before they enter the fetal stage. The whole point and promise of stem cells are that their DNA has not differentiated any of its expression/repression of genes. We all know that your DNA is the same throughout your body, but what makes a difference is what genes are expressed in each cell. That is what leads to cell differentiation in the body and the main reason why stem cells are so powerful. These plain, all encompassing cells can be grown in certain controlled conditions in order to obtain whatever kind of cells your body needs, theoretically. The problem with using an old stem cell line is that with each separation, the DNA mutates a litle bit. A couple of base pairs are cut off of each end of the DNA strands with each cell division. This loss of base pairs from the end of each strand of DNA during the replication of DNA are what eventually lead to the aging of cells.

      About the rejection of cells by the body, your body decides whether or not a cell is "natural" from the genes that are expressed by the cells as well as different proteins that come out from the surface of cells. At no point does a macrophage enter a cell and check every little bit of DNA to see if it "matches" or not. Why would they be able to do organ transplants if that were the case? With a larger number of stem cell lines to choose from, there may be a greater chance for cells to be similar to each other.

      Keep in mind that there are many places to harvest stem cells, from many stages of human life. There are the embryonic stem cells, fetal stem cells, placental stem cells, childhood stem cells and adult stem cells to choose from. However, as the body ages, a smaller percent of cells in the body are actually stem cells. Now, say you harvest the stem cells of an adult seeking treatment for a medical condition and send them to a lab to grow. Do you have any idea of how much difficulty there would be in setting this up on a large enough scale to treat diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's? Do you know how long it would take to grow enough stem cells to be a viable treatment for a patient? Now, if you could establish cell lines with the thousands of frozen embryos are there frozen at fertility clinics around the world with no hope of ever becoming a child, you could create enough cell lines to be able to treat anyone. THAT is the power of the embryonic stem cell.
    • And in fact scientists have been growing VATS of cultured tissue for decades.


      Where is the outcry that each and every day gallons and gallons of cells propogated from the late Henrietta Lacks are shipped out around the world to be experimented on?

  • Before the trolls come out... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:01AM (#11897196)
    1) George Bush was the first president to fund embrionic stem cell research. Part of this was timing (Clinton was the only one prior that could have), part of it was presure, but he deserves some credit.

    2) There is no restriction on adult stem cell research whatsoever.

    3) The only restriction on embrionic stem cell research is that federal funding is limited to existing lines. Private research is unencumbered, and no legislation against it is likely. The funds are limited as a result of ethical issues which are not limited to religious people, and are not permanently banned (All it'll take is another executive desicion).

    Now that that's been cleared up, hopefully this thread can be filled with meaningful discourse...
    • Meaningful discourse?

      On SLASHDOT?

      You must be new.

    • Re:Before the trolls come out... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ortcutt ( 711694 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @02:03AM (#11897453)
      Oh. I guess the totally unnecessary restrictions that he put in place are OK then.

    • Where's the -1 informative option??? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Cryptnotic ( 154382 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @02:13AM (#11897497)
      We can't let the truth get out there. It will be damaging to our position.

      Mod this guy down, for Ford's sake!!!

    • Right... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cameldrv ( 53081 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @08:35AM (#11898324)
      Those are some nice republican talking points. Meanwhile, look at the situation. Most early stage medical research is funded by the NIH in the U.S. The lines that are eligible funding are practically useless due to viral contamination. Thus, for all practical purposes, the major source of potential funding for embryonic stem cell research has been cut off. Bush's ban was clearly religiously motivated, and I know of no non-religious person that thinks a clump of cells has moral status.

      What the actual effect of Bush's ban has had is to push funding for this research to the states, which is highly inefficient, because now you have professors moving to different universities in order to be eligible for state funding. Furthermore, you have state politicians trying to decide how much funding this research should get, in a completely uncoordinated manner. Also, you now have some citizens paying taxes for research that benefits the entire country, while others get a free ride.

      This would not have happened under a Clinton, Gore, or Kerry administration, and the ethical objections are certainly not held by a majority of the population.

  • Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:09AM (#11897232)
    It's very cool that we're overcoming these obstacles. It's just too bad these are the obstacles we have to overcome to get to useful public (not private) research.

    It's kind of like the current general up-beat news about the middle-east. It's great that democracy appears to be on the rise - but that does NOT imply wisdom in what lead us to the current circumstances.

    We just have to move foreward as best we can, and hope we can grow beyond our limitations.

    Ryan Fenton

  • Example of Dronig below (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:10AM (#11897240)
    The Pope visits Washington and President Bush takes him for a ride down the Potomac on the presidential yacht. They're enjoying themselves when a gust of wind blows the Pope's hat (zucchetto) off and out onto the water. The Secret Service begins to launch a boat but Bush waves them off saying, "Wait. I'll take care of this."

    Bush steps off the yacht onto the surface of the water, walks out a ways and picks up the hat. Back on board, he hands the hat to the Pope amid stunned silence.

    The next morning the Washington Post carries the story complete with photos under the heading BUSH CAN'T SWIM.

  • This is good news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jone1941 ( 516270 ) <jone1941@gmTIGERail.com minus cat> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:12AM (#11897248)
    But let's not miss the bigger reality. If we do not allow scientists access to funding in promising new fields, some other country will. Sitting back and trying to feel out the "morality" of new scientific research is simply going to put the U.S. behind the numberous countries willing and able to look past there "beliefs". Just my $0.02.
  • "The importance of this work, of course, is that by eliminating contact with animal and human cells, you minimize the risk of contamination with pathogens that could be transmitted to patients and the population at large,"
    Well, isn't that nice.

    Seriously though, if this shows anything, it shows that progress will continue on this subject, regardless of federal funding regulations, or indeed, any legal restrictions in a single country.
    If something can be used in the name of medical progress, it will be use
    • You know, if I pulled out the quote from the top of your comment and replaced it with something from Dr. Mengele, the result would be basically the same.

      Are researchers who extract stem cells from undeveloped babies equivalent to Dr. Mengele? No, I personally don't think so. But I'm humble enough to concede that I might be wrong. It's possible --just possible -- that the next generation will look back on the slaughter of embryos as a crime against humanity on the same level as the Holocaust. The fact that
      • Don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to make the argument that stem cell research is good or bad.
        I'm just stating that if progress (define it as you will, ultimately it is defined by those doing the experimentation) can be made, it will be made. Especially in medicine. It seems that rationalization of [insert controversial thing here] is really easy to do in medicine and there will be someone out there - twisted fuck or not - who will do it.

        And really, let's not kid ourselves, if Mengele's records had survi
        • I'm just stating that if progress (define it as you will, ultimately it is defined by those doing the experimentation) can be made, it will be made.

          Um. I know you were stating that. And I'm arguing with you. Didn't you notice?

          Step one: Let's stop calling it "progress." Calling all experimentation "progress" attaches a positive connotation that's not warranted. Some experimentation results in progress, some doesn't. So let's call it what it is: Experimentation.

          We have rules of ethics that govern experim

  • The Immortal Cell (Score:2, Informative)

    by Kraemahz ( 847827 )
    The CEO of Advanced Cell Technologies (Dr. Michael West) has a book called the Immortal Cell. It's very good, I'd recommend it to anyone. This is a man who has been working his whole lifetime to find the ultimate cure to death and disease. It's a shame so few people recognise the long-term possibilities of stem cells.

  • Meanwhile in Russia... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:23AM (#11897296)
    Here goes the karma sacrifice.
    The Russians, who are quite clever, have figured out how to use non-embryonic stem cells to cure spinal cord injuries.
    Article [pravda.ru]

    Six spinal patients of one of Russian private clinics agreed to participate in a special experiment, which was based on the above-mentioned method. Patients' own stem cells were injected in the place of spinal cord rupture. A positive result was registered with five of the volunteers: they could feel their legs, even move them a little, pelvic organs retrieved their functions too.
    You know that it's interesting that this guy has treated people with stem cells and cured spinal illnesses with the patient's own stem cells! Meanwhile people are talking about embryonic stem cells which haven't yet cured anybody yet. I'm not a doctor but won't these embryonic cells be rejected because they've got different DNA then the person being treated?
    I don't really care either way on the abortion issue but this whole thing makes me think that the side effect of successful embryonic stem cell research will be to reward people montetarily for having abortions or at least make people feel good about aborting.
    • I was just about to point out to that article.

      In fact, Russian scientists recently found a way to repair damaged retina using stem cells.

      More information can be found here [informnauka.ru].

      From the article:

      "...that propose treating laser-burned retina by means of transplanting nerve cells from the human brain stem into the eye. Transplants can survive in the injured eye, migrate to damaged areas, and stimulate the regeneration of retina."

      w00t!

      If this comes by, then it would indeed be a giant leap for application of
    • I'm not a doctor but won't these embryonic cells be rejected because they've got different DNA then the person being treated?

      I'm not a bio person, but I'm pretty sure the DNA doesn't matter, it's just the external structures. (Uh, sort of like you can link different implementations of the same function with different signatures without changing anything if you want to think of it that way.)

      Sort of like with blood donation, all that matters are the structures on the surface of the blood cells. If you put
    • Well what if you took their DNA and put it into growing stem cells, effectively cloning you, then there would be no problems with your body accepting the stem cells.

    • duh... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cryptnotic ( 154382 ) *

      I don't really care either way on the abortion issue but this whole thing makes me think that the side effect of successful embryonic stem cell research will be to reward people montetarily for having abortions or at least make people feel good about aborting.

      That's why the pro-abortion people are in support of embryonic stem cell research.

      • Re:duh... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keir[ ]ad.org ['ste' in gap]> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:09AM (#11898120)
        The idea that stem cell research will either hurt or harm the abortion "cause" is ridiculous. People are going to have abortions regardless. They have had them for hundreds of years, and will continue to have them, no matter what the law says. You don't need any incentive to make people have abortions.

        And no one is going to go out and purposefully get pregnant and abort the child to make money, since no money would ever be paid, due to an ample supply of cells from the people I outlined in my previous point.

    • The Russians, who are quite clever, have figured out how to use non-embryonic stem cells to cure spinal cord injuries.

      This would be great news. But you're going to have to provide a link to something a little more reliable than Pravda before I start celebrating. Results 1 - 10 of about 1,250 from english.pravda.ru for alien. [google.com]

    • My understanding was that you would take cells from the victim, use them to make a clone embryo, and extract the stem cells from that.

      Hence the same DNA.

  • President Bush (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @01:54AM (#11897426) Homepage
    It is important to note that while President Bush has limited federal funding for stem cell research, that is all he has done. There is no federal ban on stem cell research, the only ban is on federal funds being used in such research. Our country's medical companies and educational institutions are free to do their own research.
    • Why does that make it better? The lack of federal funds limits research almost as effectively as a ban on the research. There is simply no reason not to develop new clean lines of embryonic stem cells. Fertility clinics produce many embryos and only implant at most a few into any woman. The rest are just going to be tossed in the trash. Wouldn't it be save peoples' lives with those cells and not waste them.
    • educational institutions are free to do their own research

      As long as it's not a federal grant.

      I'm not disagreeing, but since you mentioned school, I wanted to clear that up.

  • Hello, McFly... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by walgurf ( 230232 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @08:45AM (#11898357)
    Why does it always HAVE to fall back to the Imperial Federal Government to fund everything with MY money?

    Let it be done by private organizations, who are faster, more efficient, and FAR more effective.

  • Stem Cell research has not been limited (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10, 2005 @08:52AM (#11898415)
    Bush has simply limited federal funding. Private research is not restricted in any way. Should American Tax dollars go towards something that a very large subset of the popualtion does not support?

    I do not believe Bush has an agenda here. He is just doing his job.

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