“Latest Stem Cells News”

Chinese scientists have bred mice from cells that might offer an alternative to human embryonic stem cells, producing the most definitive evidence yet that the technique could help sidestep many of the explosive ethical issues engulfing the controversial field but raising alarm that the advance could lead to human cloning and designer babies.

In papers published online Thursday by two scientific journals, separate teams of researchers from Beijing and Shanghai reported that they had for the first time created virtual genetic duplicates of mice using skin cells from adult animals that had been coaxed into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells.

The findings were welcomed by supporters and opponents of human embryonic stem cell research as a long-sought vital step in proving that the cells could be as useful as embryonic cells for studying and curing many illnesses.

The results come just as the Obama administration has eased federal restrictions on government funding for embryonic stem cell research, and they could influence how to prioritize millions of dollars in new spending in the field (…)

“The implications of this are both enormously important and troublesome,” said Robert Lanza, a stem cell researcher at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass. “It revives many of the issues raised by reproductive cloning.”

Many scientists believe human embryonic stem cell research could revolutionize medicine by enabling doctors to use genetically matched tissue to treat many diseases. But the field has been mired in controversy because embryos are destroyed to obtain the cells.

In 2006, scientists discovered that they could induce adult cells to regress to a stage that appeared identical to embryonic stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Although scientists have become increasingly adept at creating and manipulating such cells, questions have lingered about whether they are truly equivalent. The new experiments were designed to put the cells to what has long been considered the most rigorous test.

In the studies, published in the journals Nature and Cell Stem Cell, the researchers used viruses to flip genetic switches in the DNA of skin cells from adult mice to turn them into iPS cells in the laboratory. The researchers then injected some of the iPS cells into very early embryos that are capable of forming a placenta but not of fully developing on their own. The resulting embryos were then transferred into the wombs of surrogate mice (…)

The second group of researchers, led by Shaorong Gao of the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, created five iPS cell lines, one of which was able to produce embryos that survived until birth. Although four animals were born, only one lived to adulthood. Nevertheless, the work is “proof that iPS cells are functionally equivalent to embryonic stem cells,” Gao said in a telephone interview.

Other researchers agreed, praising the work as a long-awaited confirmation of the cells’ equivalence.

“This clearly says for the first time that iPS cells pass the most stringent test,” said Konrad Hochedlinger, a stem cell researcher at Harvard University.

Opponents of human embryonic stem cell research said the findings provide the latest in a growing body of evidence for why such research is no longer necessary.

“Nobody has been able to find anything that embryonic stem cells can do that these cells can’t do,” said Richard M. Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “This was the last remaining barrier.”

The Chinese scientists and others, however, said continued research on embryonic stem cells remains crucial to validate iPS cells and because it remains unclear which cells will turn out to be most useful for different purposes.

But the cells’ ability to produce almost genetically identical offspring raised the fear that rogue scientists might misuse the technique to attempt to clone humans.

“The culture wars are not over,” said Jonathan D. Moreno, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist. “There was a lot of celebration about the end of the ethical issues with induced pluripotent stem cells. But this is the paradigm case that shows that the old debates are rapidly being transformed into something even more complicated.” (…)

read full article on Washington Post

Stem-cell science is a fast-moving field. Just three years since a Japanese researcher first reprogrammed ordinary skin cells into stem cells without the use of embryos, scientists at a Massachusetts biotech company have repeated the feat, only this time with a new method that creates the first stem cells safe enough for human use. The achievement brings the potentially lifesaving technology one step closer to real treatments for disease.

Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), reported today in the journal Cell that his team has created stem cells using human skin cells and four proteins. The innovation builds on the breakthrough discovery in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka, who similarly coaxed human skin cells to revert to a pristine, embryonic state by introducing four key genes into the cells, piggybacked on viruses. However, some of those genes are known to cause cancer, which made Yamanaka’s stem cells — known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells — unsuitable for human use.

Read more on TIME

A new technique has shown that allowing embryonic stem cell research and having laws that regulate and monitor this type of research does not prevent the development of less ethically controversial techniques, rather, it creates incentives for them. In Valencia, at the same clinic where the first Spanish embryonic stem cell lines were obtained, the same researcher who developed the lines has obtained embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo.

The announcement was made by Carlos Simòn, making the Centro de Investigaciòn Prìncipe Felipe (CSPF) the third laboratory in the world to succeed with the technique. The first researcher successfully perform this technique was Robert Lanza from Advanced Cell Technology in Boston in 2007 and at the University of California in San Francisco one month later the technique was performed again. The technique used is similar to prenatal diagnosis, which removes a single cell from the embryo. Health Advisor, Manuel Cervera, while presenting these stem cell lines announced the need for this type of work and the willingness to obtain stem cells using this technique.