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By Claudia Kalb
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The South Koreans have done it again. Last year Seoul National University's Woo Suk Hwang announced that his team had derived stem-cell lines from cloned human embryos for the first time. Last week Hwang made another announcement: the scientists had now created "patient-specific" embryonic-stem-cell lines, and they'd done it far more efficiently than a year ago--a giant leap forward in the controversial science. "The Korean study underlines the urgency for us to get moving if we're going to be part of the game," says Zach Hall of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).
The new lines were derived from the skin cells of patients who had spinal-cord injuries, an immune disorder or juvenile diabetes. Using so-called therapeutic cloning, the skin cells were merged with donor eggs whose nuclei had been removed, making the new stem cells genetic matches for the patients. Scientists believe that stem cells like these might one day replace unhealthy tissue without fear of rejection. And they would allow researchers to study disease in a lab dish, pinpoint glitches as they happen, then look for new drugs to fix the problem.
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There is no federal law against therapeutic cloning, though some states have banned the procedure. Critics say the technique is morally unacceptable and could lead to human cloning. California and New Jersey, while expressly prohibiting reproductive cloning, permit cloning for the purposes of research. Massachusetts, which has been deliberating legislation, may soon follow suit--and just in time. Pioneering researcher Doug Melton, codirector of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, tells NEWSWEEK that he and collaborator Kevin Eggan have received approval from oversight and ethics boards to move forward on therapeutic cloning to create embryonic stem cells from patients with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and type 1 diabetes. "We're ready to do it," says Melton, whose work is funded through private donations. "Now, instead of waiting until a patient gets one of these diseases, we can try to figure out how these cells go wrong."
As therapeutic cloning moves forward--CIRM's Hall says he expects the institute to fund similar research in California--bioethicists are voicing concerns about how to protect the women who provide eggs. "We want to be sure that they really know what they're doing," says David Magnus, a bioethicist at Stanford. Melton says donors will be informed of the risks (women must take hormone injections before egg retrieval), they will not be paid (outside of expenses) and they must understand that they are donating for research--not for an immediate cure either for one's self or a family member. "These are long-term projects," he says. The scientific news comes just as the stem-cell debate heats up on Capitol Hill. This week the House is expected to vote on a bill that would expand the number of embryonic-stem-cell lines eligible for federal funding. (The bill does not address therapeutic cloning.) Late last week President George W. Bush said he'd veto any legislation that "destroys life in order to save life."
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