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Stem Cell Breakthrough Eliminates Ethical Concerns?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science

It appears as if this is the case.

Two teams of scientists are reporting today that they turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo — a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field.

All they had to do, the scientists said, was add four genes. The genes reprogrammed the chromosomes of the skin cells, making the cells into blank slates that should be able to turn into any of the 220 cell types of the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone. Until now, the only way to get such human universal cells was to pluck them from a human embryo several days after fertilization, destroying the embryo in the process.

The reprogrammed skin cells may yet prove to have subtle differences from embryonic stem cells that come directly from human embryos, and the new method includes potentially risky steps, like introducing a cancer gene. But stem cell researchers say they are confident that it will not take long to perfect the method and that today’s drawbacks will prove to be temporary.

Still, should we stop research using the other method? Of course not. Until this proves to be the best, most effective way, both should be pursued.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 and is filed under Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Stem Cell Breakthrough Eliminates Ethical Concerns?”

Jim S Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Still, should we stop research using the other method? Of course not. Until this proves to be the best, most effective way, both should be pursued.

And every one of the scientists in these teams agrees with that viewpoint.
Jimmy the Dhimmi Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Until this proves to be the best, most effective way, both should be pursued.

What about ethical? Are there even such things as “ethical concerns” in medicine? This is bad news for all those ESTC fetishists.
Joshua Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Volokh Conspiracy’s Russell Korobkin has weighed in on this. He is only guardedly optimistic, not just over the effectiveness of this technique but on whether embryo research opponents will buy into it:

The technology suggests it might one day be possible to use a cell reprogrammed in this way to create an entire person, in the same way that an implanted embryo can develop into a person. Given this possibility, will people who believe embryos have the same moral value as persons and thus should not be used for experimentation believe that reprogrammed cells also have the same moral value as persons and thus also should not be used for experimentation? There is a substantial difference between an embryo and and embryonic stem cell, but not everyone who favors the protection of embryos thinks this difference is dispositive of the question.

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