Stem Cell Sources--The More, The Merrier!

It is becoming clearer that rich sources of multipotential stem cells exist in tissues other than a developing embryo. This should be good news to everyone, not just to the so-called "pro-lifers."

researchers from the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University and Children's Hospital Boston found that amniotic cells in the laboratory can grow into all of the major types of cells, dividing at the rate of once every 36 hours. Researchers coaxed amniotic fluid stem cells to develop into brain cells and injected them into the skulls of mice with diseased brains. The stem cells replaced the diseased areas and appeared to create new connections with surrounding healthy neurons, the researchers reported. Researchers also coaxed amniotic fluid stem cells to become bone cells and implanted them in a mouse. The study found the stem cells calcified and turned into dense, healthy bone. The researchers also coaxed amniotic fluid stem cells to develop into muscle, fat, blood vessel and liver cells. Stem cells extracted from amniotic fluid can be isolated starting at 10 weeks' gestation from fluid taken during tests performed to identify birth defects, according to the study. The stem cells, even after more than two years in the laboratory, did not show signs of aging or of having the potential to grow into tumors, the study found. Amniotic stem cells can be frozen for later use, the Post reports.

Source.

Multipotent stem cells can be found in amniotic fluid, cord blood, the placenta, menstrual blood, testicular tissue, and probably many more tissues. That should be good news--

--but imagine my surprise to find that some people are making a political issue out of this.

Some politically involved people are acting as if these scientific discoveries somehow threaten the primary cause of radical feminist activists--abortion rights. But that sense of threat is clearly delusional, and evidence of paranoia.

Personally, I have no use for either extreme end of the political spectrum. Especially when they involve themselves in areas where they are completely incompetent.

Embryonic stem cell research holds incredible promise for the future. As the potential benefits and risks of stem cell therapies become better understood, it will probably be more important to make products of embryonic stem cells more widely available. Just as important is to understand all the potential sources of stem cells, and what they can be used for.

If adult stem cells can be used to create replacement tissues and organs, at least you know the cells will be MHC compatible if the recipient is also the donor. It may be discovered that adult stem cells will not work. Or a way to make embryonic stem cell products immunologically compatible with a wider range of recipients may be discovered. It's too early to say.

It is not too early to call political critics of non-embryonic stem cell research morons. As for critics of embryonic stem cell research, in the long run they are irrelevant.

Update: A reader has kindly emailed some specifics on the political reasons for certain persons publicly reacting against the amniotic fluid stem cell research. As I had thought, embryonic stem cells public proponents feel threatened by promising discoveries in non-embryonic stem cell research. This is unfortunate, but it is a good example of what happens when politics has undue influence on science.

It is extremely important that both embryonic stem cell research and non-embryonic stem cell research go forward. One are of research should not get all the funding, given all the potential problems that cannot be anticipated with one line or another.