Stem Cells From Embryo Biopsies?

Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology reports that it has grown embryonic stem cells from one cell of an 8-cell embryo left over in a fertility clinic and donated for research, without doing apparent harm to the remaining embryo. If the technique is successful the stem cell lines produced should qualify for federal research funding under President Bush’s policy. However, some doubt remains about the actual consequences for the embryo. Although the embryo biopsy technique has been used in fertility treatments for genetic testing, studies of the actual effects on pregnancy are disputed. Without definitive evidence of safety for the original embryo the administration’s policy seems unlikely to change, according to The Washington Post.

The company received criticism in 2006 for announcing that they had established this technique, but at the time they had not allowed the remaining embryos to be cultured to see if, indeed, they appeared to be normal. This time they went through the process of ensuring that the normal tissues were apparently created by the embryos as they divided.

The uncertainty about damage to the embryo from this biopsy procedure that is used in the private sector is partly due to a lack of federally supported research on in vitro fertilization, a decision made 1980 by the Reagan administration. Ironically, a decision made over 25 years ago out of concern about research involving human embryos now appears to threaten one pathway to alternatives to research that destroys human embryos. (I have previously written about this problem with stem cell biologist John Gearhart.)

Besides the safety issue, some opponents of human embryonic stem cell research object that the single-cell biopsy concept is ethically flawed because the single cell that is removed at the 8-cell stage might itself have the potential to form an embryo under the right conditions.

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