Comments on: Stem Cell Fairy Tales and Stem Cell Fables

By: Brandon Keim

Brandon Keim — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:39:01 +0000

@Dick Thompson: To be fair to researchers who once predicted a decoded “book of life,” they believed it in good faith. Over the last five years or so, it’s been fascinating to see the genetic community come to terms with the staggeringly complex and causally incomplete nature of the genome. But does this mean that research money was wasted? Of course not. Pieces of the puzzle are uncovered; new pieces are sought in once-unknown regions — the epigenome, the genome’s spatial architecture, and so on. In an ideal world, perhaps public discussion would involve no fairy tales or grand explicatory narratives — but find me a place, in science or out, where this prevails.
@Stanislaus: Regarding the conviction that a living embryo is an early-stage human: in a legal forum, I’d argue with you. In a personal one, I wouldn’t. I’m sympathetic to your sentiments. But I can’t help but feel that considering as human an early-stage embryo, an entity without the slightest flicker of sentience or self-awareness or experience, is to reduce — even dehumanize — our concept of humanity. Should we think of those early-stage embryos as fantastic entities, closer to “human” than a culture of skin cells, and deserving of respect? Certainly. But they are not yet human.

By: Tom Nichols

Tom Nichols — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:17:09 +0000

It always amazes me how conservative politicians, and conservative bloggers will run with any quote possible, take it out of context, and use it to oppose stem cell research as well as anything they are against–including global warming, and in the past, vaccinations, gravity, and pretty much anything else. That is why in the past conservatives were known as tories.

By: Dick Thompson

Dick Thompson — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:46:21 +0000

Rick: Dr McKay was bitten by his, or his colleagues’ snake oil. Scientists too frequently use fairy tales to lobby for policies or dollars. Remember, reading the “book of life” was a compelling enough banner to finance the sequencing of the human genome. To have a researcher assert that “people need a fairy tale” to sell a position is a display of scientific paternalism. Eventually those promises evaporate, and when they do they take with them some portion of public trust. Those losses accumulate, damaging scientists’ credibility broadly and, more importantly, undermining the public’s confidence in an essential source of reasoned advice.

By: Robert Cook-Deegan

Robert Cook-Deegan — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:02:44 +0000

Rick,

I’m not sure why the spatial organization of cells would necessarily be the reason stem cells would not work. After all bone marrow transplantation works really well because the cells find their “homes” despite being spread all over the body. Of course we don’t know the cell biology of either Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s well enough to know why neurons die, but the likelihood of their being amenable to replacement by lineages arising in stem cells would likely depend a lot more on that than on the spatial anatomy or even cell specificity (very particular cells in the substnatia nigra) being discrete and focused. The delivery method would differ, but implantation and growth does not strike me as more or less likely for one disease or the other.

We’ll miss you in cyberspace, but hope to hear much from OSTP.

By: Stanislaus Dundon, Ph.D.

Stanislaus Dundon, Ph.D. — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:21:50 +0000

Rick: I was a AAAS Congressional Science Fellow serving George Brown’s office in 1980-81 and an NSF Fellow at UC Davis in 1989-90. My field is bioethics although I am a trained historian and philosopher of science. This is to assure you that I am not a religious nut. I do believe that a living embryo is a early stage living member of our species and hence not something to be used in experiments. I have three comments: First: A “cell line” is never natural, but is an artifact due to the artificial nature of its nutrient regime.Hence there is no special reason to use ESCR approaches to the development of brain neuron models.
Second: Stem cells will have to be led along to becoming neuron-like through a number of steps. The longer they are subjected to an artificial nutrient regime the more likely they will not be like neurons in the brain.
Third: Learning to coax embryonic stem cells to this point for research purposes will not not be useful for human treatments because you will want (unless you own a drug company)to use the patient’s own cells to avoid dependence on life-long rejection-suppressing drugs. We have perfectly valid scientific reasons to use re-programmed or other pluripotent “adult” stem cells even at the earliest stages of the research in order to be closer to a usable medical product when we have learned what we need. As an ethicist I also object to the ESCR approach because it is an evidently longer path to a cure which is counter to a patient-centered ethic. The shorter path is safer (as noted), and likely to be less expensive and more patient friendly in its products.