What Is The State Of Stem Cell Research Today?
Editor's ChoiceMain Category: Stem Cell Research
Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 13 Sep 2010 - 11:00 PST
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opinions'What Is The State Of Stem Cell Research Today?'
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As most are aware, stem cell research has been an ongoing topic of much controversy and debate for years. So what the latest update and general global concensus these days? Will we actually be able to use stem cells and apply the potential this technology holds to treat heart disease, nerve disorders, intestinal disabilities, pulmonary disease, diabetes and much more? In this month's special edition of Translational Research, the latest developments are discussed and debated from both sides of the controversy by an international team of experts.
Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, M.D., Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and Editor in Chief of Translational Research summarizes:
Publication of this special issue could not have been more timely, given the recent federal district court injunction against federal support for human embryonic stem cell research, this court order stops all pending federal grants and contracts, as well as their peer review, suspending over 20 major research programs and over $50 million in federal funding for them.
Stem cell research began with a goal of being able to cure persons based on their own unique genetic make-up and healing inefficiencies by using harvested cells. There are enormous scientific challenges, but the most debated points of discussion, government intervention and personal doubt, come from intense ethical inclusions such as privacy, consent and at times the withdrawal of that consent to use embryos for example in this evolving treatment application.
Addressing the federal court injunction, Dr. Francis Collins, NIH (National Institute of Health) director, states:
This decision has the potential to do serious damage to one of the most promising areas of biomedical research, just at the time when we were really gaining momentum.
There is a tremendous amount of preclinical testing that still needs to be done however despite court ordered pauses in research. Potential treatments utilizing a variety of therapeutic options are potentially available, and seem to all be very promising. There is evidence supporting the potential therapeutic use of stem cells for acute and chronic diseases. However, the adaptation of preclinical work to in-practice clinical application is a key challenge to the work as the results of several randomized clinical trials indicate. Authors of this latest report all agree that considerable preclinical work is needed to test the potential of these approaches for translation to the clinical setting.
Michael A. Matthay, MD, Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California San Francisco, said:
The progress that has been achieved in the last 30 years in using allogeneic and autologous hematopoietic stem cells for the effective treatment of hematologic malignancies should serve as a model of how clinical applications may yet be achieved with embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, endothelial progenitor cells, and mesenchymal stem cells. Although several challenges exist in translating stem cell therapy to provide effective new treatments for acute and chronic human diseases, the potential for developing effective new cell-based therapies is high.
As has always and will continue to be the case, key questions and challenges remain. For example, The Translational Research article focuses on if use of any stem cell population will increase the risk of cancer in a patient. Also there is inquiry into what is the true long term goal of this research. Is it to deliver therapy is to deliver cells that can function as organ-specific cells for example. Keeping a close eye on the medical and governmental progress on this topic is the key to truly understanding the totality of one of the most debated and grand medical evolutions of our time.
"Bone marrow and circulating stem/progenitor cells for regenerative cardiovascular therapy"
Mohamad Amer Alaiti, Masakazu Ishikawa, and Marco A. Costa
"New therapies for the failing heart: trans-genes versus trans-cells"
Vincenzo Lionetti, and Fabio A. Recchia
"Endothelial lineage cell as a vehicle for systemic delivery of cancer gene therapy"
Arkadiusz Z. Dudek
"Pluripotent stem cell-derived natural killer cells for cancer therapy"
David A. Knorr, and Dan S. Kaufman
All these articles appear in the journal Translational Research.
Written by: Sy Kraft, B.A. - Journalism - California State University, Northridge (CSUN)
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
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31 May. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/200904.php>
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Visitor Opinions (latest shown first)
listen up
posted by konny ppol on 27 Sep 2010 at 11:14 amListen up everyone stem cells can save peoples lives and we are wasting it we can harvest stem cells from already aborted fetuses so whats the problem and if people don't want their unwanted babies being used to help people then don't let the doctors use them for it jeez.
Out of Control FDA Funding of Embryo Stem Cells
posted by Frances Stokley on 14 Sep 2010 at 1:55 pmPray tell who gave the FDA the authority on who get's granted funding for research in medicine? Why is a drug company getting the funding like Geron that has a shady past involving Donald Rumsfeld?
Please tell Obama to keep his FDA out of the field of medicine, they can only do more harm than they already have done to people.
Adult stem cell Research does not require drug company funding -that is false. The Research is being conducted in clinics across the USA if the FDA has not shut them down already. Other countries again will put the USA to shame in research because the profiteering drug co's & politicians can't seem to figure out how to manipulate the process so they all profit. Stop gov.t interference in research, and lets get on with it.
A terminally ill patient
posted by Barbara Hanson on 14 Sep 2010 at 1:42 pmI wish Dr. Collins and others would speak up about the FDA's regulatory ruling that our own stem cells are drugs. With over 70 diseases being treated in humans using their own stem cells worldwide, the U.S. has fallen seriously behind. Millions of terminally and chronically ill patients want to be able to use their own stem cells for treatment in the U.S. now, not in decades. Let embryonic research go on, but adult stem cell treatments should not be blocked by the FDA who is interfering with the practice of medicine. This issue needs to be addressed by those that understand it. Politicians clearly don't.
Motor Neuron Disease
posted by caroline carr-locke on 14 Sep 2010 at 11:25 amJust hurry up and find a cure for ALS It is governments who hold up scientific research not scientists There are millions of people all over the world suffering each minute of each day
P Kennedy
posted by Peter Kennedy on 14 Sep 2010 at 12:28 amA very misleading article which speaks as if embryonic stem cells and non-lethally harvested stem cells have the same uses, side-effects, ethical and legal issues.
In fact stem cells harvested by killing human embryos have never been successfully used to treat any disease, are the only ones which can cause cancer, and are the only ones which raise any ethical concerns. Non-lethally harvested stem cells are being and have been successfully used on thousands of patients for more than 15 years, and the withholding of US government funds for lethal embryonic stem cell "research" has placed absolutely no restraint on the research and use of these stem cells.
The obvious question is, why do the author and the 3 men quoted (if quoted accurately) want to perpetuate the myth that embryonic stem cells are or could be useful when there has been for many years a more effective, safer and perfectly ethical alternative treatment available in non-embryonic stem cells. The only reason I can think of is that embryonic stem cells are potentially patentable and hence far more lucrative to the company which produces them.
US Gross Underfunding for Stem Cell Research
posted by Bill Ward on 13 Sep 2010 at 12:45 pmWith the recent ban on Embryonic Stem Cell Research now is the time to pass a law that has some real authority for spending in both Embryonic and Adult Stem Cell Research. September 3, 2010 my wife had an appointment with doctors that are on the leading edge of Stem Cell Research at the University Texas Neurological Stroke Center in Houston.
My wife's doctor and his colleagues examined my wife to see the possibility of Adult Stem Cell implantation to help alleviate some of my wife's disabilities cause by the stroke. In our discussion, these doctors are working with Pharmaceuticals here and aboard trying to get funding for such research studies. These doctors are frustrated with both the local state and federal government. They are own their own in finding funding for promising results.
According to the doctors there are no coordinated effort in these studies which is a waste of time and effort in an environment of limited funding. They told me at this rate we will be looking at the same dilemma several years from now and nothing will be accomplished.
Why can't the federal government step in and fix this problem once and for all. Could the Vice President introduce a bill to the Senate that would make it mandatory to coordinate research in this area where the taxpayer’s money is involved? In the same bill, why can't you put the debate of stem cell research into law aligned with the constitution and get it out of the courts. The earth is not flat and it's time put some real money into research and untie the hands of researchers and let them do their job. You had the votes twice and Bush vetoed it.
Please do something. My wife and millions of others like her depend on this research. This research is the key to really getting health care cost reduced. It's common sense.
These doctors in Houston said they needed another 1000 like me that understands what they are going through. The Pharmaceuticals are not going to find these cures. How are they going to make money if somehow these researchers find the magic bullet?
Sir, if your wife was facing the future my wife is facing you would do the same. We are not alone, there are millions of Americans waiting on research that is grossly underfunded.
Sincerely,
A concerned husband
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