Doyle and Kagen on Today's Stem Cell News

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Hmm. Guess they're both going for the 10:00 evening news.

True "Stem Cell Progress"

The early outlook is the only people who are going to be pissed at this news are liberal political consultants and Democratic politicans who just lost an issue and the folks at WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) in Madison...for about five seconds until they cash in on this one too.

Dr. James Thomson does it again.

Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.

Laboratory teams on two continents report success in a pair of landmark papers released Tuesday. It's a neck-and-neck finish to a race that made headlines five months ago, when scientists announced that the feat had been accomplished in mice.

The "direct reprogramming" technique avoids the swarm of ethical, political and practical obstacles that have stymied attempts to produce human stem cells by cloning embryos.

Scientists familiar with the work said scientific questions remain and that it's still important to pursue the cloning strategy, but that the new work is a major coup.

"This work represents a tremendous scientific milestone - the biological equivalent of the Wright Brothers' first airplane," said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief science officer of Advanced Cell Technology, which has been trying to extract stem cells from cloned human embryos.

"It's a bit like learning how to turn lead into gold," said Lanza, while cautioning that the work is far from providing medical payoffs.

"It's a huge deal," agreed Rudolf Jaenisch, a prominent stem cell scientist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass. "You have the proof of principle that you can do it."

[...]

The new work is being published online by two journals, Cell and Science. The Cell paper is from a team led by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University; the Science paper is from a team led by Junying Yu, working in the lab of in stem-cell pioneer James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Both reported creating cells that behaved like stem cells in a series of lab tests.
Thomson, 48, made headlines in 1998 when he announced that his team had isolated human embryonic stem cells.

This is my favorite quote in the story.

Both labs did basically the same thing. Each used viruses to ferry four genes into the skin cells. These particular genes were known to turn other genes on and off, but just how they produced cells that mimic embryonic stem cells is a mystery.

"People didn't know it would be this easy," Thomson said. "Thousands of labs in the United States can do this, basically tomorrow."

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which holds three patents for Thomson's work, is applying for patents involving his new research, a spokeswoman said. Two of the four genes he used were different from Yamanaka's recipe.

On my old blog I've long supposed the real reason Jim Doyle fought and used stem cell research as an issue wasn't just in memory of his "dear, sweet mother." It was at the urging of UW and WARF who needed the patent money from embryonic stem cell research.

Don't expect to hear anything on this news from Doyle today. Even if it is great news for UW-Madison. He's gotten all the traction he needed off the issue last year.

P.S. NRO's David Freddoso points out something. "Stem Cell Research" is now being called "Embryo Cloning" in the scientific and media community.

What took them so long to finally admit the truth into what was actually happening I wonder?

Dogs and Cats Living Together

Strange day.

After ranting and raving in 2006 about "Stem Cell Progress" enough he even got the endorsement of Alex P. Keaton in the end days, Cong. Steve Kagen (D-WH Bathroom) missed the vote on it today.

Why?

(Might it be that he's from a super-Catholic district and the U.S. Conference of Bishops are urging against this bill in light of yesterday's news about Stem Cell Research?

Actually, he was at his daughter's graduation.)

Then to add to the weirdness, the DCCC issues cookie cutter press releases against Sensenbrenner and Ryan for their votes, but ignores Tom Petri who voted exactly like Jim and Paul did.

Where's the consistency in this game when you expect it?

Stem Cell Progress

As Yuval Levin points out, House Democrats plan to send Bush legislation that would ease up on restrictions placed on federally funded, embryonic stem cell research tomorrow. Given Bush's record, he is expected to make the right decision and veto the measure.

Meanwhile the democrats cry foul.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., a leading advocate of the legislation, did not dispute that assessment in an interview. "If he does veto it again it will just show his complete unwillingness to look at this research that holds the potential for cure of these diseases," she said.DeGette is wrong. Bush will show is complete unwillingness to destroy human embryos to further research.

DeGette is wrong. By vetoing the legislature, Bush shows his complete unwillingness to destroy human embryos - human life - to further research. There are other options. In fact, recent news shows that major progress is being made.

In a big step toward a long-sought goal, three teams of scientists say they've produced the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, at least in mice, without taking the controversial step of destroying embryos.

Genetic "reprogramming" of mouse cells can create cells that mimic embryonic stem cells, biologists report Wednesday, pioneering a new approach to so-called "regenerative" medicine.

The findings by three teams publishing in the journals Nature and Cell Stem Cell mean the reprogrammed cells may offer a less-controversial way to make rejection-free tissues for transplant patients.

More research does need to be conducted before we know if the reprogramming will work in humans. However, this is a step in the right direction. Instead of pushing for the destruction of life, more time and energy should be expended towards improving this process.