Category: Opinion

In the wake of the stunning announcement by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor James Thomson that he and his team had succeeded in reprogramming human skin cells to create new stem cell lines, many people have begun to speculate on the effect that this breakthrough will have on the stem cell debate.
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As the parent of a child with diabetes, it is my hope that Thomson’s breakthrough will allow our nation to move forward with a national policy that increases public funding of all forms of stem cell research. I would like to believe that we will see an end to the contentious debate over this research that has caused years of delay and that too often has left researchers without adequate resources.

I am not optimistic, however.

A new way to trick skin cells into acting like embryos changes both everything and nothing at all. Being able to reprogram skin cells into multipurpose stem cells without harming embryos launches an exciting new line of research. It’s important to remember, though, that we’re at square one, uncertain at this early stage whether souped-up skin cells hold the same promise as their embryonic cousins do.

Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both the U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.

MADISON â?? Scientists and others close to Wisconsin’s research sector often use the term “public-private partnership” to describe a Nirvana of converging interests: the power of a public research university paired with the flexibility and rapid response of private collaborators.

But what does such a partnership actually look like? The recent announcement that a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has produced clinical-quality human stem cells from skin cells offers a world-class example.

The convergence of science and ethics is beautiful to behold. The beauty is significantly enhanced when science becomes not only more ethical, but more practical in application with great potential for human benefit. That is what appears to be happening with the recent disclosure that two separate teams of scientists have discovered a means to turn ordinary human skin cells into pluripotent stem cells, without destroying living human embryos to do so.

The debate surrounding embryonic stem cell research began in the late 1990s when University of Wisconsin researcher James Thomson first isolated the human stem cell. In the initial process, stem cells â?? some of which have potential to become any kind of cell in the human body and thus hold great potential for curing diseases such as Alzheimerâ??s and Parkinsonâ??s â?? were extracted from a human embryo, destroying it in the process.

Last week, University of Wisconsin professor James Thomson and Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka discovered a method of isolating stem cells without the use, or destruction, of human embryos.

A new breakthrough in stem cell research engineered by UW-Madison researchers is not only exciting news for scientists and patients, but has the potential to quell religious and political debates that have plagued the technology.

Research teams at two prestigious universities announced a major feat of biological alchemy this week: They’ve taken ordinary human cells and turned them into cells with all the characteristics and promise of embryonic stem cells.

For almost a decade now, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have been heralded as a panacea for a range of ailments — from neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s to failing organs in cancer patients. These remarkable cells do have the potential to bring medical advances: They can turn into every cell type of the body, and can provide a potentially unlimited supply of transplantable cells.