Induced Pluripotent stem cell lines

It is amazing to see how the Catholic Church and George Bush can hold us all in thrall regarding human embryonic stem cell research. Because of the opposition to deriving stem cells from human embryos which destroys the embryo, eminent scientists are now reduced to attempting to find stem cell alternatives and have done so - by creating induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from human somatic cells, an advance (?) which is being heralded today in the NY Times. In other words, we can regress human skin cells to an embryonic state by introducing retroviruses including c-Myc (cancer cells) to do so. The only problem with this is that it also creates tertomas which are nasty little creatures - effectively a germ cell tumor which may contain hair, teeth, bones, eyeballs, torsos and hands. Yuk, as Leon Kass would say. Here's an idea: instead of trying to create human embryonic stem cells from someone's nose or foreskin, let us do the research on embryos as nature intended.

I prefer "geek," not "geekette"

Sciencewoman shares a few experiences with lingering sexism against women in science.

I can't help but remember my experience in preschool, where in response to my expressed interest in becoming a doctor, I was told that I "had to be a nurse" because I was a GIRL. I ended up not pursuing medicine for other reasons, but I still proudly identify as a geek through my interests in new technologies, sci-fi, and gaming, and am grateful that I had parents who bought me a microscope and chemistry set instead of the "typical girl fare".

While I am still guaranteed a large amount of (questionable) attention at any gathering of geeks, to my relief it has declined with time as more women push into scientific fields. Any wagers on how long it will be until it's no longer considered unusual for women to be geeky?

(and are there any other lady geeks out there?)

Update on the Genetic Nondiscrimination Bill

One of the things that both conservative and progressive bioethicists have agreed on is the merit of GINA ((the Genetic Non-discrimination Act). And there was great hope when it passed the House easily and may of us saw it as a potential solution to the injustice of genetic discrimination. So what's happening with the bill? Seems it has been stalled in the Senate, single-handedly by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahama). The scoop, according to Wired, is that Coburn is saying that it could place too much strain on businesses.

Where's the outrage on this?

The Model of a Psychopharmacologist

(A quick and dirty driveby post) For those of us who love Neuroethics and Gilbert & Sullivan, here is the youtube video for the day. Created by Stephen M Stahl, MD, PhD, of Neurosciences Education Institute. Enjoy!

Great Non-fiction Read: Liberation Biology

A year ago, the Women’s Bioethics Project launched a bioethics book club designed to help people understand the direct and profound implications of emerging biotechnologies. Over the past year, we’ve featured popular works of fiction from best selling authors including Jodi Picoult, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood and Michael Crichton to stimulate discussion and reflection.

As is the nature of fiction, these authors have focused on the perils rather than the promise of biotechnology in order to create compelling story lines and adequate narrative tension. Based on feedback from our readers, we are launching a new program featuring a selection of non-fiction works on biotechnology to provide a more balanced perspective.

For our first selection, our panel choose Ronald Bailey’s book “Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution” because it provides an engaging, straight forward, and ethically compelling way for readers to consider the policy implications of decisions to ban or limit access to technological advances.

I spoke with Ron, who is an award-winning journalist, science correspondent for Reason Magazine, a former television producer and author of numerous books on the environment. You can listen to our interview here. It touches on a few of the issues covered in his book, provides an important perspective to consider and will likely provoke controversy (I can already imagine the blog postings from people who prefer that we not ask hard questions and critically examine preconceived notions) but we can’t let ideological bullies stop us from engaging, educating, and empowering people to think and reflect on these critical issues.

Training Tomorrow's Peter Parkers

A New York Times article describes new efforts to teach biotech to students in high schools.

MORE than a decade ago, after George Cachianes, a former researcher at Genentech, decided to become a teacher, he started a biotechnology course at Lincoln High School in San Francisco. He saw the class as way of marrying basic biotechnology principles with modern lab practices — and insights into how business harvests biotech innovations for profit.

If you’re interested in seeing the future of biotechnology education, you might want to visit one of George Cachianes’s classrooms. “Students are motivated by understanding the relationships between research, creativity and making money,” he says. [emphasis mine]

Lincoln has five biotech classes, each with about 30 students. Four other public high schools in San Francisco offer the course, drawing on Mr. Cachianes’s syllabus. Mr. Cachianes, who still teaches at Lincoln, divides his classes into teams of five students; each team “adopts” an actual biotech company.

The students write annual reports, correspond with company officials and learn about products in the pipeline. Students also learn the latest lab techniques. They cut DNA. And recombine it. They transfer jellyfish genes into bacteria. They purify proteins. They even sequence their own cheek-cell DNA.

While I am a strong proponent of stronger science education in our high schools, I am concerned that we are teaching skills without teaching wisdom. Yes, the new advances in biotech are fascinating (I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't), but, to quote Uncle Ben, "With great power comes great responsibility." And I worry that while we are encouraging our youth to pursue the incredible power of biotechnological and other advances, we are not teaching them that such power also bestows deep responsibilities - to their employers, their customers, and to society as a whole.

Some may argue that high school students do not have the cognitive capabilities to engage in such moral/ethical discussion, but at least some of them do, as evidenced by the thriving sport of high school Speech and Forensics (aka Debate) where policy and philosophy are routinely utilized on an undergrad level to address current events and issues. Perhaps not everyone does, but a student who is able to handle complicated genetic manipulation ought to be able to absorb at least a little social awareness on the side.

Of course, it will be more difficult to find someone versed in ethical philosophy who is sufficiently motivated to work in the high schools (as there are no "Ethical Philosophy" corporations to give backing), and it is probably not wise to create an adversarial binary environment (ethicists vs. corporate interests) but some type of engagement must occur, lest we allow today's youth (tomorrow's leaders) to develop motivations based solely on personal achievement and profitability, and not built at least partly on a sense of responsibility to society.

When Quacks Attack

How one man's invention is part of a growing worldwide scam that snares the desperately ill (Seattle Times)

A Seattle Times investigation has uncovered a global network of manufacturers who sell unproven devices, and practitioners who prey on unsuspecting patients.

Capitalizing on weak government oversight, they have used these devices — some illegal, others potentially dangerous — to drain patients' bank accounts, misdiagnose diseases, and divert critically ill people from life-saving care.

These victims are casualties in the growing field called "energy medicine" — alternative therapies based on the belief that the body has energy fields that can be manipulated to improve health. Energy devices range from handheld machines the size of television remotes to behemoth machines that weigh hundreds of pounds, with costs ranging from $1,200 to $55,000.

Unfortunately, many people turn to these and other treatments, loosely termed "alternative therapies" (to include herbal supplements and holistic remedies) and the price they pay can range from thousands of dollars to their lives, whether as a direct result of the treatment or because they neglected to see real medical care for a serious condition. The reasons people turn to these practices range from a distrust of establishments like the medical community to bad experiences with previous medical treatments to a distorted perception of financial costs and expected gains.

I will be the first to admit that I do take vitamin C supplements and indulge in yoga and Shiatsu for my health because I feel that the potential gains outweigh the risks (both of which I have researched to a good extent). But I draw the line for myself and friends at expensive price tags or risky procedures; while there may be some benefit to be had, further research needs to be performed before alternative therapies are introduced freely to the public, who has a reasonable expectation of safety and efficacy.

There are many angles to a story like this – new medical technologies, public misinformation, cultural and social tendencies to believe in quack treatments – and there is no easy answer, especially when a vehement denial of the efficacy of alternative therapies by medical professionals could only exacerbate the existing atmosphere of distrust and suspicion that feeds this problem in the first place. While rational engagement by professionals and skeptics is important, a sincere and sensitive discussion on a cultural level will yield more progress in this issue.

A new take on Descartes' "I think, therefore..."

If you could use a little chuckle this morning, check out the new philosophy of 'unidentalism'. [Hat tip to Jay Hughes of IEET for this one].

Colorado Supreme Court OKs Ballot Initiative to give Personhood to Embryos

[Hat tip to Terry Tomsick for this story]

From the Denver Post:

The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the go-ahead to proponents of a ballot initiative seeking to amend the state constitution in 2008 to define personhood as a fertilized egg.

Opponents to the measure, which would lay the foundation to make abortion illegal in the state, challenged the ballot title as misleading to voters.

The court ruled in a 7-0 decision that it is clear and meets the state requirement for a single-subject ballot question.

"Proponents of this initiative have publicly stated that the goal is to make all abortion illegal, but nothing in the language of the initiative or its title even mentions abortion," said Kathryn Wittenben, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado.

"If that's not misleading, I don't know what is," Wittenben said.

The amendment, if approved by voters, would extend constitutional protections from the moment of conception, guaranteeing every fertilized egg the right to life, liberty, equality of justice and due process of law.

The initiative's 20-year-old proponent, Kristi Burton, founder of Colorado for Equal Rights, announced the court's decision Tuesday afternoon to loud applause at the Pro-Life Leaders Summit at the Timbers Hotel in Denver.

"This is a very simple petition. That's all we need," Burton said. "The people of Colorado will support protecting human life at every stage. More than that, we have God. And he is enough."

The rest of the article can be found here.

Story of the Week: Primate Cloning

A few years ago, a Korean scientist defrauded the world and scientific community by claiming to have cloned human embryos -- but this week, researchers in Oregon say that they have cloned the embryos of macaque monkeys to derive embryonic stem cells. Listen to the NPR story here and then take a look at what our colleague Art Caplan had to say about it on MSNBC:

"For quite some time many important and influential people have been freaking out over the prospect of cloning a human being. When Dolly the cloned sheep’s existence was revealed to the world 10 years ago, panic ensued. World leaders — including the president, the pope and numerous prime ministers — condemned Dolly’s creation as a regrettable and dangerous step toward cloning a human being. " Read the rest of the commentary here.

Intersecting Human Rights Crises: Organ Transplantation and Organ Trafficking

Seen the Movie "Dirty Pretty Things?"

Some Things Are Too Dangerous
To Keep Secret Like…
Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism!

Come to the IHEU-Appignani Center for
Bioethics Panel!

Intersecting Human Rights Crises:
Organ Transplantation and Organ Trafficking

Who: IHEU Appignani Center for Bioethics
What: Panel discussion on organ trafficking and transplantation
Where: 2nd floor, 777 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017
When: Tuesday, December 11, 2007, 5:30-7:30 PM
Cost: Pay at door: $35 General Public | $20 Students
RSVP: by Dec. 3, 2007
Contact: 212-687-3324 (tel) | 212-661-4188 (fax) |
AnaLita@iheu.org

The speakers will explore the ethical issues of organ trafficking with a focus on shortage of organs for transplantation, lack of organ donors, 'black-market' organ trafficking, some problems
with organ transplantation such as possible immune rejection and keeping organs alive outside the body, among others. The panel will feature keynote addresses by leading bioethicist Art Caplan, and Rachel Mayanja, UN Assistant Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women.  The panel will also include medical doctors, experts in gender issues at the United Nations and the Council of Europe as well as the director of New York Organ Donor Network.

Over at the Business Ethics Blog: Sexism in Coffee Shops

Thanks to Chris MacDonald over at the Business Ethics Blog for posting this interesting tidbit about Waiting for Good Joe: Do coffee shops discriminate against women? Who would have thunk it? You can read the full post here.

"Every Month Contains a Miracle" part two - The Podcast Interview with Cryo-Cell

We had posted about the new product C'elle earlier this month and we had a chance last week to interview scientist and vice president of research and development Julie Allickson and vice president of marketing Rob Doll. The interview is now available via podcast at archives.org. We discussed how the project came into existence, the potential, the costs, and a few other things.
Give a listen and let us know what you think -- are there any follow-up questions you would like us to ask?

So what does a pharmacist do anyway?

U.S. District Court Judge files injunction against Washington State's requirement for pharmacists to fill prescriptions. (namely Plan B)

A federal judge has suspended Washington state's requirement that pharmacists sell "morning-after" birth control pills, a victory for druggists who claim their moral objections to the drug are being bulldozed by the government.

In an injunction signed Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton said pharmacists can refuse to sell the morning-after pill if they refer the customer to another nearby source. Pharmacists' employers also are protected by the order.

I have to ask whether there is a proximity and availability guarantee in this injunction - if the nearest pharmacy is fifty miles away and it is not established whether they will provide Plan B, then this is an unjust and unfair exemption.

"On the issue of free exercise of religion alone, the evidence before the court convinces it that plaintiffs ... have demonstrated both a likelihood of success on the merits and the possibility of irreparable injury," Leighton wrote in reply.

"Irreparable injury" - yes, they seem to be referring to a person's personal religious status and how protecting that is more important than, say, a person being allowed to fill a legal and valid prescription for medication that affects their health. Note that while this specific case affects Plan B, the door is open to refuse any prescription; I have friends who were refused their birth control pills because they were unmarried... they took them for hormonal imbalances, not for contraception. That said, I don't think we will see refusals for other medications that could encourage "immoral behavior" (ED medication, anyone?) anytime soon. Yet again, women are being forced into a position where we have to justify our decisions and prove that we deserve to be treated with a basic level of respect and professionalism.

The issue I would like to see resolved here is the problem with false advertising and deceptive practices. We need to clarify (and if necessary, redefine) the professional label of "pharmacist" and "pharmacy" and require complete transparency in what services are reasonably assumed to be provided and which will be prima facie rejected for personal beliefs. I propose that we make it a requirement that these businesses must explicitly state through a disclaimer that they do not provide all services and will refuse to fill prescriptions for certain medications (which will be specifically listed) in any place they call themselves a pharmacy - signs, advertisements, brochures, commercials, etc. Additionally, such a pseudo-pharmacy should not be allowed to be placed in a remote location where they would be the only pharmacy within a reasonable radius; they cannot be counted on to serve as a real pharmacy and people should not be deceived into thinking they can count on them to dispense legal and valid prescriptions.

Or why don't we reduce the government red tape and let the state of Washington, the only one that, to my knowledge, provides free contraception for anyone of low income who asks (Take Charge) because we recognize the value in people having the power to decide for themselves what is best for their health, their families, and their lives, decide what is best for Washington State?

Addendum: Additionally, I urge everyone to reject the comparison of this passive-aggressive act of refusal to civil disobedience, as it does not fulfill the requirements for this honored course of action in response to unjust laws in a democracy.

John Rawls describes civil disobedience as "a public, nonviolent, and conscientious act contrary to law" and urges that the disobeyer accept arrest and punishment as meted out by officials to demonstrate respect for legal procedures. Thus, Henry David Thoreau accepted his punishment of being jailed for refusing to pay taxes that would support a war; to him, acting within the bounds of his pacifist conscience was more important that staying out of jail. Additionally, nonviolence is a commonly accepted requirement of proper civil disobedience, which could extend to allowing harm to come to another through negligence of duty.

Consequently, we see that prescription refusers act covertly (they do not make it clear ahead of time to the public and authorities), allow harm to befall patients seeking their aid (through the ability to deny any prescription), attempt to circumvent the laws and obligations concerning their profession, and demand protection from legal consequences of their breach of the law. Additionally, their situation more closely matches the concept of "Rule Departure," where an official charged with specific duties refuses to fulfill those duties due to a conflict of conscience; with pharmacists, there is an expectation that they will dispense medications for any legal and valid prescription in a timely fashion, and by refusing to dispense, they violate their vested duties.

Addendum 2 (11/14): I am so excited that people are reading this blog and sharing their own opinions. But I would love to see a reasonable argument engaging the standards I have proposed rather than the usual retreat to ad hominems and overly simplistic moral doctrines. Let's come up with a solution by finding answers.

Stem Cells May Reverse Alzheimers' symptoms

From the UK's Daily Mail in London, November 7 : Scientists at the University of California in Irvine have for the first time used stem cells to reverse memory problems associated with strokes, Alzheimer's, and degenerative brain disease in mice. The researchers say that the cells repaired damaged parts of the brain and restored lost memory. They believe that their technique may also work on humans. Full article here.

Good news, but I am curious as to why the scientists used newborns' neuronal stem cells as opposed to embryonic or adult stem cells?

Setback in AIDS vaccine

More on the setback in the AIDS vaccine that we mentioned earlier.

The link between weight and likely cause of death

As our bloggers have commented several times before, the science of obesity is contested, uncertain, and as Medical Humanities Blogger Daniel Goldberg said, 'heavy with value-laden beliefs'. Confirming this uncertainty, today, Gina Kolata of the NY Times reports that an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows overweight people are much less likely to die from diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, infections, and lung disease, and that the lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease.

Of course, the study cannot speak to cause and effect -- but it certainly underscores that science has a lot to learn when it comes to studying optimal weight.

Two very different views of the future

The upcoming BBC series "Visions of the Future" has evoked two very different responses: One site, in the Women's Section of the UK TimesOnline hails "Welcome to the New Body Shop" and presents a fairly positive outlook on what science and technology will be able to contribute to the future. The other article, in the UK Telegraph, "And we will have the power of gods" presents a cautionary-beware-of-hubris outlook.
Is this merely a difference in reporting styles between the newspapers or representative of how different people look at the same news and see different things?

[Addendum, November 15, 2007: FutureNerd Steve Witham has some interesting things to say about ways of thinking about the future. Check his blog(s) at http://toesfirst.blogspot.com
and the IS Group].

Eulogies For Washoe and Alex -- Invitations to Enlarge Our Moral Universe

Washoe, the first chimpanzee ever taught American Sign Language, passed away on Tuesday night. An amazing creature, she was born in 1965 in West Africa, where she was captured by the Air Force. She was brought to the United States, initially for research use in the space program, but after less than a year in the program, she took up residence with two scientists, Allen and Beatrix Gardner, who raised and treated her as a deaf human child; during her lifetime, she mastered the use of more than 250 signs and taught them to other chimpanzees. The NY Times said "by age 5 she had mastered enough signs to capture the world’s attention and set off a debate over nonhuman primates’ ability to learn human language that continues to this day." She died in bed at age 42, of natural causes, surrounded by staff members and other primates who had been close to her. More details about her life and tributes can be seen at the Friends of Washoe website.

Just several weeks ago, the world also lost another star, Alex, the talking grey parrot. Alex, who served as an inspirational model for the character "Gerard" in Michael Crichton's novel Next, was able to identify 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities up to and including 6 and a zero-like concept. Below is a video interview with Dr. Irene Pepperberg, the scientist who trained and studied him for three decades. More details about Alex's life and tributes can be seen at The Alex Foundation website.





What both Washoe and Alex did for us in the field of biomedical ethics was to force us re-examine our attitudes towards our selves and towards the other inhabitants of the planet that we share. Washoe and Alex helped us recognize that the lines between 'human' and 'nonhuman' are not so brightly drawn -- that we are interconnected and interdependent and that drawing these separations is an illusion. In the words of Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh:

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow, and without trees we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either...

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the tree cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too...

You cannot point out one thing that is not here -- time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper... As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.

[From The Heart of Understanding Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1988, pages 3-5.]

Alex and Washoe, by virtue of who they were, extended invitations to those of us in the human sphere to enlarge our moral universes -- An invitation which many of us have gratefully accepted. May they Rest In Peace.

"Every Month Contains a Miracle"

Today, Cryo-Cell announced its discovery of a new, unique type of stem cell found in menstrual blood that may one day have the potential to treat a number of diseases. With the slogan, "Every Month Contains a Miracle", Cryo-Cell also launched an exclusive and proprietary new service, called C’elle, to enable women to collect and cryopreserve their menstrual stem cells. Some more info from the media press kit:

Menstrual Stem Cells

• Cryo-Cell has discovered unique stem cells in menstrual blood that express multipotent markers of both adult and embryonic stem cells. These menstrual stem cells multiply quickly and can differentiate into other types of cells, including heart, nerve, bone, cartilage and fat, according to early research.
• The menstrual stem cells appear to have characteristics similar to those derived from the uterus (human endometrial stem cells), but they can be easily harvested in a non-invasive manner from menstrual fluid.
• This is the first time researchers have found an adult stem cell that is highly prolific and multipotent (able to differentiate into other cell types), and can also be easily harvested in a painless, non-invasive manner as compared to other stem cell sources such as bone marrow, fat or adult peripheral blood.
• Several leading stem cell researchers have launched preclinical studies to evaluate the potential of these unique menstrual stem cells to treat heart disease, Type 1 diabetes and spinal cord injury.
• Researchers believe that these menstrual stem cells could someday be used treat other serious illnesses, such as osteoporosis, stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and that the cells may even be used for customized anti-aging or sports medicine treatments. However, current research is very preliminary and it may take years to develop widely available clinical therapies.
• Menstrual stem cells’ unique properties, combined with their ease of collection and isolation, mean they could become a breakthrough source of multipotent cells. The need for regenerative therapies incorporating cells that have the ability to engraft and differentiate is vast. The ideal cell would also have the ability to be used in an allogeneic manner, meaning it could be used to treat others with whom there is a genetic match. These cells appear to have all of these properties.
• A summary of research related to the menstrual stem cell can be found at http://www.celle.com/mediaKit.aspx

We've contacted Cryo-Cell to arrange for an interview with one of their experts about the ethical implications, and hope to hear back from them shortly. Stay tuned!