Stem_Cell_Research

| STEM CELL RESEARCH LEGISLATION | | | Joshua Dye | 10/9/2010 | | First you have to understand what we are dealing with and the definition of what we are speaking about. Stem cells are cells found in all multi cellular organisms. They are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and differentiate into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Research in the stem cell field grew out of findings by Ernest A. McCulloch and James E. Till at the University of Toronto in the 1960s. The two broad types of mammalian stem cells are: embryonic stem cells that are isolated from the inner cell mass of blast cysts, and adult stem cells that are found in adult tissues. In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into all of the specialized embryonic tissues. In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing specialized cells, but also maintain the normal turnover of regenerative organs, such as blood, skin, or intestinal tissues. For purposes of the current controversy, these cells are known as "pluripotent stem cells". These are specialized cells which are formed at the very beginning stages of human embryo development and are part of what is known as a blast cyst. These cells are unique because at this stage in development they are not specialized and have the capacity to develop into 130 different human tissue types. Political pressure to expand the level of government-funded stem cell research has increased amid ongoing reports of the potential medical efficacy of such treatments. Congress passed legislation authorizing such expansion See senate vote See House vote but President Bush vetoed the legislation based his religious convictions. There is some indication from scientific advances of the improved potential of non-embryonic stem cells. The medical possibilities which might result from stem cell research continue to excite the scientific community. There are some indications that progress is being made in developing alternatives to the use of embryos in pursuing this technology. If this happens, most political/ethical concerns regarding the matter will be resolved. The competitive aspects of this research were evidence by recent revelations that a South Korean scientist had faked research that had purported replicated individual DNA. The stem cell controversy was an issue in the 2008 Presidential campaign in part because of the recent death of former President Ronald Reagan from Alzheimer's disease. Some of his family members have been vocal advocates of the potential of stem cell research to provide treatments for such conditions and his son spoke at the Democratic convention on the subject. Polls taken at that time indicated that the research proposals have widespread public support even among Republican voters. Voters in California went so far as to approve a ballot measure to establish a public funded stem cell research program in that state. As in past election years, the 2008 Democratic platform supports funding this research. The 2008 Republican platform continued to reflect the party's religious based opposition to embryonic stem cell research. There are indications that some European and Asian countries have the green light to actively pursue this research. Although research is only in the early stages, there is a growing consensus among researchers that many very effective medical treatments can be realized through cloning stem cells. This is because these cells can be made to replicate specific human tissues. These cells offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissue to treat a myriad of diseases, conditions, and disabilities including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. There is almost no realm of medicine that might not be touched by this innovation Current research projects have obtained stem cells from tissue which has been removed during terminated pregnancies or from embryos produced by in-vitro fertilization clinics. Once isolated, the cells can be grown up in the laboratory and stored for future use. Each reservoir of cells, derived from a single embryo, is known as a cell line. A more reliable supply would be obtained by copying or cloning embryos specifically for their stem cells. Because stem cells are obtained from destroyed embryos, the concerns are similar to those surrounding abortion. Most opponents of legal abortions also oppose this research. In addition, the possibility that cell lines could be developed from cloned embryos raises ethical concerns associated with propriety of human cloning. The most prominent global opponent of this research is the Catholic Church although many individual American Catholics do not take this view. In fact the official Catholic position is also opposed to in vitro fertilization because it is unnatural and because it results in the production of embryos which are not used. During President Bush's visit to Europe, the Pope urged the President not to support funding of this research. Political pressure to expand the level of government-funded stem cell research has increased amid ongoing reports of the potential medical efficacy of such treatments. Congress passed legislation authorizing such expansion but President Bush vetoed the legislation based on his religious convictions during his presidency. There is some indication from scientific advances of the improved potential of non-embryonic stem cells. In a nationally televised speech on August 9, 2001, President Bush ended months of deliberation on the issue of federal funding of stem cell research. He stated that the Administration will support continued funding for research on stem cell lines which have already been extracted. He stated that 65 cell lines already exist which is sufficient for present research purposes. This has been a difficult issue for the Bush Administration because of a campaign pledge to end such funding. By avoiding a total ban on funding, the Administration may have dodged a conflict with Congress where the majority supports stem cell research. Many in the scientific community were disappointed and have questioned whether the 65 stem cell lines exist. The decision did produce a predictably mixed reaction from those advocating a total ban on such research. The decision also limited the number of government funded research projects but it didn’t have no effect on private stem cell research except that there will be a continuing ban on the cloning of embryos for the purpose of extracting stem cells. Because this technology was so promising, it is likely that there will be privately funded research. Because of the limitations, there is minimal funding for embryonic stem cell research although there is significant funding of other types of research involving stem cells. The Gallup Poll following the debate indicated support for the decision but there is evidence that the public has a limited understanding of the issue. Three years after President Bush announced restrictions on federally funded medical research using stem cells from human embryos, a California panel meet and discussed to begin the process of granting $3 billion in state money to stem A few states — notably New Jersey, Wisconsin and Illinois also rushed to catch up with California in encouraging stem cell research, with an eye on the prestige and economic benefits that could result. Democrats generally tend to support funding of this new technology for medical research purposes and this position is set forth in the 2004 Democratic platform. The Republican Party is divided on this issue as it is on the abortion issue. Although there has been no vote, 60 senators including 13 Republicans signed a letter urging President Bush to support federal funding for using embryos from in vitro clinics for this research. On July 31, 2001, the House rejected a Democratic proposal which would permit the cloning of embryos solely for medical research purposes and instead passed legislation which banned all such cloning. The Senate has not acted on this legislation. First on June 20, 2007 Executive Order 13435 was signed into law by George Bush that expanded the research for stem cells. Also on March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13505, entitled Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells .Both of these EO changed the way National Institutes of Health can support and conduct human stem cell research. The HHS Secretary, through the NIH Director, is required to review existing NIH and other widely-recognized guidelines on human stem cell research and issue new NIH guidance within 120 days of the date of the EO. This will help with getting the research going and also maybe get this research going in the right direction. These orders will expand the scope of how we use these stem cells in an ethical way for good. Also maybe the funding for this research will greatly be increased. U.S. stem cell policy hurts American competitiveness and slows international research. American scientists are forced to work with old, contaminated stem cell lines, while scientists around the world use the latest lines to speed up their work and close the research gap. This restrictive U.S. policy makes collaboration with foreign scientists more difficult and means a large amount of worldwide funding for stem cell research is being used on less useful lines. Updating the American stem cell policy to allow federally funded scientists to use the best research tools would both aid research internationally and improve U.S. competitiveness. Our restrictive federal stem cell policy hampers international research. Science is a collaborative process; research discoveries by one group of scientists often provide the basis for advances in laboratories around the world. The U.S. is by far the largest funder of stem cell research, spending three times as much as any other country, and state funding in the U.S. also exceeds that of most other countries. But federal funding goes to only 21 older stem cell lines that are of limited use for research. And our federal policy forces states that want to allow researchers to use newer, federally ineligible stem cell lines to waste resources on new infrastructure and equipment; 86 percent of state funding for stem cell research has gone to building infrastructure, purchasing equipment, and training scientists, not to actual research. The federal stem cell policy also makes it difficult for other countries to collaborate with the United States, because their scientists are working with newer lines that are ineligible for our federal funding. Home to the top facilities in the world, the U.S. has traditionally been an important research hub. Yet restrictive federal policies make international scientists less eager to work with federally funded scientists, even though there is greater available funding from the National Institutes of Health. The international community recognizes the damage that the U.S. policy causes to international efforts. The International Society for Stem Cell Research strongly supported recent legislation that President Bush vetoed that would have allowed federal funding for research using newer stem cell lines. The U.K., which frequently collaborates with the U.S., has even bypassed the federal government in favor of forming ties with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the body that oversees stem cell research in the state. Prime Minister Blair is interested in working with CIRM because he thinks the U.K. can more effectively collaborate with California scientists than researchers who receive only federal funding, and because he believes he can lure private U.S. stem cell firms to Britain. The U.S. stem cell policy has relegated the federal government to second place status in its own country. While the U.S. lags, others countries are rushing to fill the research gap. The number of stem cell publications by U.S. researchers decreased from roughly 33 percent to around 25 percent between 2002 and 2004. Sensing an opportunity, other countries have begun to focus strongly on supporting stem cell research; the U.S. greatly outspends the U.K. on stem cell research in total dollars, but the U. K. devotes a larger percentage of its overall bioscience funding to stem cells. These countries also have created more progressive stem cell policies that support research using a wide variety of stem cell lines. Singapore, a country with a much smaller national budget than the U.S., has taken substantial steps to support stem cell research. The country has built a $300 million biomedical research facility called the Biopolis, has announced that it will spend $7.5 billion on biomedical research over the next five years, and is actively courting U.S. stem cell researchers. This support has paid off; the Biopolis has already attracted major U.S. stem cell researchers from the National Cancer Institute, MIT, and the University of California. A biotech company in Singapore was also the first to announce the derivation of stem cell lines that meet clinical use standards for humans, a breakthrough that promises to speed up research and be quite profitable. The U.S. is losing ground in stem cell research, but the outlook is not wholly grim. America still outspends other countries on research, and has a research infrastructure that is the most effective in the world at transforming new discoveries into clinical applications. Yet the U.S. must act quickly to support stem cell research on par with international competitors. The biggest threat is not just that current research and collaborative efforts with other countries will be hampered, but also that potential future American stem cell researchers will be discouraged from entering the field, leading to a far greater stem cell research gap in the future. A rising tide lifts all laboratories, but if the U.S. does not update its stem cell policy soon, it may miss the boat. In many countries, policies regarding stem cell research are only now being developed. The United States policy, which is primarily involved with the issue of federal funding, is not overly restrictive when compared to many policies which do presently exist. In February 2004, South Korean scientists reported that they had been successful in cloning human embryos for 30 days and then extracting stem cells. Several months later it became apparent that this claim was fraudulent. This reported scientific advance was condemned by religious leaders and has renewed the call for international regulation. Recently scientists in Japan and Great Britain have taken steps to pursue human cloning research as well. There is ongoing research involving adult stem cells as well as stem cells extracted from umbilical tissue. Already this research has resulted in some effective experimental treatments for certain conditions. Some animal research suggests that techniques could be developed to make adult stem cells from the same specialized tissues that embryonic stem cells do. Also I think if this will save lives without harming a fetus why not. I mean a fetus is a baby that is where the baby starts and if people want to donate their fetus that’s their choice. Remember we are a nation who was built on freedoms and the right to choose. I believe that our whole system has gotten messed up that we forgot what is wrong and right. Our judgment has been clouded by all these laws and regulations. If you are put in a situation to lose a family member or dear friend what would you do' None of us know cause only ones in that situation know how to deal with it so understand before you speak because lives could be saved and lives could be taken away with this solution. Enrichment analysis of functional groups within the stem cell-derived cardiopoietic transcriptome. (a) Approximately half of all expression profiles in cardiopoietic cells are down regulated while a third do not change more than 1.5-fold compared to unstimulated embryonic stem cells. Unregulated genes account for >10% of all genes. (b, c) Ontological analysis of down regulated and unregulated biological processes in cardiopoietic cells. (d, e) Identification of overrepresented canonical functions in cardiopoietic cells (CP) using Ingenuity Pathways Analysis (IPA) in down regulated and unregulated gene lists. Significance as determined by IPA was plotted as log P value for down regulated genes and -log P value for those unregulated to emphasize direction of change. The dashed line indicates the threshold where the P value = 0.05. Embryonic stem cells in the presence of mitogenic LIF were taken as baseline and significant functional enrichment in cardiopoietic cells are shown in comparison with stem cells cultured without LIF. (f) Gene validation using quantitative PCR. Candidate genes representing pluripotent (Pou5f1), oncogenic (Mybl2, Mycn) and cardiac (Myocd, Lbh) phenotypes were assayed by Taqman. Transcriptional profile changes were expressed as fold change relative to ES-LIF(+). CM, cardiomyocyte. Phenotypic changes and transcriptome dynamism during cardiac stem cell differentiation. (a) Electron microscopy visualized morphological changes occurring during guided stem cell cardiogenesis (left column) with associated expression and distribution of the selected cardiac transcription factor MEF2C and the cardiac contractile protein α-actinin (right column). Cell stage is given in the top left corner of each panel with associated scale bars at the bottom right. First column: ES-LIF (+), 2.5 μm; ES-LIF (-), 5 μm; cardiopoietic cell (CP), 25 μm; cardiomyocyte (CM), 5 μm. All scale bars in the second column indicate 10 μm. Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI. (b) Transcriptional profiling of samples from each stage of stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte formation. Changes in gene expression were plotted on a semi-log scale graph using normalized intensity values as a function of the stage of differentiation. The color scale indicates increased expression (red), no change (yellow) and decreased expression (blue). Associated numbers indicate fold change; where red and blue indicate a respective minimum five-fold up- or downregulation in expression value. (c) Hierarchical clustering of changing genes during differentiation. The condition tree on right illustrates similarity of replicates within each stage. Numbers above branches are the calculated Euclidean distances between the two samples at the left termini. Smaller numbers indicate less dissimilarity between samples while higher numbers indicate an increase in dissimilarity. The shaded box identifies emergence of cardiac specficity (orange, CP) with transition to stem cell derived cardiomyocyte (cyan, CM). The color scale indicates relative changes in gene expression as described previously. A diagram detailing the differentiation of a hematopoietic stem cell. Source: Cooper, 2007 REFERENCES 1. http://www.newsbatch.com/stemcells, 2008 2. States play catch-up on stem cells, 2004 By Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY 3. http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/defaultpage.asp, 2008 4. Cell Minding the Stem Gap, October 23, 2006, By Jonathan D. Moreno, Sam Berger 5. Faustino et al. Genome Biology 2008 9:R6   doi: 10.1186/gb-2008-9-1-r6 6. Faustino et al. Genome Biology 2008 9:R6   doi: 10.1186/gb-2008-9-1-r6 7. Cooper, 2007 8. Expanding Approved Stem Cell Lines in Ethically Responsible Ways, Executive Order 13435, June 22, 2007 9. Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific research Involving Human Stem Cells, Executive Order 13505, March 9, 2009