 have attracted researchers hampered by restrictions on embryonic stem cells.<br>
KEY CHALLENGES: Finding how to stop iPS cells from turning into tumors and how to create iPS cells without using retroviruses to deliver the rejuvenating genes.)
SHINYA YAMANAKA
GENETIC TIME MACHINE: Put adult cells into an embryonic state with four genes. Such induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) have attracted researchers hampered by restrictions on embryonic stem cells.
KEY CHALLENGES: Finding how to stop iPS cells from turning into tumors and how to create iPS cells without using retroviruses to deliver the rejuvenating genes.
Image: Tim Hornyak
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When historians chronicle the stem cell research wars, Shinya Yamanaka will likely go down as a peacemaker. The Japanese scientist has helped send the field on a surprising end run around the moral debate surrounding embryonic stem cells, the creation of which requires the destruction of embryos. Last year Yamanaka led one of two teams that showed that normal human skin cells can be genetically reprogrammed into the equivalent of stem cells. These so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) seem to be essentially identical to embryonic stem cells and possess the ability to become any cell.
The 46-year-old Yamanaka is a clean-cut, almost military figure. His small office in an aging wing of Kyoto University’s Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences is spotlessly tidy, with nothing to mark his achievement in producing iPS cells. A Nobel Prize may one day adorn his shelf space. As Yamanaka glances around, he remarks, “About 10 meters beneath us is a room that I have never entered. I’m not allowed to enter because I don’t have permission from the government. It contains the only stem cells derived from human embryos in the country.”
Though permissive in spirit, Japan in practice imposes strict rules on the production and (unlike in the U.S.) the use of stem cells derived from human embryos. Researchers can spend up to a year in paperwork submissions before gaining access to them.
It was Japan’s rule-bound, often stifling scientific culture that made Yamanaka an accidental pioneer. Originally an orthopedic surgeon in Osaka, he decided in the mid-1990s to do postdoctoral work on genetic reprogramming of cancer-related genes in mice at San Francisco’s Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease. There he found ready access to existing lines of embryonic stem cells, as well as an environment with solid funding and exchanges among leading researchers worldwide. At home, though, he went into a funk. “When I went back to Japan, I lost all those stimuli,” Yamanaka recalls. “I had only a little funding and a few good scientists around me, and I had to take care of almost 1,000 mice by myself.”
Fighting despair, he was about to quit and return to surgery. But two things galvanized him to continue: an invitation to head a small lab at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology and the creation of the first generation of human embryonic stem cells, which was made by the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s James A. Thomson (who last year led the other team that produced human iPS cells).
After Thomson’s achievement in isolating embryonic stem cells, many researchers began trying to control the differentiation of those cells into specific cell types that might replace diseased or damaged tissues, thereby revolutionizing clinical care. “That was too competitive for our small lab,” Yamanaka recounts, “so I thought I should do the opposite—instead of making embryonic stem cells into something, I would make embryonic stem cells from something else.” From Ian Wilmut’s success in cloning animals such as Dolly the sheep, he says, “we knew that even completely differentiated cells can go back to an embryoniclike status. But we also thought it would be a very, very long project,” one that might take 20 or 30 years.
It took fewer than 10. Yamanaka became highly motivated to solve two main problems surrounding embryonic stem cells. One was their source. He tells of visiting a friend’s fertility lab and observing early embryos under a microscope. The sight of fragile, nascent life moved him, although he emphasizes that he is not against using embryonic cells “to save patients.” The other problem is the threat of immune rejection if cells derived from an embryo are transplanted into a person. Differentiated cells created from a patient’s iPS cells would pose no such danger.
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19 Comments
Add CommentThe good doctor is the answer to our prayers...his findings will ultimately remove the need for using human stem cells to treat disease at the expense of human life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A Farewell to Embryonic Stem Cells? ...moral debate surrounding embryonic stem cells...." ---- Where does SCIAM get their reporters? From the local mini-mall revivalist church?! ---- Induced pluripotent stem cell research has merits on its own right, but it is certainly not a substitute. You can only say "Farewell" to stem cells only if you want to set back research for at least a generation. --- And, there is "moral" debate about the "personhood" of stem cell and embryos, only in the delusional minds of those, who have an imaginary deity floating in the void of their heads. ---- This is a poorly written and span article, about an otherwise worthy subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's great news. Now we can go back to throwing out those embryos with the trash like we did before we found a use for them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYay for idiots.
But, what about the rights of induced pluripotent stem cells? If they can be grown into human life, their individual rights need to be protected. Any living cell that contains human DNA absolutely MUST be grown into a human being. After all, there are not enough humans in the world, our life is worth more than every other kind of life on earth. Mangle other animal life all you want, but manipulating microscopic human cells... now you've gone too far. And how dare a woman not fertilize every egg she has?!?! Ugh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis will not stop the calls for embryonic stem cell research, because it isn't about the stem cells. It's about abortion. It's no different than the legalize pot crowd touting the wonders of hemp.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh, the wonders of hemp. Truly Jah-sus was on fire the day he created hemp.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is nothing wrong with marijuana. GOD made EVERYTHING for man. To withold it is a sin. Now; I found an interesting article last night on stem cell research and thought I would share it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEmbryo ethics
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/04/08/embryo_ethics/?page=1
Although Bush would ban the use of such embryos in federally funded research, he has not called for legislation to ban the creation and destruction of embryos by fertility clinics.
But if embryos are human beings, to allow fertility clinics to discard them is to countenance, in effect, the widespread creation and destruction of surplus children. Those who believe that a blastocyst is morally equivalent to a baby must believe that the 400,000 excess embryos languishing in freezers in US fertility clinics are like newborns left to die by exposure on a mountainside. But those who view embryos in this way should not only be opposing embryonic stem cell research; they should also be leading a campaign to shut down what they must regard as rampant infanticide in fertility clinics.
Someday, the average Joe-the-Moron will understand the difference between humans and human cells. Then, all this will be pointless debate and we can all ride unicorns into the sunset o'hope.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheophys, if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that an embryo is merely a collection of human cells.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not the case. An embryo is a unique human being. We don't suddenly become human at some point during gestation. It happens at conception.
Anyhoo, I'm all for innovative methods of stem cell research, just not with embryos.
That's your religious opinion. I mop up cells and throw them in the toliet, gonna charge me with murder?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt that point it is only a 'potential ' human being. Not so far up the ladder than an egg and a sperm. Huh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like that pix of him. It's like; Hahahaha....I got'cha! I know something you don't know.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"After all, there are not enough humans in the world, our life is worth more than every other kind of life on earth...And how dare a woman not fertilize every egg she has?!?! Ugh."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe all started the same, and the way different organisms have evolved does NOT mean that one is more important than the other. (That's what Nazis based things on, after all.) As for fertilizing ever egg--do you even realize how many eggs we have? Menstruation as we know it would be obliterated if we gave birth to every baby possible. Have each of your sperm create a new child, and then we'll talk.
"GOD made EVERYTHING for man. To with[h]old it is a sin."
The mere existence of "God" is debatable. Let's not hold this guy up to creating everything. It's a big responsibility.
I think you're both full of crap. This is science, not church, people.
For some people it's both. Do you mind that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose of you who think the human embryo isn't a human being except according to religious belief, do yourselves a favor and open a biology textbook. As I work in education, I go through several. Biology textbooks correctly state fertilization as the beginning of a new individual's life. I find it rather disconcerting that so many people confuse cells with actual embryonic human beings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany scientists are deciding to move away from embryonic research and towards the less problematic substitutes, for reasons of both ethics and practicality. Take a note from them.
Funny, when someone in a scientific community states their view that doesn't agree with another's view, the ones who hold an atheistic view consistantly resort to personal attacks, even before anything is said about religion. A want-to-be scientist should realize that not everyone against embryonic stem cell research is so because of any religiuos belief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFully agree with EvolvingApe. Induced pleuripotent cells are NOT the same as stemcells. IPS cells may never be used in stemcell therapy because of the dangers posed by the transcription agents and the retrovirus vectors. In order to repair, lets say, damaged myocardial tissue in-vivo, you need a safer alternative - embryonic stemcells.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, the god-morons keep on hampering this reseach with their archaic moral arguments developed for a band of aggressive nomads lost in the desert 2000+ years ago.
To xHelena.. how did you not get that the first comment is completely sarcastic?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"After all, there are not enough humans in the world, our life is worth more than every other kind of life on earth...And how dare a woman not fertilize every egg she has?!?! Ugh."
Dripping with sarcasm...
When life actually begins is still a mystery in science. Does it start with the fusion of the pronuclei? or is it at the calcium wave?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor me it is when the heart begins to beat as otherwise this ball of cells wouldnt survive without our help.
And yes Im a biologist who believes in God... Who says the two cant mix...