[Pflienews] PharmFacts E-News Update: Adulty cells coaxed to embryonic stage; Us bishops decry FOCA abortion bill

[PFLI PharmAid Center]

*PharmFacts E-News Update -- 26 Sept 2008 AD* 

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*http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092502099_pf.html*
*Scientists Find Way to Regress Adult Cells to Embryonic State
*Researchers Hopeful That Recent Breakthroughs Could Lead to Clinical 
Applications

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 25, 2008; 2:00 PM

Scientists are reporting today that they have overcome a major obstacle 
to using a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, bolstering the 
prospects for bypassing the political and ethical tempest that has 
embroiled hopes for a new generation of medical treatments.

The researchers said they found a safe way to coax adult cells to 
regress into an embryonic state, alleviating what had been the most 
worrisome uncertainty about developing the cells into potential cures.

"We have removed a major roadblock for translating this into a clinical 
setting," said Konrad Hochedlinger, a Harvard University stem cell 
researcher whose research was published online today by the journal 
Science. "I think it's an important advance."

The development is the latest in the rapidly advancing and politically 
charged field of stem cell research.

"This is a huge step forward -- it could be the breakthrough we've been 
looking for," said Robert Lanza, a stem cell researcher at Advanced Cell 
Technology in Worcester, Mass. Embryonic stem cells are believed capable 
of becoming any type of cell in the body. Researchers hope eventually to 
use them to create replacement tissue and body parts tailored to 
individual patients. But the work has been mired in controversy because 
the cells were obtained by destroying very early embryos. As a result, 
President Bush has restricted federal funding for such work.

Scientists last year shook up the scientific and political landscape by 
discovering how to manipulate the genes of adult cells to revert them 
into the equivalent of embryonic cells -- entities dubbed "induced 
pluripotent stem" or "iPS" cells -- which could then be transformed into 
any type of cell in the body. Subsequent work has found that the cells 
can alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's disease and sickle cell anemia in 
mice.

But the first iPS cells were created by ferrying four genes into the DNA 
of adult cells using retroviruses, which can cause cancer in animals. 
There was also concern because the viruses integrated their genes into 
the cells' DNA in the course of transforming them. In the new work, 
Hochedlinger and his colleagues used a different type of virus, known as 
an adenovirus, which does not integrate its genes into a cell's DNA and 
therefore is believed to be harmless, to ferry the same four 
transformative genes into the DNA of mouse skin and liver cells.

"The adenovirus will infect the cells but then will clear themselves 
from the cells. After a few cell divisions there are no traces of the 
virus in the cell," he said. "You can't tell the virus was ever there."

Like iPS cells produced using retroviruses, tests showed that the cells 
were indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells and could be 
transformed into any type of tissue, including lung, brain, heart and 
muscle, without producing cancerous tumors.

"What our experiment shows is you can do this without an integrating 
virus. You do not need integration of the DNA into the genome to produce 
iPS cells," Hochedlinger said.

Rudolf Jaenisch, a professor of biology at the Whitehead Institute in 
Cambridge, Mass., praised the work but noted that the process was 100 
times less efficient than using retroviruses.

"It's still very inefficient," he said.

Hochedlinger said his team is already working to streamline the 
conversion, perhaps by supplementing the introduced genes with chemicals 
that flip biological switches. Many researchers suspect they will 
eventually be find ways to transform cells much more cleanly without 
transferring genes. Although additional work will be necessary to prove 
the approach will work with human cells, Hochedlinger said he was 
confident it will.

"There's no reason to believe it would not work," Hochedlinger said.

Lanza said the advance should unleash a flurry of work on iPS cells.

"Although the advent of iPS cells has been exciting, it has been 
extremely frustrating not being able to use these cells clinically to 
help people. Clinical translation has been dead in its tracks," Lanza 
said. "The use of iPS cells to treat -- or even cure -- human disease 
may not be far away."

Critics of embryonic stem cell research said the work offered yet more 
evidence that research on embryonic stem cells is unnecessary. Just last 
month, another Harvard team announced it had converted adult cells 
directly into another type of adult cell, possibly offering another less 
contentious alternative.

"This is the latest in a line of studies showing that the practical 
problems associated with using 'reprogrammed' adult cells are rapidly 
being solved," Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic 
Bishops said in an e-mail.

But Hochedlinger and others said it remains important to continue to 
work on adult stem cells, reprogrammed adult cells and embryonic stem 
cells because it remains far from clear which will eventually prove most 
effective.

"We just don't know yet which ones will be useful for which types of 
treatment," said Mark A. Kay, a gene therapy researcher at Stanford 
University.


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>From ALL: ALL JOINS US BISHOPS IN DECRYING 'INSIDIOUS' FREEDOM OF CHOICE ACT

*Washington, D.C. (26 September 2008)* -- American Life League 
congratulates Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the United States 
Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, for 
his outspoken opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act.

Cardinal Rigali sent a letter to every member of Congress Sept. 19, 
along with a legal analysis of the proposed act's potentially 
far-reaching effects. "For the first time, abortion on demand would be a 
national entitlement that government must condone and promote in all 
public programs affecting pregnant women," the cardinal pointed out.

*FOCA (S. 1173 and H.R. 1964) would enshrine Roe v. Wade into law, would 
render pro-life legislation at any level of government meaningless and 
would overturn all bans on public funding for abortion. The act would 
outweigh existing legislation restraining or limiting access to abortion 
as well as open the door to increased tax subsidies for abortions and 
contraception. *

"The threat of FOCA has emerged nearly unnoticed in the past few 
months," Judie Brown, president of American Life League, observed, "and 
we join the USCCB in raising an alert.

"The Freedom of Choice Act has been the sacred cow of the abortion lobby 
for years, and now, unless we stand in their way, they may actually get 
it. This unholy act would not only take away the few legal resources we 
now have to protect preborn children from the barbarity of abortion, it 
would make us, through our tax dollars, accessories to the murder.

"We propose that the pro-life community unite to defeat this insidious 
legislation. We need to respond quickly and decisively to this grave 
threat to human life as we work even harder than before on restoring 
personhood to each and every innocent human being from his beginning."


*FOR MORE INFORMATION:

U.S.C.C.B:* Pro-Life Chair to Congress: We Cannot Reduce Abortion by 
Promoting Abortion (22 September 2008)
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2008/08-138.shtml 
<http://nvs.all.org/sendstudio/link.php?M=42879&N=495&L=1254&F=H>



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