...worth a thousand words.

[James Kelly]

"This type of cloning is not intended to produce an offspring, but instead to produce an embryo that has stem cells "tailor made" for treating a specific patient's disease."

Hello! This is a test! After reading the above quote from a current mass media article, what do you think it's about?


How many said "therapeutic cloning?" I would have too. Surprisingly we all would have been wrong.

In addition to my technical, marketing, and ethical concerns over cloning. I've also become increasingly alarmed and upset over attempts by scientists and/or some in the media to distort the true state of regenerative science, especially involving adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells, and cloned embryonic stem cells. For example:

A study by cloning expert Jaenisch resulted in stem cells taken from cloned embryos being rejected by the host. To get the desired effect, the researchers resorted to letting a cloned embryo be brought to live birth, then they used its adult stem cells to fix the problem. Believe it or not, this study was presented as a "breakthrough" for cloning, when in fact it was a huge setback...as no one (even me) ever thought that stem cells taken from a cloned embryo would (or could) be rejected by the original donor. (It makes me wonder if embryonic stem cells were meant to function in embryos and adult stem cells in adults...now THERE'S a novel concept!!!)

Anyway, another study (actually two) mixed multiple human adult stem cell types in a petri dish with mouse embryonic stem cells, which led to a genetic mess. THIS was reported as a huge setback for adult stem cells. This study supposedly cast doubt on whether adult stem cells really turn into healthy mature new cells at all. (Never mind that that's what nature put them in the body to do in the first place, or that they've been proven clinically and in the lab to do just that for years!) Of couse, I'm just an untrained layman who thinks for himself, but if I were asked without being told what to think, I would have said these results suggested it might not be a good idea to mix mouse embryonic stem cells with human adult stem cells in a plastic container.

And now we have the above quote to consider. Again, believe it or not, it referred to an adult stem cell research project...not therapeutic cloning and not embryos at all! The quote came from the following article, which reports another step forward in adult stem cell technology. Can anyone explain to me why the quoted passage justifiably belonged in the article...or why the word "embryo" was even used...or has anyone ever heard of adult stem cells being used to make an embryo...or why the passage would mention the reported technique is not designed to produce an offspring?

Now maybe I'm wrong. But this sentence at the close of the article (which most writers reserve for making a lasting impression on their reader's minds) seems to me an obvious, blatant attempt to confuse readers by tying this positive development in their minds to a concept that most have long associated to cloning.

And finally, compare the following Reuter Health article with the original Cornell news release (further below, found on UniSci, University Daily Science News). Note the absence of the following three statements:

The use of human embryonic stem cells has been confronted with major obstacles because of bio-ethical and political issues involved obtaining them, as well as the suggestion that embryonic stem cells may lack appropriate developmental instructions, making them potentially less feasible for engrafting into adult tissue." and...

As compared to embryonic stem cells, adult derived stem cells are endowed with additional developmental instructions and may be better suited for therapeutic purposes." and...

According to Dr. Rafii, "We are approaching a day when a patient's own stem cells can be induced to divide and develop into tissue that can replace that which is diseased or destroyed, making overcrowded organ transplant lists and rejection of foreign tissues a thing of the past."


PEOPLE, I have SCI just like you. I'm paralysed and want my body and life back. I wouldn't threaten my future and yours for anything! My only goal in supporting the Brownback ban on cloning is to insure the day Dr. Rafii just mentioned isn't needlessly delayed one minute. You may not agree with my conclusions, and you may not believe me when I claim we're being intentionally misled. Thant's Ok, cause I'm not asking you take my word for anything. I'm just asking that you weigh all you're being told no matter who says it (including me), using your common sense, perception, and logic to decide your wisest course. Good luck...to all of us! And thanks for your thoughtful attention!



Enzyme Spurs Growth of Adult Stem Cells

Fri May 31, 5:23 PM ET

By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Scientists have found an enzyme that triggers the growth and maturation of stem cells lurking in bone marrow, causing the stem cells to step up production and replace lost blood and immune system cells.

It's possible the enzyme may also spur the growth of stem cells elsewhere in the body. If this is true, the information may help researchers determine how to harness the potential of adult stem cells to treat a variety of
ailments, the study's lead researcher told Reuters Health.

Stem cells are immature cells that give rise to the specialized cells that make up the body, and scientists believe they can be used to repair the damaged tissue that marks diseases like Parkinson's, diabetes and heart disease. In a developing embryo, stem cells are able to mature into all types of tissue.

Adults, too, harbor various pools of stem cells. Such cells have traditionally been thought to be limited in potential--with, for example, gut stem cells giving rise to gut cells and brain stem cells producing only brain cells--although recent research has been challenging that thinking. For example, transplanted bone marrow stem cells have shown up in mature kidney, liver, skin and gastrointestinal tissue.

A long-standing problem with adult stem cells is that they are relatively rare and sequestered in the body, which has severely hampered attempts to investigate their use in treating disease.

"Our paper is going to solve that problem," predicted Dr. Shahin Rafii of Cornell University Medical College in New York.

Rafii and his colleagues report in the May 31st issue of Cell that adult stem cells are stimulated to do their job by an enzyme, metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9). Injury turns on MMP9, Rafii explained, which helps release growth-promoting substances which, in turn, wake up the stem cells. The stem cells then move to a portion of the bone marrow where they can multiply and be released.

"Now, if you activated the enzyme, you get the stem cells," he said.

Rafii and his team discovered the importance of MMP9 when they examined mice that had been engineered to grow and develop without the enzyme. When the researchers treated the mice with chemotherapy that severely damaged bone marrow, 72% died, while all of the mice that still produced MMP9 survived because they successfully regenerated blood and immune system cells.

Without MMP9, "none of the stem cells woke up," he said. "They stay sleeping, hibernating."

Rafii added that it would be difficult to administer MMP9 directly to adults who wanted to produce more of their own stem cells, but researchers may soon be able to administer the growth factors that, in turn, activate the enzyme to do its job.

Adult stem cells may some advantages over those derived from embryos, Rafii pointed out. Patients' tissues are unlikely to reject cells that come from their own bodies. And it is not yet known how to coax embryonic stem cells into desired mature cell types.

In addition, stimulating a patient's own stem cells allows researchers to sidestep the ongoing controversy over therapeutic cloning, Rafii added. This type of cloning is not intended to produce an offspring, but instead to
produce an embryo that has stem cells "tailor made" for treating a specific patient's disease.

SOURCE: Cell 2002;109:625-637.


Mechanism For Regulation Of Adult Stem Cells Found

In a tantalizing possibility for public health, scientists envision a renewable source of functional human replacement cells. Those cells would be used to treat a multitude of diseases and conditions including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, heart disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, diabetes and arthritis.

This vision has fueled research efforts to harness the special cells called stem cells that have the ability to develop into almost any kind of human tissue.

The use of human embryonic stem cells has been confronted with major obstacles because of bio-ethical and political issues involved obtaining them, as well as the suggestion that embryonic stem cells may lack
appropriate developmental instructions, making them potentially less feasible for engrafting into adult tissue.

One alternative source of stem cells is adult bone marrow. However, the use of stem cells from adult bone marrow has been hampered by the lack of knowledge regarding the mechanism by which these cells are recruited from the bone marrow and mobilized to the peripheral blood from which they can be incorporated into damaged tissue.

Now, a group of scientists from Cornell University Medical College have identified and described a novel mechanism by which bone marrow-derived stem cells are stimulated to divide and mobilize to the peripheral circulation.

This research, published in today's issue of Cell, provides enormous promise for the development of far-reaching therapeutics.

Dr. Shahin Rafii and colleagues demonstrate that physiological stress results in the activation of an enzyme referred to as metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in the bone marrow cells. They report that MMP-9 deficient mice,
despite having no apparent defects, failed to recover after receiving high doses of chemotherapeutic agents. Compared to control mice, over 70% of the mice deficient in MMP-9 died from complications of marrow suppression.

This finding suggests that activation of MMP-9 may be essential for renewal of blood stem cells. Drs. Heissig and Hattori from Dr. Rafii's group and colleagues from UCSF went on to demonstrate that activated MMP-9 promotes
the release of a molecule called Kit-ligand (sKitL).

Activated sKitL increases the mobility of stem cells from the bone marrow niche, thereby moving them to a permissive environment that is conducive to expansion and mobilization to the peripheral blood.

These exciting results lay the foundation for developing strategies in which activation of enzymes such as MMP-9 act as molecular switches to expand a large population of stem cells that may ultimately be used for tissue
regeneration.

As compared to embryonic stem cells, adult derived stem cells are endowed with additional developmental instructions and may be better suited for therapeutic purposes.

According to Dr. Rafii, "We are approaching a day when a patient's own stem cells can be induced to divide and develop into tissue that can replace that which is diseased or destroyed, making overcrowded organ transplant lists and rejection of foreign tissues a thing of the past."

[Contact: Dr. Shahin Rafii]

James Kelly

[This message was edited by James Kelly on May 31, 2002 at 09:32 PM.]

[This message was edited by James Kelly on May 31, 2002 at 09:44 PM.]