Korean Donors Were Paid For Eggs

Korean Donors Were Paid For Eggs

One of the members of Hwang Woo-Suk’s research team has admitted at a press conference that he paid egg donors 1.5 million won ($1,400) per donor. He said that he saw the money as compensation for hospitalization, hormone treatment, and lost time from work. Roh Sung-il, head of the infertility clinic at Mizmedi Women’s Hospital in Seoul, said that he made the decision to “compensate” the women without Hwang’s knowledge. He also said that Hwang brought in some women who donated eggs without any payment. Roh refused to say whether any of the women were also members of the research team. The payments were not illegal at the time they were made.

The story is reported various places, including in the Korea Times, The International Herald Tribune, and Chosun Ilbo. The Chosun Ilbo editorial on the issue says that Hwang’s team must be supervised and South Korea must not be seen as ignoring international bioethics guidelines.

This is an interesting issue. On the one hand, I don’t believe that biological material should be sold, because that would quickly lead to exploitation of the poor, among other issues. On the other hand, invasive medical procedures, hospitalization, and lost time from work do seem compensable and I can see Roh’s reasoning—if he is being truthful, it seems kindness more than anything else. At this point the egg donor situation remains murky enough that donors must be willing to volunteer their time as well as their bodies and not receive any form of payment; coercion would be too possible with any kind of compensation. Egg donation must be treated in the same manner that blood donation is done. But let’s find a way to acknowledge and thank the women who donate.

Embryonic Stem Cells Can Alter Cancer Cells’ Growth Conditions

Embryonic Stem Cells Can Alter Cancer Cells’ Growth Conditions

Researchers at Northwestern University have been able to “reprogram” malignant melanoma to revert to normal skin cells after being in a laboratory culture previously occupied by human embryonic stem cells. The stem cells did not interact directly with the cancer cells. According to the article on Medical News Today,

The team applied two different hESC lines, independently, onto three-dimensional collagen matrices and allowed the cells to form colonies and precondition their microenvironments for several days. The hESCs were removed and the matrix microenvironments were left intact. Then, human metastatic melanoma cells were seeded onto the hESC-preconditioned matrix microenvironment and were allowed to emain for several days.

The research suggests that the microenvironments which support stem cells can influence tumor development. A microenvironment is defined by the National Cancer Institute as “Local and systemic architecture surrounding a cancer cell. Includes other cells, growth factors, enzymes, and parts of the blood and lymphatic systems.” My biology is not entirely up to snuff on understanding the details of what happened, but it appears that the stem cells altered the growth factors, enzymes, and other conditions of the environment in such a way as to affect the cancer cells.

Brain Drain?

Brain Drain?

Two scientists from the National Cancer Institute have decided to go to Singapore rather to Stanford University because of delays in research funding in California. The scientists, a married couple who discovered a way to speed up identification of cancer-causing genes in mice, are joining Singapore’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology rather than Stanford’s Institute for Cancer and Stem Cell Biology and Medicine. The AP story, printed in the San Jose Mercury News and in shorter form on the website of the local CBS affiliate in the Bay Area, says that the couple are concerned about “delays in the allocation of $3 billion in taxpayer funds set aside for stem cell research by Proposition 71.”

There was a hearing last Thursday in Alameda County Superior Court on one of the lawsuits that are delaying the funding for Prop 71, but the judge issued no ruling and gave no indication of what the ruling would be. The hearing and issues were reported in the San Francisco Examiner on Sunday and in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 18. The lawsuit alleges taxpayer money is not being controlled entirely by the state and therefore the Citizen’s Oversight Committee of Prop 71 is in violation of state law. A related lawsuit alleges conflict of interest in members of the Citizen’s Oversight Committee. (Details of the first lawsuit can be found on the Alameda County Superior Court website, under case number HG05206766.)