Australian Heart Experiment

Australian Heart Experiment

Two Australian men have received injections of stem cells harvested from their own bone marrow directly into their hearts in an attempt to improve their heart function. According to the website News.com.au, both men had severe chest pain and had already had bypass surgery. This was part of a limited Phase I safety trial of a total of 8 patients; both men were discharged with no side effects. They will be evaluated at one, three, and six months to see if there is any improvement in their heart function. The story is also reported on The Advertiser, the Melbourne Herald Sun, and the Daily Telegraph. It is part of a study being conducted by the biotech company Mesoblast.

The news stories characterize this as a world first; the difference is apparently that the cells were injected directly, rather than being inserted through a catheter. This should eliminate any problems in getting the stem cells to where they ought to be, but it will still be important to know if the stem cells survive and differentiate. 10 patients is too small to have a good clinical sample, but if there are no side-effects from the procedure and it appears to work in these 10 people (I hope some women are included, since women and men have significant differences in how heart disease and heart attacks manifest themselves), that would be a good sign for future extensive clinical trials. And there needs to be a good double-blind study to test placebo effect as well. Obviously you can’t do a placebo if you are trying to see if a procedure is safe, but that’s another important area for further down the road. (The placebo effect is caused in part by the body’s release of endorphins as a response to the belief medication has been administered, so it can be very real.)

Hwang Update

Hwang Update

It’s good news and bad news for Hwang Woo-Suk. Mostly bad, but on the bright side of things, Reuters reports that Hwang was probably unaware that his team had not successfully cloned any patient specific stem cells. The story says that Hwang took actions which he would not likely have taken had he known the cells weren’t real, such as shipping them to New York as part of a study and injecting stem cells into mice. There would have been no point in doing these if he had known he was working with fakes. The story was originally reported in the Dong-A Ilbo.

The bad news for Dr. Hwang is that the Korean Board of Inspection and Audit says that he inappropriately used 7 billion won ($7 million) and did not follow proper accounting guidelines. According to the Korea Times, Hwang mixed private and government funds with his personal bank account, among other financial no-nos. Chosun Ilbo reports that this use of money can potentially be viewed as embezzlement.

I’m starting to think Hwang’s biggest failing is not grandiosity or ambition but lack of common sense. Screwing around with money—especially when you’re in the public eye--is just dumb. Not that he’s the only person to ever make this mistake….