CIRM to be audited

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the California Legislature's Joint Legislative Audit Committee has voted to audit the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Citizen's Independent Advisory Board. The auditor will review "the program's strategic plans and whether the two bodies are properly identifying and avoiding conflicts of interest." It is expected to take six months.

Snuppy is True Clone

Snuppy is True Clone

This is the big news of the day. Snuppy, the dog cloned by Hwang Woo-Suk, is indeed a clone as he was claimed to be. However, this was already established in the SNU investigation of Hwang (see my blog post from January 10, 2006), so it’s in part a case of media frenzy and not real news. The precipitating event here is that independent research commissioned by the journal Nature has now been published confirming Snuppy’s cloned identity. I hope that Snuppy lives happily and well.

There are numerous articles on it, and I won’t mention them all. But the BBC does a nice job reporting on the issues related to independent research. The biological sciences editor of Nature, Dr. Ritu Dhand, was quoted:

"The whole point of scientific research is that it is based on integrity and trust," she said. "The reason that science is able to work this way is because a scientist's personal integrity counts for an enormous amount." However, she did point out that research journals might now ask authors to submit data about mitochondrial DNA from donor and clone, as well as nuclear DNA. "This is a positive and a negative control, and we can ask for both. And as a research journal, I think that that is a path we can follow," said Dr Dhand. "But what we are not going to do is to say 'we don't believe you have sequenced the DNA that you say you have sequenced' - you have to take the scientists at trust at that level."

The BBC also reports that an editorial in Nature

encourages scientists to seek independent verification for any landmark cloning studies, and to submit these to the journal. In addition, it said that scientists should store samples of clone experiments for later possible verification if required.

These positions seem eminently reasonably to me.

Nasal Stem Cell Research

Nasal Stem Cell Research

If you’re interested in spinal cord injury treatments with stem cells, you probably already know about the procedures in Portugal which transplant stem cells from the nasal cavity to the injured area of the spine. Now researchers at the University of Louisville in Kentucky have performed similar experiments on rats. The Louisville Courier has an extensive article on the procedure.

In the experiment, stem cells from the area known as the “olfactory neurosensory epithelium” were donated by patients undergoing sinus surgery. The cells were then coaxed into becoming neurons that can attach to muscle cells and also produce myelin, the protective sheathing for the nerves. The cells were then added to a biological jelly, which was injected into rats who had been subjected to a spinal injury that caused them to lose the use of their right paw. Twelve weeks later, the rats treated with the stem cells were using both front paws, while the rats in the control group were using their left front paw only and struggled to climb or walk across the rope.

One of the key differences between this study and other studies is that this was focusing on creating new neurons, rather that re-connecting existing neurons. The researchers said that clinical studies in people were probably 3-10 years away.

This seems like an exciting and important development. Among some of the other factors that are going to need to be followed up on are duration of recovery (12 weeks seems pretty long lasting for a rat, but let’s see), if the treatment works when the injury occurred a significant amount of time prior to the treatment (can they give it to the rats in the control group now and see if they improve?), finding out if the rats become cancer-prone after the treatment, and deriving effective methods for the differentiation to occur. This may already be well under way, but if there is excessive difficulty in controlling the differentiation, that will delay treatment options.

It also will be important to see if this kind of procedure is effective with neural degenerative disorders, or if it will only work in cases of injury.

Latest Maryland News

Latest Maryland News

Well, I have about a million headlines over the last two days—figures my DSL would go out just when the news is really active—so I’m not going to try to cover everything. I’ve decided to pick three topics and limit the blogging to them. In this first post, I’ll cover the latest news in Maryland.

The Washington Post reported two days ago that a Senate Budget committee cut Governor Ehrlich’s proposed $20 million for stem cell research in half. This is not the same proposal as the current $25 million bill under debate. The Senate committee also said that the money would have to be spent in accordance with guidelines established by legislation. One member of the committee was quoted as saying that they would not give the governor a “blank check.”

Then, yesterday, the bill already approved by the House went to the Senate floor, where it faced a filibuster. Today’s Washington Post reports that the filibuster went on for five hours before the bill was amended to remove the provision that gave preference to embryonic stem cell research. The bill was also amended to add bioethicists “from the religious community” to the panel that approves grant proposals. The bill will need to be reconciled with the House version before it can go to the governor for signature. One of the significant differences in the Senate version is that it leaves it up to governors to decide how much to spend instead of mandating the $25 million. The web page for the Maryland Senate says that the bill passed 29-18 on the third reading but gives no further details.

I guess that most researchers would feel that something is better than nothing, but I suspect that there is a feeling that the bill has been watered down. Of course the make-up of the commission that approves the grants is what will really determine whether the money goes to embryonic stem cell research or adult stem cell research, so perhaps how it looks on the books is not the key.

UPDATE: The news of the passage has just hit. There are stories in the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun; neither has much new to say. Debate was somewhat over an hour.