Expanding Stem Cells for Transplant

Expanding Stem Cells for Transplant

Transplantation of blood stem cells after chemotherapy is a normal procedure for cancer patients to undergo. A press release from the Public Library of Science now reports that a research team, the leader of whom is from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, has found that over-expression of the gene HOXB4 in populations of cells prior to transplantation significantly increased the stem cells’ engraftment. The experiment was done on monkeys. The stem cells are increased in the laboratory after they are harvested from the blood. The researchers eventually hope to be able to use a recombinant version of the HOXB4 protein, rather than having to genetically alter the cells.

The report is open-access (yay!) and can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030173.

Senate Still Waiting

The Boston Globe had a short article today about the proposed stem cell bill that has been passed by the House but has yet to be brough to the floor in the US Senate by Bill Frist. There are no updates on the status and things have not changed since I last blogged on this, but it's a good refresher if you want one.

Missouri News

Missouri News

Supporters of the stem cell ballot initiative have gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot, but Senator Jim Talent has come out against the initiative, according to various news reports. St. Louis Today reports that the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures gathered 288,991 signatures of registered voters across seven congressional districts, almost twice the 150,000 needed across six districts. The proposed initiative would legalize somatic cell nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning, and permit embryonic stem cell research. Reproductive cloning would be banned. The Kansas City Star reports that Talent issued a statement saying he could not back the bill because it permitted human cloning. Talent had previously decided not to support federal legislation that would ban cloning and has endorsed research into “alternative” forms of embryonic stem cell research that do not destroy the embryo.

Talent’s Democratic opponent in the Senate race supports the measure.

What happens in Missouri is probably going to influence measures in a lot of other states. Missouri is a pretty conservative state, and if voters support embryonic stem cell research in significant numbers then conservative political leaders are going to have to reassess their positions. Some will of course stay with whatever position their conscience leads them to, which is fine, but those who have not made up their mind fully may have to struggle through what benefits their political career versus what they are inclined to on a personal level.

More on the Ireland Issue

More on the Ireland Issue

In the latest development involving the use of stem cells to treat multiple sclerosis—a treatment which has not been clinically proven effective—the European company Advanced Cell Therapeutics will be offering treatment on a boat in international waters, according to the Guardian. Boy does that make any shreds of credibility they had left in my estimation wash away. It seems to me that they want to make their money and don’t care how they get it.

Now, everything that is illegal or unregulated is not necessarily wrong or should not be done. Laws vary from country to country, even from state to state. Sometimes going abroad to receive treatment is the only alternative if a nation’s political agenda prohibits something. If there was clinical double blind evidence that this treatment worked and the Irish government was prohibiting it on some other basis, then I would be haranguing the government. But there’s no clinical certainty this works, so right now it’s snake oil.

Okay, enough editorializing, here are the other pertinent facts as reported by the Guardian. ACT uses umbilical cord stem cells and has 12 clinics worldwide. (Two are in the Netherlands; the Rotterdam clinic is the one that many people from the UK are referred to.) The paper says that it recently found out that “ACT has taken over the business of a US company called Biomark International, which closed in 2003 during an investigation by the drugs regulatory agency. Biomark's founders now face a 51-count indictment for allegedly obtaining thousands of dollars by making fraudulent claims about the effectiveness of their treatments.” The paper also reports that the Dutch government is beginning an investigation of the Rotterdam clinic due to complaints about “the way doctors are treating patients”; no one has come to any harm.