Seven Stanford researchers, including Irving Weissman, MD, who directs Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and David Magnus, PhD, director of Stanford’s Center for Biomedical Ethics, have joined with four other prominent scientists to urge the lifting of a recent and unexpected ban on funding by the National Institutes of Health for research that involves placing human stem cells into early-stage, non-human embryos. Their comments will be published tomorrow in a letter to Science.
As I describe in our release:
At issue is the growing field of research that seeks to understand how human pluripotent stem cells, which can become any cell type, may integrate and contribute to the development of a nonhuman animal, such as a laboratory mouse. Pluripotent stem cells can be isolated from human embryos or created in a lab from adult human cells, in which case they’re known as induced pluripotent stem cells. Once obtained, these versatile cells can be injected into an early-stage animal embryo and studied as the embryo develops into an adult animal.
Tracking where these cells go and how they function in the growing embryo and the adult animal can help researchers understand early stages of human development that can’t be studied any other way. (Although researchers can and do study the development of fertilized human eggs, the study period is restricted to only a few days after fertilization for ethical reasons.)
In addition to investigating human development, the research is expected to lead to significant advances in disease modeling, drug testing and even transplantation. As cardiologist and one of the co-senior authors of the letter, Sean Wu, MD, PhD, explains:
By eliminating federal funding for all aspects of this research, the NIH casts a shadow of negativity toward all experiments involving chimera studies regardless of whether human cells are involved. The current NIH restriction serves as a significant impediment to major scientific progress in the fields of stem cell and developmental biology and regenerative medicine and should be lifted as soon as possible.
Science recently published a great background article describing the ban, and its effect on researchers like Sean Wu and geneticist and stem cell researcher Hiromitsu Nakauchi, MD, PhD, who also signed the letter. Other signees include Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and director of Stanford Cardiovascular Institute; Christopher Scott, PhD, director of Stanford’s Program on Stem Cells and Society; and Vittorio Sebastiano, PhD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of Stanford’s Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Core Facility.
Previously: NIH intramural human embryonic stem cell research halted, Supreme Court decision on human embryonic stem cell case ends research uncertainty, Using organic chemistry to decipher embryogenesis and The best toxicology lab: a mouse with a human liver
Photo by Fimb
