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Thursday 17 January 2008

RAPID ROUNDUP: SA Parliament to vote on human therapeutic cloning research – experts respond

The media has reported that South Australian MPs are being lobbied to reject legislation on the human therapeutic cloning for medical research. The South Australian Parliament will be the first in the world to vote on the issue since the reprogramming of human adult cells back to an embryonic-like state (called iPS cells) was announced in November 2007. The SA legislation is designed to mirror federal legislation introduced in 2006.

Australian Scientists respond to claims that therapeutic cloning has been made redundant by the generation non-embryonic iPS cells.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. If you wish to speak to one of these or another expert, contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415.



Dr Andrew Laslett is a Senior Scientist at the Australian Stem Cell Centre (ASCC) and an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Monash University.

"The ability to make human iPS cells is a fundamental breakthrough which should be applauded and thoroughy investigated. However, iPS cells are not at all identical to human ES cells (1267 genes are greater than 5 fold different between human ES and iPS cells - Takahashi et al, Cell 2007) and it not yet known if iPS cells are genetically stable over long time periods. IPS cells will be a fantastic tool for study in the laboratory but may never be safe (stable) enough to treat humans with.

Cell types made from human embryonic stem cells have been shown to be genetically stable in many laboratories around the world and are about to be used in human clinical trials to treat spinal cord injury in California. It would be extremely premature for any government or regulatory authority to decide that research on human embryonic stem cells was no longer required. I would strongly argue that all avenues of research including somatic cell nuclear transfer need to be actively pursued as it may be that pluripotent cells produced by different techniques will have different capacities to treat different diseases or injuries."



Professor Richard Boyd is Deputy Director of the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories, Monash University

“The reprogramming of adult cells to become stem cells is phenomenal science but it is not a reason to discard embryonic stem cells in any way shape or form, in fact they just a very important new weapon in the armoury. If we sit here and predict which of the current technologies is going to give us a treatment for Parkinson’s disease in five years time, it is impossible to say. Institutes like ours do research on adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells, somatic nuclear transfer and reprogramming research.

Embryonic stem cells allow us investigate the mechanisms of development of a mature cell from an immature cell, it tells us how the body builds itself. The reprogramming technology would not have been possible if we did not first know what was happening in embryonic stem cells, each of these technologies feeds off each other. In a sensible research environment and to get the fastest possible outcomes for patients you need to maintain all these technologies. It may turn out in the future that one technology may become redundant, but before that can happen a few questions remain, if I take a normal cell and turn it into a stem cell, will it still function normally? Will it not form a cancer in 10 years time? – there are a lot of unknowns in terms of the safety of these cells and their future clinical applications. “



Wendy Rogers is Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Law at Flinders University and the Ethics Centre of South Australia

“Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells appear to offer a second way of seeking the benefits of stem cells. However this is no reason to abandon the legislation to permit therapeutic cloning. iPS are as yet unproven: we need ongoing research with both embryonic and iPS cells.

“The proposed legislation is permissive only. It does not require that embryonic stem cell research go ahead, but if scientists can put forward embryonic stem cell research proposals that pass scientific scrutiny and get funded, their research should be allowed to proceed, so long as it complies with ethical guidelines governing embryonic research.”