All forms of stem cell research must continue in order to realise the full promise of regenerative medicine, a recent Dublin seminar on the topic was told. Lloyd Mudiwa reports.
A panel of experts, which set out to explain the consensus of many international scientists and researchers on this subject, at a stem cell conference for patients held last month in Trinity College Dublin (TCD), appeared to back her view.
Adult stem cell therapy does not treat all of the 73 conditions, including spinal cord injury, that some proponents of the therapy have claimed, the attendants at the meeting were told. In truth, stem cells can effectively treat approximately 10 conditions, essentially leukaemia and rare blood disorders, the panel stated.
The panel, including Dr Stephen Sullivan, a visiting lecturer/researcher at TCD, Mr Brock Reeves, Executive Chairman of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, US, and Prof Orla Hardiman, consultant neurologist at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, noted that recently there have been some exciting new advances in stem cell research, especially in adult stem cell research.
However, some stem cell critics are allegedly using this progress to advance a political agenda, particularly in the US where the issue of stem cell research is polarised along political party lines, said Mr Reeves, a half-brother to deceased actor Christopher Reeves, who was paralysed by a spinal cord injury.
The panel said that efforts to favour one arm of stem cell research at the expense of another are based on unsound interpretations of scientific discoveries, saying that, “Embryonic, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) and adult stem cell technologies have and will together yield the insights that make future medical advances possible.”
Opening the symposium, Irish Patients’ Association Chairman Mr Stephen McMahon said: “This event is all about patients, the therapies that are envisioned as a result of stem cell research and, importantly, the scams that are directed at them when they and their families are at their most vulnerable.”
Most of us, he pointed out, are not fully aware of the benefits or pitfalls that may be associated with stem cell research.
Acknowledging this subject is both emotive and challenging, Mr McMahon stressed the need for the creation of both an ethical and practical framework for such research.
Citing the consensus view of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), which represents thousands of clinicians, scientists and medical researchers around the world, Mr McMahon said it is not possible to predict exactly what research will lead to a breakthrough therapy – which is why he believes all forms of stem cell research must be pursued and protected.
“Limitation of research would essentially tie one hand behind researchers’ backs and limit the discoveries that could result. Embryonic stem cell research remains absolutely essential to progress. Embryonic stem cells remain the gold standard of pluripotency – the invaluable property of certain stem cells to form all tissues in the body,” maintained Mr McMahon.
In light of a breakthrough study on adult stem cell research published in Nature last year, the ISSCR cautioned against discounting the potential benefits of all forms of stem cell research, both adult and embryonic alike.
The study, conducted at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute by Dr Douglas Melton, co-director of the Institute and a founding member of the ISSCR, demonstrated in mice that a non-insulin producing cell in the pancreas could be diverted to produce insulin through a process called “direct reprogramming”, which others have argued discounts the need for embryonic stem cell research.
“There is no question that this study represents a great advance in the field of regenerative medicine,” said Dr George Q Daley, ISSCR past President and Associate Director of the Stem Cell Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, US.
“But, as Dr Melton himself has emphatically stated, this advance does not negate the role of research with iPS or human embryonic stem cells. In fact, it is embryonic stem cell research that provides science with the very foundation and insights that make advances like this study possible.”
Mr McMahon added: “Scientific freedom is crucial, for the sake of science itself and for the patients we serve.”
Prof Orla Hardiman told the meeting that while science and medical researchers were excited about the prospects of stem cell therapy, they were possibly years away from fully understanding cells as well as their interaction with other components, let alone translating their use from animal models to humans.
The media and the Internet came in for some criticism by the panel for their role in publicising that “excitement” as a fait accompli.
Furthermore, Prof Hardiman said that we were yet to understand how some diseases worked so as to apply the stem cell therapy into countering them.
For instance, she said while the medical profession had thought that it understood how motor neurone disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease worked in the human body, this had turned out not to be the case following recent findings.
“In a way, we know less than we thought we did 10 years ago,” she commented.
Dr Sullivan, meanwhile, said some treatments were being touted before they have been proven in clinical trials to be safe or that they would work in treating particular diseases.
Although iPS cells themselves represent a major technological advance, studies with embryonic stem cells will remain essential to ultimately advancing the full potential of iPS cells for clinical application, according to the ISSCR.
University College Cork’s governing body recently gave the go-ahead to allow embryonic stem cell research, though the decision was not without controversy.
However, the College hopes its decision could mean an Irish researcher finally makes the breakthrough on using stem cell therapies to save lives.
Until conclusive and applicable treatments are developed though, it is likely that stem cell research will remain a divisive issue.
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