PerspectivesAre you interested in submitting a Perspective Article? Be sure to read The Science Advisory Board's Editorial Guides for Perspective Articles. Click here. Research on stem cell research by Wim D’Haeze, Ph.D. Parkinson’s disease, leukemia, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and type I diabetes are a few striking examples of devastating diseases, many of us are directly and/or indirectly familiar with. Decades of in-depth scientific research on those and many other diseases by numerous top-level groups worldwide strengthened our understanding of the pathology of those disorders at the molecular level aiming to develop therapeutic strategies and drugs to treat affected patients. Exciting progress is being made (e.g. in some cases drugs are tested in clinical trials on human subjects), but the general rule-of-thumb is that a clear-cut cure for the above mentioned and many other diseases is not yet available. Moreover, the current mostly applied treatment for instance leukemia, chemotherapy and radiation, does not come without considerable side-effects and a relatively high risk of failure since the patient’s blood-making stem cells will be destroyed during such treatments. Understandably, many eyes are now focused on the developments on stem cell research aiming to successfully treat particular human diseases by stem cell based regenerative medicine, in which sick people effectively replace their damaged parts. Stem cells are distinct from other cells in that they are unspecialized cells that can renew themselves for long periods of time through cell division, and that, under specific physiologic or experimental conditions, they can be stimulated to become cells with defined functions (e.g. cells of the heart muscle or insulin-producing cells of the pancreas) via a process called differentiation. Basically, scientists work with two distinct types of stem cells, namely embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, in contrast to adult stem cells, are pluripotent because they have the ability to differentiate into all cell types of the body. However, evidence suggests a plasticity among some adult stem cells which increases the number of cell types an adult stem cell can become. Embryonic cells are advantageous over adult stem cells because they can relatively easily be cultured which is important as large quantities of cells are needed for functional cell replacement therapies. At the other hand, the use of adult stem cells implies that the patients own cell can be used in the therapy which minimizes the risk for immune rejection. Although yet not fully scientifically proven, the potential of stem cells for the successful treatment of various diseases is thought to be immense illustrated by the following examples. A common neurodegenerative disease among 65+ people, Parkinson’s disease, is caused by the progressive degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons. It is thought that therapy using the patient’s own neural stem cells may lead to the generation of new mature and dopamine-producing cells and improved motor function. Adult bone marrow stem cells injected into heart arteries are believed to improve cardiac function in patients coping with heart attacks or heart failure. Leukemia patients treated with stem cells from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood were freed from their disease. Stem cells may also be engineered to become the type of pancreatic islet cells that secrete insulin and consequently be applied to combat type I diabetes. But somehow surprisingly, unlike the very promising studies on the use of stem cell treatments in animal models of devastating human diseases, the public opinion, and thus that of politicians and law makers, remains dispersed roughly creating two main groups: those who strongly support stem cell research because of its potential to treat various human diseases, and those who are against stem cell research, mainly based on ethic and other nonscientific grounds. In this respect it is important to notice that human embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that are typically four to five days old and are a hollow microscopic ball of cells, also called the blastocyst. Based on ethic and/or other beliefs, many people formed an opinion, which is basically against performing research on embryonic stem cells because in order to obtain those cells, human embryos are unavoidably destroyed. Others think a blastocyst is not more than a heap of cells and have not the slightest problem with embryonic stem cell research in all its aspects. Notwithstanding, the facts are that no evidence has been reported that a blastocyst at the moment that embryonic stem cells are harvested, exhibits a heart beat or possesses a nervous system, suggesting that feelings of any kind cannot be perceived by the embryo at this very early stage of its development. Obviously, there is no need to mention that in any case, these are sensitive ethic issues that need strict country-dependent and government-born regulations. Throughout the past years, one of the previous administrations of the US attempted to develop ethics guidelines and a system for national funding of the new field. More recently, federal money to support stem cell research was withheld which inadvertently created a complex maze of regulations. Basically, research on stem cells is allowed in the US, but it can only be funded by national granting agencies if the research will be performed on either of about a two dozen usable, existing cell lines. If one wants to perform research on a new (embryonic) stem cell line, obtaining national funding might be tough if not impossible. Unfortunate for the US, who have a long lasting tradition to maintain a record of leading the world towards advances in science and medicine, many other countries in Europe and Asia strongly support scientific research to aggressively design and develop stem cell therapies. Just to mention one striking example – the government of South Korea is currently developing plans to build an international stem cell research center in its capital city Seoul. This center is not only thought to be a stem cell bank, but will also develop as a collaborative internationally recognized research center where people from abroad may visit to learn about and perceive stem cell research related experiences. Such institutions will not only account for making tempting progress but they will also take leadership in the world. Those facts together with the currently harsh conditions and environment in the US to perform top-level stem cell research may further fuel the emigration of prominent American scientists. In conclusion, it is clear that the scientists, the public and, not least, the patients have high expectations in respect of stem cell-based regenerative medicine to treat a variety of devastating human diseases including leukemia and Parkinson’s disease. In order to reach this goal, it is indispensable to strongly support research on stem cells and dissect the potency of stem cells to be used in stem cell therapies. Research institutes worldwide should integrate and collaborate with each other to serve the better good, and the uncertain financial situation of and tight restrictions to US stem cell researchers should definitely become past tense in the very near future. ### Wim D’Haeze is Bio-Engineer in Chemistry and received his Ph.D. in Biotechnology at the Ghent University (Belgium) in June 2001. His doctoral thesis work was focused on the understanding of several early steps of the symbiotic interaction between the Gram-negative soil bacterium Azorhizobium caulinodans and the tropical legume Sesbania rostrata. The initial steps require the production of bacterial compounds including signal molecules and complex surface polysaccharides, that are pivotal for invasion of the plant tissue and the formation of new organ tissues. In the three subsequent years, he performed post-doctoral research at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at the University of Georgia (Athens, GA) dealing in part with the structural and functional characterization of azorhizobial extracellular polysaccharides. Currently, Wim D’Haeze is employed at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA) as Science Writer and focuses on a new horizon regarding the molecular basis of devastative neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, in order to screen for and develop new therapeutics. He has been a member of the Science Advisory Board since November 2002. E-mail: wim.dhaeze@sbcglobal.net ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Perspectives ] |
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