MEDICAL RESEARCH - New Stem Cell Breakthrough

"Researchers make stem cell discovery by studying tissue stress and repair" PBS Newshour 1/29/2014

Excerpts

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  Today's news of a breakthrough in stem cell research captured the attention of scientists around the world.

For years, researchers have been investigating how to get adult stem cells to behave more like embryonic ones, which would allow them to be developed into almost any organ or tissue.  The findings announced today involve a simple treatment, immersing adult mouse cells in a mild acid bath.  As seen here, mouse embryos were grown with beating heart cells derived from this process.

Dr. Charles Vacanti was one of the lead researchers from the team at Brigham and Women's Hospital.  And he joins me now.
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GWEN IFILL:  Well, one the differences, it seems to me, is that you know the debate around stem cell research has always been around embryonic stem cell research, because you had to destroy embryos in order to get access to that.  And that has crossed all kinds of barriers for people.  This, if it pans out, removes that possibility?

CHARLES VACANTI:  That was the intention.

So it is my belief that we can now create autologous, so specific for any individual, their own embryonic stem cells for use to generate new tissue without ever having to create an embryo or ever having to destroy an embryo.

BIOLOGY - Unfertilized Human Egg, to Early-Stage Blastocyst, to Heart Cells

"Major Embryonic Stem Cell Advance Raises Ethical Quandaries" PBS Newshour 5/16/2013

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  And finally tonight, a major advance in stem cell work, but one that again raises ethical questions.

Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University were able to create embryonic stem cells through a cloned human embryo, a longtime goal, since such cells are capable of transforming into tissues and organs genetically identical to a patient who needs them.

Researchers took the DNA from a donor's unfertilized egg, then inserted mature skin cells containing the DNA of a patient.  That led to the creation of an early-stage embryo called a blastocyst, a group of 50 to 100 cells.  From that, scientists derived stem cells and then transformed them into heart cells.

The blastocyst was destroyed in the process and was never implanted in a human womb.

Rob Stein has been covering this story for NPR and joins us now.