[Pflienews] PharmFacts E-News Update: Adult Stem Cells Reprogrammed Using Aborted Fetal and HES cells

Tue Jan 8 07:34:27 MST 2008

*PharmFacts E-News Update -- 8 Jan 2008 AD

*

Adult Stem Cells Reprogrammed Using Aborted Fetal and HES cells
Moral methods could have been used

TENNESSEE, Jan. 8 /Christian Newswire/ -- Children of God for Life 
reports that a recent stem cell breakthrough that turns adult skin cells 
to "embryonic" is not a pro-life solution as currently done. On November 
21st and 22nd, Dr. Shinya Yamanaka and Dr James Thomson published 
back-to-back studies that were hailed as moral alternatives to embryonic 
stem cell research. Both studies involved introducing genes into adult 
stem cells through a lentivirus, which reprogrammed them to become 
"embryonic" or induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, without destroying 
human embryos. But pro-lifers may have celebrated too soon, without 
studying the methods used in the papers.

Both researchers used several versions of the 293 aborted fetal cell 
lines to modify the DNA of the host adult skin cells, in order to 
accomplish the reprogramming.

"Unless you read the papers published by Dr Yamanaka in Cell and Dr 
Thomson in Science, you would have no idea where the DNA came from that 
was used to transform the adult cells", stated Debi Vinnedge, Executive 
Director of Children of God for Life, a pro-life watchdog organization 
focused on stem cell research and aborted fetal cell lines in medical 
products. "And even then you would have to know what you were looking 
for to understand it", she added.

For example, while Dr Yamanaka reports using PLAT- E, PLAT-A and 293FT 
cells in his paper, the proper name for these cell lines is HEK (human 
embryonic kidney) 293. The cells were obtained from an, electively 
aborted baby by Dr. Alex Van der Eb, Crucell NV, the same company 
producing aborted fetal cell line PER C6, derived from the retinal 
tissue of an 18- week gestation baby.

In the second study, Dr James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, 
Madison, also used aborted fetal cell line 293FT to produce DNA used to 
modify adult cells. Furthermore, Dr Thomson obtained the DNA sequences 
he used from human ES cells. And before using foreskin fibroblasts, 
Thomson tested the reprogramming on IMR-90 aborted fetal cell line, 
taken from the lung tissue of a 16-week gestation female baby.

"Pro-lifers may be deceived by the excitement about these publications", 
Vinnedge cautioned. "Using aborted fetal and embryonic stem cells from 
deliberately destroyed human beings is certainly not any kind of moral 
victory."

Vinnedge noted that the research is fraught with other moral and 
clinical problems, such as fatal tumors, which are a well- documented 
attribute of embryonic stem cells, and which also occurred with the 
adult reprogrammed IPS cells. And while Yamanaka and Thomson allege the 
new cells generated would be "patient specific" with no immune rejection 
problems, this claim is premature because there is foreign DNA present 
from the lentivirus used to modify the cells.

However, it is not necessary to use aborted fetal cells to produce the 
lentivirus at all, noted Dr Theresa Deisher, R&D Director of Ave Maria 
Biotechnology Company, a research firm dedicated to pro-life 
alternatives for unethical human therapeutics.

"There are other ethical ways to produce the DNA needed for 
transformation, efficiently and morally," said Dr Deisher. "If these 
means were employed to produce the needed DNA, there would be no moral 
issues with the use of reprogrammed adult cells for research."

Read Dr Deisher's editorial Why Are We Celebrating the Reprogramming of 
Adult Cells? www.cogforlife.org/reprogramandethics.htm 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dSataRXQoEsHDhfEFoLgLzp1hcl18s6zln02-G_cy63DsTPJGUbh8ZxrkXKd-GsIGq42JlJfJjLappI7luCwdRHzBXc-Z6Gq0uXA8kb0e1iDunwLSzecwyOFXZETl-EDQc_kPK9i8XDStueSbC0Ikw==>

Dr Yamanaka, Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells >From Adult Human 
Fibroblasts By Defined Factors 
http://images.cell.com/images/Edimages/Cell/IEPs/36 61.pdf 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dSataRXQoEu7_ailZWXk86mozCEh484EUniisLkT-Hi5T_raTWJRBnteFqCpDeNDv3xQ5NngaAKhXNO9sxpdPYEndY2KEm_3_nw-4qwru9Vcidu9VcKx5WKAzj8o2EZYjxpaoGpQ8VQKWTAg-V-bTgXJlqvX9N-SmUXblL_97EY=>

Dr James Thomson, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived From Human 
Somatic Cells, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/11515 26 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dSataRXQoEurAeIyUbiKndRZ3o9IDsyuq2fqdm--OcHaiahS8eHUALYzwqoz66xOpf0ChCBRRDgA1aBDZIe-RVOWQB0F6s1KfUdkNzzKGuS3vTthY9qvacuTOaFj7UJY7qz1MPWq1I4Btdn7nsmq1zk_BY7jN79Q>

Christian Newswire 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dSataRXQoEvBEiU3dK00kjRWIAJ4PXUMDtv6j_TH7KB7DXoilbYAoGy5iGKNlKaoyIPN10CTM_rK6zEhZFruf9CqGMtXHUubqTo_bScaQA5ZxQO8lF-Z6K4czlQ4BFkl>

	To: National Desk

Contact: Children of God for Life, info at cogforlife.org, 615-898-1070

# Children of God for Life 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001dSataRXQoEtAbRAFy7YtNHTOe9ufPBd5CTrxUp5L5DhSfh66AWC3fThkaj1NqieyhpcEtythXGniT4DmfEjV2K2gSJ1BMgMqD3vQ9zbbubo1deS9_uGJmg==> 

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