Stem-cell researchers look beyond the embryo

The medical, moral and political debate over the need for embryonic stem-cell research remains fierce, with multiple medical reports in the past 18 months describing ways to produce disease-treating stem cells without destroying human embryos.

Stem cells are the body’s master cells, the basic building blocks from which a person’s tissue and organs develop. Scientists say the cells hold promise for treating — and perhaps curing — diseases such as Parkinson’s, diabetes and cancer.

Proponents of embryonic stem-cell research think these types of cells hold the greatest potential for medical breakthroughs because they have the ability to grow into any type of cell in the body if scientists learn how to direct their development.

But critics of embryonic stem-cell research, including President Bush, say destroying or tampering with a human embryo is immoral.

“We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our own convenience,” Mr. Bush has said.

The president and others favor research that involves stem cells from adults and children, which can be obtained without harming the donor. Examples include stem cells taken from bone marrow and other organs and tissue, and from placentas left over from live births.

Some stem-cell researchers and others who closely observe the field think scientists will find viable alternatives to embryonic stem cells that are not morally objectionable.

“I believe we could get the equivalent of embryonic stem cells through technological solutions that do not require the creation and destruction of embryos,” said Dr. William B. Hurlbut, a consulting professor at Stanford University’s Neuroscience Institute.

“Had we acknowledged this possibility early and put our energies to the task, we would probably have found an answer by now,” said Dr. Hurlbut, also a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.

“An alternative is going to happen,” said Dr. Markus Grompe, head of the Stem Cell Research Center at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. He says he uses “mouse embryo stem cells all the time” in his lab work but never human embryonic stem cells because of moral concerns.

B.D. Colen, spokesman for the Harvard Stem Cell Research Institute, is disturbed by the attention being given to those with moral concerns about embryonic stem cells.

“When did we start basing science policy in this country on what are fundamentally religious beliefs?” he asked.

Finding alternatives

A White House report on stem-cell research, released Jan. 9 by the Domestic Policy Council, stated that there should be a way “to create human pluripotent cells,” meaning flexible cells such as embryonic stem cells, that “can transform into many or perhaps all of the different cell types in the body in cells derived without embryos.”

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