Tailor-made stem cells.

Seoul -- In February, 2004, a research team led by Dr. Hwang Woo-suk claimed in an article in Science magazine to have made the world's first cloned human embryo. This claim was hailed world-wide by the stem-cell research community as a major advance because, as it was said, it opened the door to cures of diseases, including diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

In May, 2005, Hwang claimed to have produced eleven "patient specific" stem cell lines from cloned human embryos by transferring somatic cell nuclei from patients into donated ova whose nucleus had been removed. In December of 2005, it was reported that Dr. Hwang admitted fabrication of evidence. If he did so, then he and his colleagues would have seriously damaged their credibility. Those who had previously praised his work, not for the impossibility of his claim, but for the alleged fabrication, immediately condemned it. Their condemnation poses some questions.

The international scientific establishment knows that the stem cells derived from Hwang's cloned embryos could not possibly match a patient donor, except in the rare circumstance where a woman had the nucleus of one of her own somatic cells transferred into one of her own ova. In all other cases, such nuclear transfer clones contain mitochondrial DNA, derived from the cytoplasm of the ovum, that is foreign to the patient, and that would cause immune rejection in patients if injected. The international scientific establishment will themselves lose its own credibility if it does not challenge Dr. Hwang's claim.

Comment

It is indeed ironic that members of the stem cell research community that now criticizes Dr. Hwang have themselves popularized the notion that human embryos, cloned from patients, could provide the answer to the problem of tissue rejection. Is their failure to let the public know that embryonic stem cells, whether obtained from in vitro or cloned embryos, could still cause tissue rejection, not a moral problem for the stem cell establishment?

When will members of the establishment admit to the public that stem cells derived from cloned embryos are likely to cause cancer or other rumours in the patient? When will they admit the scientific fact, known to the science of human embryology for 120 years, that a human being comes into existence when the zygote, the one cell embryo, is formed? When will they admit that this fact is established by science and not, as they claim, an opinion based on religious belief.) When will they stop confusing the public by failing to distinguish between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells? When will they admit that embryonic stem cells have had no clinical success, whereas adult stem cells have provided treatments for more than 58 diseases, including leukemia, brain and breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid and juvenile arthritis, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury? When will they admit that to kill an embryo at the one cell stage is to kill an innocent human being, an act that cannot be morally justified by any good intention? When will they stop denying the humanity of the embryo before implantation in the uterus by calling it a "pre-embryo" or 'Just a clump of cells?"

Is not the clamorous condemnation of Dr. Hwang and associates a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black? (John B. Shea, MD FRCP(C))