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1. Scientists take stem cells from an aborted foetus for their research. Is this acceptable?

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Why Can't We Experiment On Human Embryonic Stem Cells?

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Why Can't We Experiment On Human Embryonic Stem Cells?

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Why Can't We Experiment On Human Embryonic Stem Cells?

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NY TIMES: Article

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Mary Roy of Potosi, Mo., at an anti-abortion rally last week outside a Planned Parenthood building in St. Louis. Planned Parenthood's procedures for providing fetal tissue to researchers have drawn the attention of Congress. Credit Credit Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press

Videos released by an anti-abortion group during the last two weeks have drawn attention to a little-known practice: the buying, selling and research use of fetal tissue acquired from abortion clinics.

The group behind the tapes accuses Planned Parenthood of selling fetal tissue for profit - which is illegal and which Planned Parenthood denies doing. House Republicans plan to investigate. This may be just one more battle in the nation's long war over abortion, but the dispute has raised questions about who the buyers and sellers are, what fetal tissue is used for and what the law allows.

Scientists at major universities and government labs have quietly been using fetal tissue for decades. They say it is an invaluable tool for certain types of research, including the study of eye diseases, diabetes and muscular dystrophy. Nevertheless, some agree to talk about it only if their names and their universities' names are withheld, because they have received threats of violence from abortion opponents. Companies that obtain the tissue from clinics and sell it to laboratories exist in a gray zone, legally. Federal law says they cannot profit from the tissue itself, but the law does not specify how much they can charge for processing and shipping.

The National Institutes of Health spent $76 million on research using fetal tissue in 2014 with grants to more than 50 universities, including Columbia, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Yale and the University of California in Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. It expects to spend the same amount in 2015 and 2016.

Researchers say fetal tissue is a uniquely rich source of the stem cells that give rise to tissues and organs, and that studying how they develop can provide clues about how to grow replacements for parts of the body that have failed.

"Think of fetal tissue as a kind of instruction booklet," said Sheldon Miller, the scientific director of the intramural research program at the National Eye Institute.

Stem cells derived from adult tissue may eventually replace fetal ones, researchers say, but the science is not there yet.

Eye tissue from fetuses has played a crucial role in studies aimed at finding treatments for degenerative diseases of the retina that are a major cause of vision loss in people as they age, according to Dr. Miller.

"We couldn't get this information any other way," Dr. Miller said. He said the eye institute bought fetal tissue from a company, created specialized cultures of retinal tissue from it and sent them to other researchers.

A university researcher who asked not to be identified because he had received threats that led his institution to post a guard outside his laboratory, said fetal tissue was extraordinarily useful because "if you want to understand how a tissue or a disease develops, you should go back to the beginning."

Another researcher, also concerned about threats, said fetal tissue was essential in research to develop treatments for degenerative diseases of muscle, because "to regenerate tissues in a human, you need to understand how human cells work." Animal tissue can take researchers only so far, they say, because there are critical differences in development.

Fetal tissue can be used only with the consent of the woman having an abortion. Some researchers receive the tissue from abortion clinics at their own institutions, or from tissue banks maintained by some universities. Many buy the tissue from companies that act as middlemen. Those companies pay small fees, usually $100 or less a specimen, to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, who say they charge only what they need to cover their expenses. The companies then process the tissue and sell it to researchers for higher prices that reflect the processing.

The fees, which can run to thousands of dollars for a tiny vial of cells, do not break the law, according to Arthur Caplan, the director of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

"It appears to be legal, no matter how much you charge," Dr. Caplan said, adding that there appears to be little or no oversight of the processing fees. "It's a very gray and musty area as to what you can charge."

Many researchers buy tissue from two small California companies. StemExpress, a five-year-old business based in Placerville, Calif., describes itself as "the largest provider of maternal blood and fetal tissue globally." It also says it offers "special discounts to the academic community."

Its founder, Cate Dyer, has a bachelor's degree in sociology from California State University in Sacramento. She started StemExpress with $9,000. An article last November in Sacramento Business Journal said that the company had grown more than 1,300 percent in three years. Its revenue was $2.2 million, according to a report in August 2014 in Inc. magazine.

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Human fetal liver tissue under a microscope. Credit Carolina Biological Supply Company, via Newscom

Ms. Dyer said that fetal tissue accounted for about 10 percent of the company's business. She agreed to be interviewed on the condition that she not be asked about the congressional investigation into her company's partnership with Planned Parenthood. Her lawyer and a crisis communication expert were present on the telephone interview.

She said the company obtained fetal tissue in accordance with the rules made by ethics boards at the institutions buying it, and the tissue has been used in studies of leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and Parkinson's disease.

It employs 37 people, including scientists, lab technicians and phlebotomists. Most clients come from referrals, and seek hard-to-find cell types, she said.

StemExpress uses procurement technicians to obtain fetal tissue. "We're collecting biohazardous waste, discarded waste," Ms. Dyer said. "They go to a hospital or to a facility that does terminations and collect tissues from those waste products."

Back at the company, lab technicians process the tissue to try to isolate the specific cell type a researcher has ordered - for instance, fetal liver stem cells.

"These cells are hard to isolate," Ms. Dyer said. "These are hard processes, expensive processes that take millions of dollars of equipment. Just to attempt to do some of these isolations can cost us thousands of dollars, and it may not even work."

The effort is reflected in the pricing: a vial containing five million frozen fetal liver CD133+ stem cells can cost more than $24,000.

The final products are shipped fresh or frozen. Shipping fees are separate from specimen costs, and an overnight shipment to Germany, for example, can cost thousands of dollars, according to Ms. Dyer.

Fetal tissue sales are not limited to cells in a vial. More than a dozen research papers published since 2012 acknowledge obtaining intact fetal eyes, hearts, livers and kidneys from StemExpress.

The other major supplier of fetal tissue, Advanced Bioscience Resources Inc., or ABR, is a nonprofit that has 12 employees and recent sales of about $1.4 million, according to a Dun and Bradstreet report. A 2013 price sheet listed charges of $300 a specimen for tissue from a second-trimester fetus, and $515 if the fetus was first-trimester.

Linda Tracy, a registered nurse and president of ABR, said in an email that her company's prices reflect the time, effort and space needed to obtain the fetal tissue. She noted that because funds for academic institutions are limited, her company tries to keep fees at a minimum.

"Planned Parenthood is in no way making a profit from participating in a tissue donation program," said Ms. Tracy, adding that the $30 to $100 acquisition fees mentioned in the first undercover video sounded "reasonable."

ABR documents say its products have been used in H.I.V. research by medical researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. Tissue from the company has also been used at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and has been involved elsewhere in research on transplants.

A StemExpress brochure uncovered by the organization Center for Medical Progress, which was responsible for the leaked videos, contains an endorsement from a chapter of Planned Parenthood. It quotes Dr. Dorothy Furgerson of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte saying: "Our partnership with StemExpress is beneficial in a number of ways." It goes on to describe contributions to "lifesaving research," and its confidence that patients' anonymity is secure.

But critics note several references in the flyer to financial benefits for clinics. By teaming with StemExpress, "you will also be contributing to the fiscal growth of your own clinic," it says, a statement that some contend suggests clinics may be illegally profiting from providing fetal tissue.

George J. Annas, a law professor and bioethicist at Boston University, said, "What's going on now is probably legal, but Congress won't like it."

Regarding the companies, Mr. Annas said: "They won't be real happy that this is all out in the public. This threatens their business. Even if what they're doing is legal, the law can easily be changed."

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting.

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Fetal Tissue From Abortions for Research Is Traded in a Gray Zone

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Videos released by an anti-abortion group during the last two weeks have drawn attention to a little-known practice: the buying, selling and research use of fetal tissue acquired from abortion clinics. The group behind the tapes accuses Planned Parenthood of selling fetal tissue for profit - which is illegal and which Planned Parenthood denies doing.

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After working on this project we discussed and learned about genetic engineering.
Our final conclusion is that we agree with the dilemma.
The cells of aborted fetuses don't suffer any pain on human bodies so science can use them to improve and fulfill its tasks while experimenting with this stem cells.

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Bioethics:  the ethics of medical and biological research.

Stem Cells:  Are undifferentiated cells that can turn into specific cells, as the body needs them.

Foetus: an unborn or unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human more than eight weeks after conception.

Abortion: the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.

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GeneticEngineering related with GATTACA 

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GeneticEngineering related with GATTACA 

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Is the Genetic Modification of Humans Ethical?? | Gattaca | Space Taste

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EL PAÍS: Article

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La mayoría de las células de nuestros cuerpos tienen una vida corta y una misión específica que cumplir. Las células madre, que se encuentran en muchos órganos, desde la piel hasta la médula ósea, son diferentes. Estos ancestros de las células comunes son capaces de regenerarse indefinidamente. Dadas las señales bioquímicas correctas, estas células se pueden dividir y transformarse en distintos tipos de células, según las necesidades.

Tal versatilidad significa que las células madre tienen el potencial para regenerar tejidos de órganos dañados y ofrecer tratamientos nuevos y sorprendentes para una gama de enfermedades que en la actualidad son devastadoras. En efecto, las células madre podrían tal vez permitir que el ser humano 'desarrollara órganos nuevos' para reemplazar los enfermos, con lo que existiría la posibilidad de nuevas terapias celulares.

Con base en investigaciones de células similares en ratones, los científicos prevén que las células madre podrían utilizarse para reponer médula ósea en los pacientes que sufren de cáncer, para producir células pancreáticas que alivien la diabetes o células neuronales para tratar la enfermedad de Parkinson, la de Alzheimer y varios trastornos cerebrales y de la espina dorsal.

Para estas investigaciones, lo mejor es obtener células madre de embriones en sus etapas más tempranas, creados mediante fertilización in vitro, pero eso plantea dilemas éticos. La idea de que se creen embriones humanos con el propósito específico de ordeñarlos con fines médicos crea el temor de un regreso al mundo feliz. Aun cuando esos extremos son poco probables, la posibilidad de que haya abusos de cualquier tipo genera una fuerte oposición.

La mayoría de quienes se oponen a las investigaciones no cuestionan su valor científico o médico, sino el uso de embriones humanos. Estas personas, sobre todo en Alemania, donde las investigaciones sobre las células madre traen recuerdos de la eugenesia nazi, sostienen que la investigación con células obtenidas de embriones es innecesaria, porque las células madre también se encuentran de manera natural en los tejidos adultos. Aunque los científicos muestran un optimismo cauto ante informes recientes sobre la plasticidad de las células madre obtenidas de tejidos adultos, es poco lo que saben sobre la posibilidad de mantenerlas fuera del cuerpo, sobre su capacidad de diferenciación y si se pueden obtener en las cantidades que se requieren a fin de estudiar su utilidad para usos clínicos.

Si, basándose en ese optimismo, las investigaciones sobre células madre embrionarias se detienen, es posible que pasen varios años antes de que los científicos determinen si las células madre obtenidas en tejidos adultos son equivalentes a las embrionarias en términos de su potencial para curar enfermedades. No podemos permitirnos el lujo de avanzar secuencialmente con estas tecnologías tan prometedoras. Debemos explorar a la vez todas las rutas que puedan conducir a curas médicas en favor de quienes lo necesitan. Mientras que las investigaciones en células madre adultas deben llevarse a cabo de forma decidida, ello no debe ser a expensas de un programa decidido que explore el potencial que tienen las células madre embrionarias de ser utilizadas en terapias para el ser humano.

En los Estados Unidos, donde el problema fue estudiado por la Comisión Consultiva Nacional sobre Ética Biomédica a través de audiencias y discusiones con expertos en ética, líderes religiosos, científicos y médicos, recientemente se adoptó una restricción más. Se llegó a la conclusión de que es permisible, desde el punto de vista ético, preparar cepas de células madre a partir de embriones congelados, pero únicamente de aquellos obtenidos durante un proceso de fertilización in vitro y cuyos donantes y su médico consideren que exceden los requerimientos clínicos (generalmente se fertilizan más óvulos de los que se implantan en las mujeres que quieren embarazarse).

Con base en esas discusiones, el Instituto Nacional de la Salud (NIH) de los Estados Unidos permitió el uso de fondos del Gobierno para la investigación sobre células madre, pero mantiene la prohibición de que los investigadores que utilizan fondos federales puedan crear nuevas cepas. Esa restricción obliga a que las cepas se obtengan únicamente de fuentes privadas o comerciales.

Yo creo que restringir el uso de los fondos gubernamentales para la creación de células madre, aunque es prudente desde el punto de vista político, genera desventajas científicas sustanciales. Sabemos que varios factores poco estudiados provocan que las células madre pierdan su capacidad para convertirse en células de todos los tipos. Esta pérdida de la capacidad de diferenciación puede deberse a la forma en la que se obtienen las células madre, las condiciones que rodean su crecimiento y otras variables de su manejo.

Permitir que distintos investigadores financiados por el Gobierno obtengan cepas celulares en condiciones diferentes en sus propios laboratorios, como se ha hecho recientemente en Gran Bretaña y Francia, es el mejor camino para determinar cuáles son las condiciones críticas para generar células útiles para propósitos terapéuticos específicos. Las células madre embrionarias preparadas en el laboratorio de un científico, con toda probabilidad se obtuvieron, guardaron y conservaron con métodos que maximizan su potencia para usos particulares. Las que se obtienen de fuentes comerciales, posiblemente tendrán antecedentes genéticos desconocidos y, por lo tanto, resultan menos útiles para los estudios importantes.

Aunque en ocasiones se mencionan contingencias remotas, la elección ética fundamental que plantea la investigación de las células madre es más limitada: deben o no utilizarse embriones humanos, que a la larga serán destruidos legalmente, para crear terapias que podrían salvar vidas. Quienes se oponen al aborto sin importar los motivos afirman que sacrificar un embrión humano para obtener células madre es similar al aborto y, por lo tanto, es inmoral. Pero, bajo mi punto de vista, obtener células madre de embriones que están en sus etapas más tempranas y que al final serán destruidos es éticamente distinto al aborto. También debemos considerar las consecuencias morales de abandonar estas investigaciones que tienen el potencial de salvar y mejorar vidas humanas. ¿Qué mayor moralidad existe que hacer todo lo que podamos para ayudar a los individuos cuyas vidas están plagadas por la enfermedad?

Paul Berg, premio Nobel de Química en 1980, es profesor emérito de investigación sobre el cáncer y bioquímica en la Escuela de Medicina de la Universidad de Stanford (Estados Unidos). § Project Syndicate.

* Este artículo apareció en la edición impresa del Jueves, 12 de abril de 2001

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Tribuna | En apoyo a la investigación con 'células madre' embrionarias

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La mayoría de las células de nuestros cuerpos tienen una vida corta y una misión específica que cumplir. Las células madre, que se encuentran en muchos órganos, desde la piel hasta la médula ósea, son diferentes. Estos ancestros de las células comunes son capaces de regenerarse indefinidamente.

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Video discussion bioethics