UCI awaits stem cell vote in UN
Deirdre Newman
Scientists on campus who work with stem cells are apprehensive about
a vote the United Nations is slated to take today on whether to
restart work on a global treaty that would ban all cloning using
human stem cells, even if it’s for medical research.
Human stem cells can be used for two types of cloning:
reproductive, which involves cloning another human being, and
therapeutic, which uses embryonic stem cells and changes them to
generate whatever tissue of the body is needed to treat and cure
diseases.
While most of the world agrees that reproductive cloning should be
banned, there is division on the issue of therapeutic cloning.
In November, the U.N.’s legal committee narrowly voted to postpone
any decision on the issue for two years.
Because the vote was so close, 40 countries that support a total
ban on cloning human cells, led by Costa Rica, may try to overturn
the postponement and introduce a strict ban of their own.
UC Irvine scientists such as Aileen Anderson look on this move
with disdain.
“I believe strongly that a more intelligent course of action would
be to come to an agreement banning human reproductive cloning, but
allowing scientists and researchers around the world to freely pursue
therapeutic cloning within the bounds of strict ethical guidelines,”
Anderson said. “Ultimately, as a scientist, I believe that research
along this course will find cures for many diseases.”
Anderson, who wrote a letter to the U.N. on Wednesday in favor of
therapeutic cloning, works with the Reeve Irvine Research Center at
UCI, which conducts research for treating injury and disease of the
spinal cord.
One type of research that would be affected by a total ban on
human cloning explores how patients can be cured using their own DNA,
she said. The process, called somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves
taking out the nucleus of an unfertilized egg and replacing it with
the nucleus of a patient’s own cell, such as a skin, heart and nerve
cell. The goal of this procedure is to develop stem cells that won’t
be rejected or destroyed by the patient’s immune system. No sperm is
used in this procedure, and the cells are not transplanted into a
womb, Anderson said.
Arthur Lander, who works at UCI with the stem cells of mice, said
he understands the concern about therapeutic human cloning because
the processes for reproductive and therapeutic cloning start out the
same. With therapeutic cloning, though, scientists grow the human
embryonic stem cells for only two days and then divide them so they
grow into a culture of cells. This culture is then used to produce
the basic elements of various tissues.
“Both are cloning an embryo -- where you go from there is up to
you,” Lander said.
Lander doesn’t believe the U.N. should concern itself with human
cell cloning.
“Not only shouldn’t the U.N. have jurisdiction over these sorts of
things, they certainly have no enforcement ability,” Lander said.
“People’s level of discomfort in dealing with tissue or enabling
technology that could potentially have negative consequences, like
human cloning -- that should be dealt with in individual communities
and cultures.”
Lander said he is adamantly opposed to reproductive cloning and
would like to see the U.S. create strong rules to prevent this type
of cloning.
“Certainly, an out-and-out ban on stuff we don’t understand enough
about the full potential [of], and really need to explore to find
out, I think that’s counterproductive,” Lander said.
* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)
574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.
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