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.