Adult stem cells for animals?

No, no, not adult human stem cells for animals, but homologous adult stem cells for the animal itself. So says this article, about an elderly dog with arthritis in his leg.

According to the website of the firm that extracted the multipotent 'stem cells' from the fats tissue of the dog cured, adipose-derived 'regenerative cells' are more readily available than those taken from the bone marrow, and seem to be effective in repairing muscle and cartilage damages in those animals treated. Also, it seems like the application of the treatment is fairly straightforward: simple injection of the stem cells harvested, directly to the site of injury.

So one wonders again, why is there so much emphasis given to embryonic stem cells research when we could focus our attention to what has been proven to work?

New, non-invasive prenatal testing method

Some researchers in Stanford had discovered that using DNA sequencing on a pregnant mother's blood, one would be able to tell whether the baby she carries is having Down's syndrome. Since it is still at experimental stage, the sample size was only nine women, with 100% accuracy.

While this is a good move to protect the baby from miscarrying (a risk that is present with amnioscentesis - a procedure that is synonymous with prenatal testing today), I think this might make it easier for pregnant women to 'screen early' (as early as 14 weeks, the study cited) for genetic disabilities in the baby and might, might, just increase their propensity to abort any less-than-healthy baby!

Article here: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1006/3

Another advance in iPS research!

Researchers working on induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS) have announced another breakthrough today. Earlier results showed that organs grown from retrovirally produced iPS cells in mice grew cancer very soon after. This most recent methodology "added cell-reprogramming genes to adenoviruses, a type of virus that infects cells without affecting their DNA." The adenoviruses, after producing cell-reprogramming proteins, turning the cells embryonic, departed. The goal was to produce genetically unmodified iPS cells.

Link to paper abstract here.

Drawing lines

This evening, browsing Google News, I clicked on a story headline simply because its title is so arresting: "Bush got it right on stem cells". Before this evening, I did not know who is Charles Krauthammer, the author of the story; so I didn't know whether he falls under the 'conservative', 'neocon' or 'leftist' inclination, but the title itself is simply provocative. It is very rare to hear President Bush being praised for anything these days.

In the last few weeks, anyone who's watching the bioethics field, or is simply curious about the latest scientific breakthrough, must have heard of some wonderful news about IPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells)—which are essentially stem cells that did not come from embryos and therefore did not involve killing of anyone.

Soon after this breaking news, there came another piece of even better news: IPS cells that were not created using a protooncogene, which earlier was used and was feared to induce cancer in the subjects.

Since I'm not American and do not pay taxes to the US, I have no comments regarding her president; only that Bush was right to make the stem cell issue a moral issue and draw a line. The Catholic Church, whose teaching I subscribe to, is unambiguous on this issue: life begins at conception, therefore harvesting stem cells from embryos is equivalent to killing of innocent lives, always an intrinsically grave evil.

While Krauthammer himself is in favor of a more 'liberal' policy on ESC research, he rightly pointed out that the slope is very slippery. He reiterated the need to draw a firm line, and pointed the dubious examples of 'populist' politicians who kept continuously re-drawing and 'retreating' their positions. If nothing else, Bush earned a place in American history through this one policy.

What, thought, what if, the IPS breakthrough had not come about? Prior to them, there have always been other sources of "adult" stem cells, such as those that are obtained from umbilical cord blood cells. Bottomline is, no good end can ever justify evil means.

Finding "God-spot" in our brains

This article amuses me to no end... some scientists are trying to 'map God' into regions of the human brain. What's amusing to me are: (1) how they try to see what's happening in the brains of several Buddhists as well as Carmelite and Franciscan nuns as they meditate / pray (or tried to pray, given that they are lying prone in an MRI scanner with electric caps attached to their heads), (2) how they explain 'away' the sensation of divine presence (and in the Buddhist cases, one-ness with the universe feeling), and then ironically, (3) how they would like to reproduce the apparent benefits associated with the practice of prayers in other (presumably non-praying) people by 'firing' on some regions of the brain to activate the 'God experience': "If you know how to electrically or neurochemically change functions in the brain, then you [might] in principle be able to help normal people, not mystics, achieve spiritual states using a device that stimulates the brain electromagnetically or using lights and sounds."

The conclusion seems a little disappointing to the scientists in this study, though not unexpected:

"There is no single God spot, localized uniquely in the temporal lobe of the human brain," Beauregard (ed: a neuroscientist) concludes. "These states are mediated by a neural network that is well distributed throughout the brain."

This is an interesting comment, although a little inconsistent, given that they did indeed volunteer themselves to this 'silly' study:

Although Beauregard had hoped the nuns would experience a mystical union while in the scanner, the best they could do, it turned out, was to conjure up an emotionally powerful memory of union with God. "God can’t be summoned at will," explained Sister Diane, the prioress of the Carmelite convent in Montreal.

To be fair, the article also mentioned that there are significant physical differences in certain areas of the brains amongst those who pray. The 'benefits' noted include alleviation of stress and sadness, as well as a slight reversal of the usual process of aging of the brain, which are still tangible benefits for anyone else who do not pray.

The reporter concludes thus:

[No] matter what neural correlates scientists may find, the results cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Although atheists might argue that finding spirituality in the brain implies that religion is nothing more than divine delusion, the nuns were thrilled by their brain scans for precisely the opposite reason: they seemed to provide confirmation of God’s interactions with them. After all, finding a cerebral source for spiritual experiences could serve equally well to identify the medium through which God reaches out to humanity. Thus, the nuns’ forays into the tubular brain scanner did not undermine their faith. On the contrary, the science gave them an even greater reason to believe.

Read the rest here.

Happiness is...

... a warm electrode, according to modern science :)

The subject has been ill with depression for more than ten years, and did not respond to typical treatment such as drugs and ECT (electroconvulsive therapy). This DBS (Deep Brain Surgery) treatment implanted electrodes that deliver a small, regular jolt of electrical current to an area of the brain 'believed to be a key regulator of mood'. While similar treatment has been done on patients with Parkinson's disease by normalizing the 'activity in the basal ganglia and thalmus—which dictate motor control—thus reducing trembling limbs', this operation is believed to be the first to 'tackle depression'.

The article did briefly mention the ethical concern of allowing this treatment to be performed without much understanding of why the electrical pulses seem to be correlated to mood uplifting, and putting in a mechanical implant that may have to last many decades. The argument given in favor of this treatment is the seeming epidemic of depression; and how time is the enemy of depression patients, having caused many fatalities through suicide (11th leading cause of death in the US, this article says). Notably missing however, is a discussion on the implication of having this implant in a patient's head—both from the risk aspect of mechanical failure or poisoning or contamination, and unforeseen psychiatric & physiological side-effect, since this treatment only picked up in the 1990's, giving only a very brief period to study the safety and the efficacy of such medical treatment.

Also troubling in my opinion, is how happiness (albeit the author meant it with his tongue-in-cheek) has been reduced to a formula delivered through a set of physical treatment. It may not be too long before it is made available to anyone who feels the need of an extra dose of happiness. Lunchtime pick-me-up session anyone?