James Thomson and AAAS head Alan Leshner have a very direct op-ed in the Washington Post today about all the discussion surrounding induced pluripotent stem cells. It seems they’re not too happy with what they’ve been hearing. Here’s a clip:
A new way to trick skin cells into acting like embryos changes both everything and nothing at all. Being able to reprogram skin cells into multipurpose stem cells without harming embryos launches an exciting new line of research. It’s important to remember, though, that we’re at square one, uncertain at this early stage whether souped-up skin cells hold the same promise as their embryonic cousins do.
Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both the U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.
Thomson and Leshner go on to dispute the “President Bush’s moral guidance helped bring about this discovery” storyline, they call out Charles Krauthammer for being inaccurate, and they try up to stir things up on the issue of all the embryos stored in fertility clinic freezers.
-Greg Dahlmann
(via James Fossett)
Earlier coverage of induced pluripotent stem cells on blog.bioethics.net