Adult Stem Cells Also Good for Basic Research

One of the arguments made in favor of human cloning research, is that we need to be able to make cloned human embryonic stem cells in order to study disease processes. Frankly, this is the best argument for permitting cloning, rather than the CURES! CURES! CURES hype—which may well never materialize. However Big Biotech’s propagandists know that advocating for bench science won’t overcome people’s unease with cloning human life; hence the misdirection into cloning as a “self repair kit,” to quote Ron Reagan’s ridiculous speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

It is in this context that I bring up an interesting experiment in which Canadian scientists created “leukemia stem cells” from normal human blood and injected them into mice to study the disease (again showing the necessity of medical research with animals). From the story:

Imagine if scientists could peer into the blood and see the very first aberrant cells that will give birth to leukemia and then watch as the disease slowly progresses and takes over the body. Well, Canadian researchers have done just that—converted normal human blood cells into leukemia stem cells, then transplanted them into lab mice and witnessed the disease unfold...

The groundbreaking research involved infecting cells from umbilical cord blood with a virus engineered to carry one of the genes known to cause certain types of leukemia. The genetic alteration created primitive leukemia stem cells, which were then injected into specially bred lab mice. All of the animals—bred with no immune system, so their bodies do not reject human cells—developed leukemia with the same characteristics and patterns experienced by people with the disease, say the researchers, whose study was published Thursday in the journal Science. “We actually created leukemia stem cells,” said Dick. “And we could show that they actually arose, at least in this model, from a very primitive cell.”

I am not asserting that adult stem cells will be able to do anything and everything that cloned embryonic stem cells theoretically could. But I am saying that this experiment clearly demonstrates that adult stem cells are not only beneficial for potential regenerative therapies, but also basic bench science about disease processes. This clear truth should now be plugged into the overall ethical analysis about the propriety of human cloning research.