Thursday October 14, 2010
Doctors Treat First Patient with Embryo-Derived Stem Cells
By Kathleen Gilbert
ATLANTA, Georgia, October 14, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A California-based corporation has announced it has enrolled the first patient to undergo therapy using embryo-derived stem cells, after overcoming federal officials’ concerns over the dangers of injecting humans with the potentially cancer-causing cells.
The embryo-derived cells, known as oligodendrocyte progenitor cells or GRNOPC1, are being injected into the patient primarily to “assess the safety and tolerability of GRNOPC1” in patients with severe spinal cord injury, not to cure them. The patient is being treated at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center, a spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation hospital and research center.
Thomas B. Okarma, Ph.D., M.D., Geron’s president and CEO, called the start of the trial “a milestone for the field of human embryonic stem cell-based therapies.” He noted that, “When we started working with hESCs in 1999, many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials.”
Although Geron Corp.’s clinical trial has been in the works for years, the Food and Drug Administration’s reticence to inject the dangerous material in humans has delayed its inception. Geron announced in May 2008 that its clinical trial was put on hold by the FDA. In January 2009, the government greenlighted the project, but then backpedaled in October after it was revealed that mice injected with the embryo-derived cells had developed cysts. The trial was finally re-approved in August 2010.
The cancerous potential of the cells was not a surprise: a 2006 study released by researchers at the University of Rochester Research Medical Center in New York found that embryonic stem cells injected into rats showed signs of forming cancerous cells. Similarly, stem cells taken from aborted children have proven vastly uncontrollable and prone to tumors in many cases.
Meanwhile, induced pluripotent adult stem cells have proven much more stable, paving the way to dozens of treatments and even cures of previously intractable conditions such as Alzheimer’s, juvenile diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. Embryo-derived stem cell treatments have produced no practicable treatments to date.
Although adult stem cell therapies have already provided promising results for individuals with old spinal cord injuries, Geron’s embryo-derived treatment will only be tested on individuals with injuries less than fourteen days old. In addition, experts note that the patients will need to take immunosuppressive drugs to keep their bodies from rejecting the foreign material – a burdensome requirement entirely bypassed by adult stem cell treatments.
David Prentice of Family Research Council recently pointed out that, contrary to what the media is reporting, “Geron is not injecting growing embryonic stem cells into a patient,” but rather “cells made from embryonic stem cells.” He also observed that, “Of note is that now, a year and a half after approval, Geron has finally listed their experiment, the only approved embryonic stem cell trial, at ClinicalTrials.gov.” However, by way of contrast, “As of this writing, there were 2,002 adult stem cell trials in patients listed.” But, “Despite the overwhelming success of adult stem cells for patients, few have heard the good news.”
Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, unleashed by President Obama in March 2009, is now under court scrutiny after a D.C. federal judge ruled in August that taxpayer funding for the embryo-destructive research violated a U.S. law known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Royce Lamberth also issued a temporary injunction against the funding, but that was overturned in an appeals court ruling the following month.