The Issue

Stem Cell Research

THE BROOKE ELLISON PROJECT believes that stem cell research is among the most exciting and potentially revolutionizing issues today.  This is an issue unlike any other, as every day that passes is another opportunity or even life lost.  This is a time unlike any other, as the potential and goal are well within our grasp.  This is an issue that is life-affirming and based in hope, and THE BROOKE ELLISON PROJECT is focused on its realization.

Here are some important facts surrounding stem cell research:

  • Stem cells are unspecialized (or, undifferentiated) cells that have the capability to become other types of cells in the human body.
  • What makes stem cells so exciting is that they potentially can be used to repair cells damaged by disease or injury.
  • Stem cells can be derived from a number of sources, including bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, or the inner cell wall of blastocysts (fertilized eggs less than one week into development).
  • Embryonic stem cells are widely considered by field experts to be the most promising, as they can replicate themselves indefinitely and are universal in their ability to transform.
  • There are currently nearly 500,000 embryos frozen in clinics, stated to be discarded.  Rather than be wasted and of no use to anyone, many of these could be directed toward the benefits of research.
  • 74% of U.S. adults support public funding for stem cell research.
  • 60% of couples pursuing in vitro fertilization would prefer to donate their excess embryos to research, but are either not permitted to do so voluntarily or are not informed of this possibility.
  • Advances in stem cell research have the potential to treat the leading health risks in the U.S., including cancer, heart disease, HIV, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and spinal cord injury.
  • In the United States*:
    • One million children live with juvenile diabetes
    • One million people live with Parkinson’s disease
    • 4.5 million suffer from Alzheimer’s disease
    • 2.5 million people live with multiple sclerosis
    • 450,000 people are paralyzed by spinal cord injury
    • 30,000 people face ALS
    • 58 million people live with heart disease
    • 8.2 million people face cancer
    • 10 million people are confronted with osteoporosis
    • 43 million people suffer from arthritis 

* from the Stem Cell Foundation
 

What the heck is a SCNT?

SCNT is an acronym for Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, an intimating-sounding procedure, but one that holds tremendous promise for the future of research.  SCNT is a process by which scientists can replicate a piece of DNA from any cell in the body – a muscle or skin cell, for instance – and then insert it into an unfertilized human egg to grow stem cells, in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of cell development.

SCNT also goes by the name, “therapeutic cloning”, yet it has nothing to do with “reproductive cloning”, whatsoever.  In fact, despite the fact that SCNT enjoys broad support across the scientific community, there is no reputable scientist who would support reproductive cloning.   In SCNT, there is no fertilized egg, no implantation, and certainly no pregnancy involved.

What makes SCNT particularly exciting and potentially beneficial is that it can create a genetic match to a donor in need of future stem cell therapies.  When combined with human embryonic stem cell research, SCNT can be used to create innovative treatments to disease and, at the very least, understand how cells develop.

What’s the story with the latest breakthrough using skin cells?

The scientific community recently welcomed an exciting announcement regarding the ability to coax ordinary skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells.  This achievement, made by Dr. Thomson in Wisconsin and Dr. Yamanaka in Japan, was achieved by infecting skin cells with four genes found in embryonic cells that essentially revert the cells to a more embryonic state.  This creates a type of stem cell, called Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (ips cells), which have many of the characteristics of embryonic stem cells yet have been “reprogrammed” from somatic cells.

 

Cellular reprogramming to create ips cells, and even most recently disease-specific stem cell lines, has expanded rapidly.  This promising avenue of research might revolutionize medicine in profound ways.  For instance, researchers at Harvard were recently able to create stem cell lines from patients facing disease, in an effort to better understand what gives rise to the disease and what goes wrong to create it.  This is a very exciting advance.

 

After the discovery of ips cells was made, there were some, though, who claimed that this breakthrough would make embryonic stem cell research obsolete and unnecessary, as embryonic stem cells would be derived from this alternative source.  This assertion, largely made by the research’s previous opponents, is simply untrue.  There are still uncertainties surrounding this approach that need to be better understood.  Similarly, this advance would not have ever been made without understanding embryonic stem cells first.  It is the strong belief of THE BROOKE ELLISON PROJECT that, though research using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (ips cells) is expanding and ought to be pursued, it should not and cannot take the place of human embryonic stem cell research.

One avenue of research does not obviate the need for another, and surely, the researchers who made this discovery would not advocate for it to take the place of embryonic research.

Stem cell research, in all its forms, yields different benefits and provides different information for the future of medicine.  For this reason, THE BROOKE ELLISON PROJECT believes in the potential in and promotion of all avenues of research currently being pursued.  However, as human embryonic stem cell research is considered by field experts to be the most promising, we focus our attention on helping to bring this research to the forefront and to fruition.