Cloning and Stem Cells: A Fake, a Red Herring, and a Surprise

I ran across three brief, interesting items regarding cloning and stem cell research yesterday. First, the infamous embezzler, plagiarizer, and disgraced stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk is trying to resume human embryonic stem cell research in South Korea, but that country's health ministry is delaying a decision on whether to give permission. The brief item from the AP, though, implied he is aiming for cloning-based stem cell research:

The Health Ministry said Monday it will wait until August to decide whether to approve Hwang's request for permission to carry out research on embryonic stem cells using human eggs, citing his ongoing trial. [emphasis mine]

Second, in a move for which the word "ironic" is too weak, one of the leading proponents of cloning-based stem cell research warned that the new alternative of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) will lead the world closer to reproductive cloning, which - he tells us -  is just unacceptable. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology, which has invested heavily in somatic cell nuclear transfer, seems to be on something of a campaign:

“In addition to the great therapeutic promise demonstrated by this technology, the same technology opens a whole new can of worms,” Dr Lanza tells the Independent.

“Cloning isn’t here now, but with this new technique we have the technology that might be able to actually produce a child. If this was applied to humans it would be enormously troublesome,” Dr Lanza tells the Telegraph.

“It raises the same issues as reproductive cloning and although the technology for reproductive cloning in humans doesn’t exist, with this breakthrough we now have a working technology whereby anyone, young or old, fertile or infertile, straight or gay can pass on their genes to a child by using just a few skin cells....

“It is quite possible that the real legacy of this whole new programming technology is that it could introduce the era of designer babies.”

This is specious, coming from a man who has dedicated much of his professional life to creating clonal human embryos via the same technique that has led to reproductive clones in over a dozen mammalian species. If any method will lead to human reproductive cloning and designer babies, it is somatic cell nuclear transfer, not iPS. His comments were a follow-up to his letter to Science published last December:

[W]hile the technology to clone a human being does not currently exist, the ability to use iPS cells to make a chimeric human (i.e., using iPS cells to contribute to an embryo that would be a chimera) may be much closer to reality.

Considering the immense power of this technology, it is imperative that an effort is made by scientists and governments to understand the ramifications of this new breakthrough and to ensure that it is used in an ethically responsible way for the benefit and progress of humanity.

Funny, I never heard him issue such warnings regarding somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Finally, while browsing though that issue of Science, I ran across a brief essay on iPS and cloning-based stem cell research by Jose Cibelli, who is both Lanza's former colleague at ACT and a collaborator with Hwang on one of his fraudulent papers in Science. In a pleasant surprise, Cibelli asks, in light of the iPS developments,

Is human therapeutic cloning no longer needed? The short answer is no, but it is likely a matter of time until all the hypothetical advantages of therapeutic cloning will be implemented with induced pluripotent stem cells. More importantly, the controversial issues (ethical and technical) specific to human therapeutic cloning may well be left behind along with the procedure itself, a refreshing change for the field, indeed.

HT to Secondhand Smoke for the Lanza item. 

Previously on Biopolitical Times:

• Two Takes on iPS cells in Nature
• Facts on the Ground
• Keep your eye on the stem cell ball
• Report from the CIRM Standards Working Group meeting