Appeals Court Overturns Stem Cell Research Ban

Opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research lost a key round in a U.S. appeals court Friday.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the court of appeals in Washington overturned a judge's order that would have blocked taxpayer funding for stem cell research. The judges ruled that opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research are not likely to succeed in their lawsuit to stop it.
The panel reversed an opinion issued last August by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who said the research likely violates the law against federal funding of embryo destruction.
"We're thrilled with this decision and look forward to allowing federally funded scientists to continue with their work without political constraints," said Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Opponents say the research is a form of abortion because human embryos must be destroyed to obtain the stem cells.
The 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so private money has been used to cull batches of the cells. Those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and the Obama administration issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to be used in work on them
The lawsuit was filed by two scientists who argued that President Obama's expansion jeopardized their ability to win government funding for research using adult stem cells — ones that have already matured to create specific types of tissues — because it will mean extra competition.

Lamberth, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, issued a preliminary injunction in August to block the research while the case continued.
The Obama administration immediately appealed and requested the order be stopped. The appeals court quickly ruled that the research could continue at the National Institutes of Health while the judges took up the case.
The opinion tossing out Lamberth's ruling was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg, nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan, and supported by Judge Thomas Griffith, a nominee of President George W. Bush. The dissent came from Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush; she agreed with the lower court judge that the lawsuit was likely to succeed.
As a result of the appellate ruling Friday, the original lawsuit can continue before Judge Lamberth, but the taxpayer-funded research also will go on. Lamberth hasn't thus far either held a trial or issued a final ruling, which he could do based on court filings without taking testimony.
Once the cells are culled, they can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely. So government policies said using taxpayer dollars to work with the already-created batches of cells is allowed.
The Obama administration has expanded the number of stem cell lines created with private money that federally funded scientists could research, up from the 21 that President George W. Bush had allowed to at least 75 so far. To qualify, parents who donate the original embryo must be told of other options, such as donating to another infertile woman.
Congress twice passed legislation specifically calling for tax-funded stem cell research, which President Bush vetoed.

@AP

Pic : Judge Royce Lamberth

Mice Created From Two Males

 US scientists have used stem cell technology to create mice from two males, an advance that they say could help preserve endangered species and even help same-sex couples have their own genetic children one day.

Gay mice couple gives birth to their own genetic child!
According to the study that was published in journal Biology of Reproduction, reproductive scientists in Texas were able to manipulate cells from a male (XY) mouse fetus to produce an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell line.
There iPS cells are adult cells that have undergone some genetic reprogramming in order to enter an embryonic stem cell-like state.
Some of the cells that were grown from this new line spontaneously lost their Y chromosome, turning them into XO cells.
Those XO cells were injected into embryos from donor female mice and transplanted into surrogate mouse moms who gave birth to babies with one X chromosome from the original male mouse.
Those babies grew and later mated with normal male mice. There offspring, both male and female, showed genetic contributions from two fathers.

The study was let by Richard R. Berhringer at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Researchers said that with a variation of their technique, “it may also to possible to generate sperm from a female done and produce viable male and female progeny with two mothers.”
However, the study cautioned that the ability to replicate the finding in humans was a long way off.
Looks like the first gay mice couple were even able to get their own child!

The First Patient Treated With Stem Cells

The first patient has been treated with human embryonic stem cells in the first study authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to test the controversial therapy.

A patient who was partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury had millions of embryonic stem cells injected into the site of the damage, according to an announcement early Monday by the Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., which is sponsoring the groundbreaking study.

The patient was treated at the Shepherd Center, a 132-bed hospital in Atlanta that specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries, Geron said. The hospital is one of seven sites participating in the study, which is primarily aimed at testing whether the therapy is safe. Doctors will, however, also conduct a series of specially designed tests to see whether the treatment helps the patients. No additional information about the first patient was released.

The study marks a milestone in stem cell research, which is considered one of the most promising developments in medical research in decades but has been fraught with controversy. 

The announcement comes as the future of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research remains in doubt. A federal judgeruled in August that the Obama administration's more permissive policy for funding the research violated a federal law prohibiting taxpayer money being used for research that involves the destruction of human embryos. The Justice Department is appealing.


image : With U.S. stem cell treatments limited, some patients have tried other countries. Experimental stem cell treatments offered in China are luring American patients such as 9-year-old Kara Anderson, whose parents took her around the world to help treat her cerebral palsy. (Carlos Javier Ortiz)