By fusing human cells and a cow egg, scientists claim they have successfully produced primitive human embryonic stem cells—a technique that they hope will eventually allow the creation of organs for transplantation.
Advanced Cell Technology, based here, fused cells taken from the cheek of one of the scientists with a cow's egg cell whose nucleus had been removed. These differentiated cells began to grow as an embryo and then reverted to become embryonic stem cells, which can grow into "virtually any type of tissue for transplant use," said James Robl, PhD, of the University of Massachusetts and a cofounder of Advanced Cell Technology.
The company vowed in a statement that it would "not use this technology to clone human beings." Instead, the company said the technology holds promise for solving two problems related to transplantation. "First, ACT's approach may overcome the problem of tissue rejection because cells generated by nuclear transfer are genetically identical to the patient, and second, the techniques may provide an accessible source of cells to help meet the current demand for large quantities of transplantable tissues," ACT said.
The findings were not peer-reviewed. The Associated Press and Reuters news service said that the company wants to gauge public reaction before committing funds to continuing to develop the technology.
One of the earliest reactions came from President Clinton, who said he was troubled by ACT's news and asked the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to discuss it. In a letter to Clinton, commission chairman Harold Shapiro replied that the commission agrees with ACT's contention that to transfer such embryonic stem cells into a human womb would be wrong. To create a child with ACT's technology "would raise profound ethical concerns and should not be permitted," Shapiro wrote, according to Reuters.
The new research also raises "concerns about crossing species boundaries and exercising excessive control over nature," Shapiro wrote in what the New York Times called a "guarded, somewhat tentative reply" to Clinton that was "based on the few facts available to [the commission]."
Another immediate reaction was voiced by biotechnology writer Jeremy Rifkin. "They should never, ever have done this," Rifkin was quoted as saying by Reuters. "We don't know what kind of creature could develop from that."
Advanced Cell Technology's findings were released about a week after two separate research groups, at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, announced they had isolated human embryonic stem cells (see Transplant News Network, November 15, 1998).
In January, Advanced Cell Technology and the University of Massachusetts announced the birth of cloned calves produced from genetically altered somatic cells. On May 1 in Nature Medicine (1998;4:569-573), the company reported that it had treated parkinsonism in rats by using fetal brain cells from cloned cows (see Transplant News Network, May 15, 1998).
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