If Only Adult Stem Cells Could Solve This Problem

Ceci Connolly writes a perfectly straightforward account of political reaction to yesterday's story by Rick Weiss about a new technique that combines adult cells with already existing embryonic stem cell lines:

A Harvard University advance in generating embryonic stem cells may have the unintended consequence of hindering congressional efforts to lift research restrictions imposed by President Bush four years ago, leaders on both sides of the issue said yesterday as details of the discovery traveled through the scientific and political communities.

The news that Harvard scientists have successfully converted human skin cells into embryonic stem cells -- without using a human egg or new embryo -- is likely to muddle the already complex debate over federal stem cell research policy.

But Connolly skates very quickly past something that she and other Posties on this beat usually ignore: the potential for adult stem cells to do all the work:

The Harvard discovery complicates the Senate prospects because it offers the tantalizing, albeit distant, prospect of creating genetically tailored hybrid cells without destroying new embryos. The technique used laboratory-grown human embryonic stem cells to "reprogram" the genes in a person's skin cell, turning that skin cell into an embryonic stem cell. In the future, scientists hope to begin the process with an adult cell and convert it into an embryonic cell before fusing it.

At least I think this means they're working toward the possibility of not having to use even the embryonic stem cell lines that exist--and which, like all such lines, were produced by destroying human life. If not, my bad.

Either way, I could probably run a Not In The Post Watch story every day about some advance with adult stem cells, or placental stem cells, or cord blood cells, that hasn't been reported in their pages. Here's one example about researchers being "blown away" by new possibilites using placenta stem cells. Check out Michael Fumento for stories on that front.

Do you see items like these in the Post? If you do, send links to postwatch@whenhellfreezesover.com