STEM CELL RESEARCH

Victor Bloom MD

Now that president Bush has got his foot in the door of stem cell research, it is time to analyze the controversy surrounding it. Bush listened to the pope, he listened to the scientists, he felt the pulse of the nation and he decided to let government funds be used for stem cell research.... with certain restrictions.

What is a stem cell, and why is there such a fuss about it? A stem cell is nothing more or less than one of the 16 cells of a blastula. What is a blastula? A blastula is the first organization of cells after the zygote (the fertilized egg) starts to divide. The zygote itself is amazing in that it is 'totipotential,' that is, although it is but a single cell, it can grow and develop into a complex human being, in about nine months. When it divides into two, there is nothing remarkable about it, and when the two divide into four, again nothing. When each of these four cells divide you get eight, and when those eight divide, you get 16.

Sounds like simple arithmetic, but the 16 cells under a microscope form a tiny sphere, the beginnings of organization into a complete organism. This tiny sphere is called a blastula, and each one of its cells is still 'totipotential,' it has the potential to form a complete human being, just like the original one-celled zygote. Each of these 16 cells is a 'stem cell,' because it has all the DNA it needs to make any and all human tissues and organs. For this reason, stem cells can be used to manufacture new skin or new brain tissue or new kidney or liver tissue that may be used some day to treat human illnesses. Also each stem cell can theoretically be made into another whole person.

Stem cells are basic biology and biologic researchers need them to do their work. Right now they are readily available from the excess of zygotes (fertilized eggs) which have been developed in Petri dishes, outside the human body. This is what happens when the fertility specialists do 'in vitro' fertilization, when 'in vivo' (in the body) is not working for an infertile couple. The specialists extract eggs and add sperm and voila! Zygotes galore. All it takes is one, then implanted in the female to create a normal child. Gynecologists have been doing this for decades. The extra zygotes were usually discarded because there was no further use for them. Now, because of research considerations, they have been saved and stored, frozen. Interestingly, these frozen zygotes, which may have developed to blastulas, can be thawed out and these can be grown and developed again, because the basic chemical structure of DNA has not been destroyed or altered by the freezing. This is basic animal husbandry, employed to breed cattle and varieties of show dogs and work dogs, for example.

The stability of DNA is used in geneologic studies and paternity questions, and is the basis for Spielberg's Jurassic Park movies. It is theoretically possible to creatively develop a dinosaur from a bit of DNA in a fossil millions of years old. This is where biologic research has brought us, to realms where science fiction could hardly imagine a half century ago. Huxley's "Brave New World" had humans manufactured for different roles in test tubes. We are still very far from that point, but with consideration of cloning, that whole area of concern is yet another bio-ethical morass.

The reason there is all this controversy about stem cell research is that a small minority of religious believers contend that the blastula and all its totipotential cells are human beings--- preformed, of course, but still basically human beings, and we should not be allowing, let alone be funding research which destroys human beings. The argument goes, that just as only God can make a tree, only God can make life, or any part or aspect of life, a zygote, a blastula, a stem cell, an embryo, a fetus, a newborn child. In reality, man is not creating life, but using living tissue to enhance the life that exists. We have no way of knowing whether God approves or not--- He gave us an intelligent brain and free choice.

Interestingly, the Stratford Festival (Ontario, Canada) produced the classic play in the 2001 season about the Scopes trial, "Inherit the Wind." In that play a schoolteacher was jailed for teaching evolution, the work of Charles Darwin. He was jailed under a Tennessee law which declaired that teaching anything that contradicted the bible was a crime. The famous trial lawyer Clarence Darrow argued unsuccessfully to a local southern jury that evolution did not contradict anything in the bible. Eventually, the decision was overturned on appeal, as the Supreme Court decided that to enforce the separation of church and state, no one religion could determine what is taught in a public school.

This country has survived and prospered because eventually many conflicts had been resolved and differences settled by political process. Ultimately, science became a vital part of the public school curriculum and our standing in the world as a place for the best science research and education has brought students and researchers, doctors and patients here from all parts of the world.

In time, organized religion accepted the facts discovered by Copernicus, Gallileo and Darwin. Currently there is still controversy in some places about Darwin's theory of evolution, with creationist scientists questioning the value of archeology and the meaning of fossils and carbon-dating, which they think contradict their literal interpretation of the bible.

Despite the president's support by the religious right, he did the independent and courageous thing of giving federal support to stem cell research. Time will show that he did the right thing as the medical benefits will most certainly accrue.