What is it to be human?
March 16, 2009 by Kevin Graham
Without a doubt the recent lifting of restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research by President Obama has rekindled the debate on the moral and ethical implications of this research. Newscasts, radio call in shows, internet news sites and blogs have been alight with feverish debate. I certainly welcome this debate. As a scientist and a community member I am eager to hear people express their opinions, engage in healthy debate, and hopefully come to a consensus that can be accepted by the majority of people.
One disturbing trend though, on both sides of the debate, is the continued use of highly inflammatory words or statements in order to sway, or scare, people to agree with a particular viewpoint. I have repeatedly heard from the anti-embryonic stem cell research side that it is wrong to exploit or kill "babies" for this research. The term “baby” seems to be more emotional than precise, used to conjure up an image of a newborn to distract from the issue at hand. Even a cursory look into the current source of embryonic stem cells, frozen embryos left over from in vitro fertilization, would reveal that this tiny ball of cells in no way resembles a human baby. Indeed, a recent publication identified the time period 6 days after fertilization in a culture dish, a point in which the blastocyst is a tiny ball consisting of between 75 and 145 cells, as the optimal time to isolate ES cells. Clearly a tiny ball of cells growing in a culture dish cannot reasonably be equated to a human baby.
On the pro-embryonic stem cell research side though one must admit that the blastocyst does have the potential to implant and develop into a human baby if it was placed into the right environment. So in essence the debate distils down to determining at what stage of human development one becomes a “person”, with all the rights and protections that this entails. How would one determine this? General characteristics that can be ascribed to a “person” would certainly include consciousness, self-consciousness, and the ability for thought and reasoning. Does a ball of cells possess these characteristics? Undoubtedly not. But can we accurately define exactly when these characteristics arise during human development. Again the answer is no.
On the pro-embryonic research side an argument can be made that although we do not know exactly when the developing human becomes a “person”, it is definitely not at the early blastocyst stage in which ES cells are harvested, and thus research should continue unfettered. On the anti-embryonic research side there is an argument to be made that if we don’t know when “personhood” is attained, perhaps it is safer to error on the side of caution and offer protection from the moment after conception.
This issue is complex, overlapping the domains of the biological sciences and philosophy, and certainly worthy of rational, reasoned debate. The reality is that many of us have preconceived ideas of where we fall on the political and social spectrum, left or right wing, designations that ironically often have more to do with where we were born, and how we were raised, rather than a conscious and thoughtful decision. So I will not attempt to sway your decision, but I urge you to step away from previously held positions, and the undue influence of inflammatory propaganda, to take some time to consider the issue for yourself. Consider how your decision might impact not only future research, discovery, and health care, but other related issues such as assisted reproduction, end of life care and euthanasia, where the definition of what it means to be a “person” also plays a central role.
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Rett Syndrome and induced Pluripotent Stem cells goes “Green”
June 17, 2009 by Aaron Cheung
Stem cell researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children have now devised a method, reported in the scientific journal Nature Methods, that will facilitate the generation of induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells. I have previously blogged about the promise of iPS cells (see related articles). iPS cells are cells which have been reprogrammed from a differentiated somatic cell (such as your skin cells) to a pluripotent stem cell (like an embryonic stem cell, only that you don’t need to use embryos!). The generation of iPS cells is inherently very rare which occurs at a frequency of about 0.01% meaning you can generate about one iPS cell line out of hundred thousand cells. Out of which, many lines fail to satisfy the different rigorous tests necessary to be given the prestigious name of “iPS cell”.
A group led by Dr. James Ellis, and lead author Dr. Akitsu Hotta, at The Hospital for Sick Children has generated a reporter, named EOS, that will facilitate the generation of iPS cells for both mouse and human. The reporter has DNA elements (called promoters) that will drive the expression of a fluorescent protein (GFP) and an antibiotic resistance gene (puromycin) that will only turn on in pluripotent stem cells, but remain off in differentiated cells. Therefore, scientists can now generate iPS cells from different sources and the iPS cells will literally “light up with a green colour” once reprogramming has been achieved. Furthermore, by adding puromycin to your culture, it will keep the iPS cells in a pluripotent state as iPS cells will normally spontaneously differentiate.
To demonstrate the applicability of EOS, Ellis also derived iPS cells from patients who have a neurodevelopmental disorder called Rett Syndrome. Rett Syndrome is an Autism Spectrum Disorder which affects almost exclusively females at an incidence of 1 in 10,000 and is one of the leading causes of mental retardation in girls. These Rett Syndrome iPS cells were green when placed under a fluorescent microscope and Ellis demonstrated that neurons can be generated from these Rett Syndrome iPS cells, the cell type affected in Rett Syndrome.
In conclusion, the EOS reporter will facilitate the generation of iPS and will be particularly useful for new labs going into this rapidly developing field. Furthermore, Rett Syndrome iPS cells that were also generated in this study will be invaluable for future drug screens that may be beneficial to those with Rett Syndrome.
Article:
Hotta, A. et al. Isolation of human iPS cells using EOS lentiviral vectors to select for pluripotency. Nature Methods 6, 370–376 (2009).
Related articles:
Breakthrough of 2008 – Reprogramming
A New Era for Disease Modeling and Drug Screening
Some of our experts
Stem Cell Origins
Cancer stem cells
Stem Cells and the Nervous System
The problem is in believing that a human being “becomes” a person at some mystical, unknowable point other than when he/she is concieved as an independent living entity. Humans grow and change throughout their lives. The human being at the early blastocyst stage is definitely a human being, and therefore a person. Your personhood is not an issue for me to decideand vice versa.
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“Even a cursory look into the current source of embryonic stem cells, frozen embryos left over from in vitro fertilization, would reveal that this tiny ball of cells in no way resembles a human baby.”
The author claims that “anti-embryonic research” proponents use emotional appeals to convince people that embryonic stem cell research is immoral; however, am I supposed to believe that this research is safe/ethical/moral on the assumption that the “ball of cells” does not “resemble a human baby”?? This constitutes a serious lack of scientifc evidence, hypothesis, theory etc. Just because a human being is not fully developed does not mean that is in fact not a person.
Also, the author claims that “General characteristics that can be ascribed to a “person” would certainly include consciousness, self-consciousness, and the ability for thought and reasoning.”
My grandmother has had multiple strokes, suffers from paralyisis, speech aphasia, disfugurement, and several other serious condiitons. She cannot think or reason for herself. Am I now to conclude that she is not aperson because of this fact? What about people with serious illnesses? Does the fact that an individual is in a coma in a hospital nagate their personhood? This is the most unlogical assumption in favor of embryonic stem research that I have ever heard.
It is unacceptable to attempt to convice people to support embryonic stem cell research when the reasons to do so are based on unscientifc, unlogical assumptions.
Elle,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. In response to the points that you raised, I would like to point out that I never claimed that since this “ball of cells” is not comparable to a human baby in terms of development that it was undeserving of protection. The point I was making in that paragraph is that highly emotional and imprecise terms do a disservice to the debate on both sides of the issue.
My major point was that the debate about ES cell research is really about how we define what constitutes a person. I detailed some characteristics (consciousness, self-consciousness, and the ability for thought and reasoning) that I feel are a key part of what makes us human. I by no means meant this as an exhaustive or all encompassing list. I welcome readers to debate the merit of my criteria or add their own characteristics to this discussion.
Since the focus of this forum in on stem cell research (of all types, not just embryonic), I did not wish to digress too far into other ethical issues, but in the final sentence of the post I did allude to the importance of defining “personhood” in many other ethical issues that we face including “end of life care and euthanasia”. Many people do believe that if someone has lost brain function (”brain dead”), that they can morally be taken off life sustaining measures to allow the body to die. I can only conclude from this that yes indeed the cells of the body may be alive, but in certain situations the “personhood” has already been lost.
I certainly welcome continued debate on this issue and how it relates to stem cell research.
So its okay to kill babies, to help (maybe) other babies? Sounds like canbalism to me. If we follow the line of thinking you endorse, we could just feed aborted babies to the starving people of the world. You would actually have a greater likelihood of saving lives. There is technology for stem cell research that does not require the death of embryonic people–why would a sensible person who actually has compassion for people choose destruction of life when they don’t need to?