The Latest on the Recent Embryonic Stem Cell Research Study

September 6, 2006

UPDATE: Reuters reports

Senators trying to promote human stem cell research rebuked a team of corporate scientists on Wednesday, saying their claims to have produced human embryonic stem cells without harming the embryo had misrepresented their work and hurt the cause.

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The Wall Street Journal yesterday weighed in with an article (subscription only) on the increasingly controversial stem cell research announcement by scientists at Advanced Cell Technology.

One of the interesting things about the WSJ article is that it quotes scientists rather than ethicists as skeptical of the study’s claims. A sampling:

“One of the flaws in this paper is that it draws conclusions that they don’t really have the data to prove,” said Barry Behr, a Stanford University embryologist and director of the university’s IVF laboratories. “The sort of leaps of faith here are a little too big to leap.”

. . .

“The really unfortunate thing about that paper is that they really didn’t do the experiment” that garnered all the media attention, says Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell researcher at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, Calif. “There are going to be questions at every step of the process until they do the experiment or someone else does.”

Arnold Kriegstein, director of the stem-cell program at the University of California at San Francisco, said that trying to extrapolate an embryo-friendly method for deriving stem cells from the Nature report would be “a stretch.”

This follows an August 25 correction from The Scientist, stating:

When Robert Lanza’s group at Advanced Cell Technology reported this week creating so-called ethically clean ES cell lines (establishing colonies from an early human embryo without destroying it) they didn’t make clear whether they had actually accomplished this feat. This work might have potential, but the numbers speak to a logical smoke and mirror show.

On August 29, NBC News’ Robert Bazell called attention to the simple equation in operation: “Inflated science claims equal $$.”

Two days after the headlines about extracting stem cells from single cells in embryos, ACT, a company with 27 employees that has been struggling financially, was able to announce it had raised $13.5 million.

. . .

The announcement also kicked up the stock price 500 percent in two days — from 40 cents the day before the announcement to $2 the day after. A day later, the stock retreated back down to around 80 cents. It is hard to know from the outside who profits and who loses in such sudden stock price shifts, but the potential is clearly huge.

Smoke and mirrors . . . follow the money . . .