Stem Cell / Cloning Research

Two Articles on Predictions & Hype in Science

nisbetmc — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:28:34 +0000

Two Articles on Predictions & Hype in Science

Earlier this year, in an article at Nature Biotechnology, I joined with several colleagues in warning that the biggest risk to public trust in science is not the usual culprits of religious fundamentalism or "politicization" but rather the increasing tendency towards the stretching of scientific claims and predictions by scientists, university press offices, scientific journals, industry, and journalists. As I detail with Dietram Scheufele in a separate article at the America Journal of Botany,(PDF) each time a scientific prediction or claim goes beyond the available evidence and proves to be false, it serves as a vivid negative heuristic for the public.

This past week, two important articles describing the perils of prediction in the life sciences and climate sciences appeared at The Scientist magazine and Nature Reports Climate Change respectively. In a cover article for the The Scientist, Stuart Blackman identifies several factors driving the tendency towards hype. As Blackman notes, scientists are under increasing pressure to publish at ever more competitive flagship journals, meaning that the conclusions of a paper have to be that much more provocative. Granting agencies are also putting stronger emphasis on the public impacts portion of funding proposals, again creating an incentive to sometimes promise too much. A third and major factor is the increasing privatization of university-based science with strong incentives and rewards for commercialization, a route that usually involves a heavy dose of promotion. In his article, Blackman draws on the insights of some of the top social scientists studying these trends including Brian Wynne, Christine Hauskeller, and Daniel Sarewitz. A useful sidebar summarizes advice on how researchers can avoid hype in communicating with the public, policymakers, and/or the media.

In a commentary at Nature Reports Climate Change, Mike Hulme, Roger Pielke, Jr and Suraje Dessai warn against promising that climate science can "supply on-demand climate predictions to governments, businesses and individuals," estimating impacts on certain regions and sectors.

"Scientists and decision-makers alike should treat climate models not as truth machines to be relied upon for making adaptation decisions, but instead as one of a range of tools to explore future possibilities," they write. And as they aptly observe, it's not just a matter of technical certainty. Even in cases where forecasts might be accurate in a formal statistical sense, effectively communicating the complexity of these findings to the public and decision-makers will prove a difficult task. Here's the key take away from their commentary:

For scientists, the lesson here is clear. Caution is warranted when promising decision-makers a clarified view of the future. Guaranteeing precision and accuracy over and above what science can credibly deliver risks contributing to flawed decisions. We are not suggesting that scientists abandon efforts to model the behaviour of the climate system. Far from it. Models as exploratory tools can help identify physically implausible outcomes and illuminate the boundaries where uncertain knowledge meets fundamental ignorance. But using models in this way will require a significant rethink on the role of predictive climate science in decision-making. In some cases the prudent course of action will be to let policymakers know the very real limitations of predictive science. For decision-makers, the lesson is to plan for a range of possible alternatives. Instead of seeking certainty, decision-makers need to ask questions of scientists such as 'What physically could not happen?' or 'What is the worst that could happen?'

The authors' warning is important to the U.S. context. Perhaps the most effective way to convey the significance of climate change is to communicate to Americans how it is impacting the region or area in which they live. Yet as effective as this strategy might be, these communication efforts need to proceed cautiously, otherwise they risk opening the door to counter-claims that scientists and government agencies are going beyond available scientific evidence.

nisbetmc Wed, 11/11/2009 - 13:28

Tags

global warming

Science Hype

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

The underlying problem is the difficulty humans have at evaluating the urgency of things that are not immediate threats that affect themselves in easily discernible and predictable ways.

Many people do not distinguish well between weather and climate. The idea that a regional climate trend does not necessarily have to match a global one is another step out in abstraction.

I believe that something as insignificant as a single cold, wet winter in this country could affect public perceptions of global warming as an urgent issue.

Unfortunately, mustering the political will to take action is quite difficult.

In order to increase the Access and production of iberoamerican science, Redalyc has implemented the OAI-MPH protocol, making available more tan 55000 registers for the open archives community through its websitehttp://redalyc.uaemex.mx

The Promise, the Hype, and the Reality: It's a Different Perceptual Era for Embryonic Stem Cell Research

nisbetmc — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:38:32 +0000

The Promise, the Hype, and the Reality: It's a Different Perceptual Era for Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Over at the Knight Science Tracker, Charlie Petit has a round-up on news coverage of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's first significant research grants for stem cell research. Though much of the focus in California and nationally has obviously been on the promise of embryonic stem cell research, only four of the 14 funded projects involve these type of stem cells. The emphasis is on projects that could lead to the most immediate clinical results, a strong if not "tacit acknowledgment that the promise of human embryonic stem cells is still far in the future" writes Andrew Pollack at the NY Times.

On Monday, in a keynote presentation at the meetings of the Canadian Stem Cell Network in Montreal, I will be reviewing how far we have come over the past decade in the framing of the stem cell debate and in terms of public perceptions. I will post a synopsis here next week and I will have several studies to report on this winter and spring.

In the meantime, readers will want to check out the Network's newly launched online Stem Cell Charter. The site opens to a powerful video. It's a testimonial by scientists explaining their belief in the promise of stem cell research. Yet it doesn't engage in some of the trademark hype that brands much of the past political debate. At the Web site, you can sign the stem cell charter, offering your support for research and endorsing a specific reason. I chose "the responsible advancement of stem cell research."

nisbetmc Fri, 10/30/2009 - 03:38

Tags

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

Like-Minded Discussion and Attitude Extremity about Science

nisbetmc — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:00:41 +0000

Like-Minded Discussion and Attitude Extremity about Science

Several colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have a new study out that shows not surprisingly that like-minded conversations drive attitude extremity relative to science policy.

Analyzing data from a national panel survey conducted between 2002 and 2005, graduate student Andrew Binder and his collaborators find that after controlling for demographics and news use, like-minded discussion pushed respondents' position on stem cell research to the extreme ends of the distribution, either towards strong support or strong opposition.

The study comes out of the research group at Wisconsin headed up by Profs. Dietram Scheufele and Dominique Brossard. The findings are in line with several studies Scheufele and collaborators have published on the consequences of like-minded discussion for civic engagement. (Full disclosure: I have collaborated with Scheufele on several of these studies.)

So why should we care about attitude extremity? In other words, what might be the civic consequences of ever more deeply committed and intense opinions on issues such as stem cell research, evolution, and climate change? Moreover, what happens in a society where there are more and more like-minded discussions about science policy, whether via popular blogs such as Pharyngula or talk radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh?

a) First, we know from past research that opinion intensity is one of the strongest predictors of participation in science policy debates, promoting contacts with elected officials as well as willingness to turn out to deliberative forums on topics such as stem cell research.

So if like-minded conversations are driving attitude intensity, the voices that will be heard on issues such as stem cell research or evolution are more and more likely to be the extreme tail ends of the continuum of views, ranging from the committed secular liberal to the committed social conservative.

b) Another possibility is a loss of the ability to reach compromise and consensus on science policy. We saw this in reaction to the recent NIH decision on funding for embryonic stem cell research, where social conservatives decried any additional funding while committed stem cell advocates decried any limitations short of those applied to human cloning research.

c) A third possibility is a reinforcing cycle of selectivity in information seeking and news consumption. Like minded conversations on the left and the right reinforce ideology which additionally shape media choices, which further reinforce these like-minded conversations and propel more extreme positions relative to science policy.

d) Attitude extremity and the connection to like-minded conversations about science policy is also likely to continue to fuel belief in a hostile media, a finding that has been shown in previous studies of politics generally. On evolution, for example, social conservatives decry the influence of the liberal press whereas hardliner atheists bemoan a media that is "soft on religion" and promotes "accommodation."

Or on climate change, conservatives will increasingly believe that the media is exaggerating the problem while the most committed liberals such as Joe Romm will cannibalize even the best among the journalistic corp such Andrew Revkin for engaging in "false balance."

So what to do about these social trends and human tendencies? What's clear is that we need to start to think systematically about structuring political interactions and media availability around a plurality of ideas. In short, we need more "cross talk" about science that goes beyond the common perspectives from advocates on either side of a science policy debate.

This can take the form of additional investment in deliberative forums, science cafes, and other forms of dialogue that do a better job of going beyond an activist or science enthusiast turn out. On stage and at the table in these discussions should be more than just scientists, but should include a range of views from the left and the right, the secular and the religious.

It can also take the form of new interactive forms of science journalism and media that sponsor and structure a diversity of views or at least a middle ground perspective. One example recently launched is the Biologos project by Francis Collins that examines the relationship between science and religion. You can disagree with the philosophical position of the site or debate its support from the Templeton Foundation, but this middle ground view is desperately needed online where the discussion is currently dominated by an echo-chamber of social conservatives in one sector and atheist literalists in the other.

nisbetmc Tue, 05/12/2009 - 06:00

Tags

Blogging/New Media

New Atheism

Science communication research

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

science blogging new atheism extreme fundamentalism

In Radio Ad, Obama Distorts McCain's Stem Cell Support

nisbetmc — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 06:26:13 +0000

In Radio Ad, Obama Distorts McCain's Stem Cell Support

From the University of Pennsylvania's FactCheck.org, (listen to the ad and read the full analysis):

An Obama-Biden radio ad hammers McCain for being opposed to stem cell research. Not true. Meanwhile two spots from the McCain-Palin campaign, together with the Republican National Committee, describe McCain's support for the research; they're largely accurate.

By saying that "John McCain has stood in the way - he's opposed stem cell research," the Obama ad seriously misstates the view that McCain has held on this issue since 2001, when he began backing embryonic stem cell research, a position that was out of step with that of many of his fellow Republicans.

The McCain/RNC ads would probably lead listeners to believe that Palin shares McCain's views on this topic. That's not true. But we find that to be a minor flaw compared with the misrepresentation in Obama's ad.

nisbetmc Wed, 10/08/2008 - 02:26

Tags

2008 Election

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

Given that he is relying on the religious right so much at the moment I wonder if this is a clever ploy by the Obama camp to draw him out into the open on this issue. It must be difficult for McCain to say the accusations are false without risking losing evangelical support.

As many promises as McCain has broken (Honest and Respectful campaign anyone?) and as in bed as he is with the religious right, do you really, honestly think that he's going to actually DO anything about stem-cell research? No, he's going to say something like "Well, that's my personal belief, and I don't think now is a good time to be rocking the boat on this particular issue." I'll bet you $1 to my $10 that that's what happens if McCain becomes president.

He picked a creationist for a running-mate! He'll mouth platitudes and do absolutely nothing.

My first thoughts on this are not too far from Sigmund's. Could it be a clever ploy to sow confusion in the Republican base?

However I don't see anything to be gained from that. At this stage Obama is going to be trying to appeal to the independent voters and his main target there should be Palin's extreme views and McCain's age.

The Obama campaign also has nothing to gain by appearing dishonest.

I think it most likely that the Obama campaign simply fucked up.

WordPlay: McCain Ad Claims Unified Support for Stem Cell Research

nisbetmc — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:51:29 +0000

WordPlay: McCain Ad Claims Unified Support for Stem Cell Research

From the Associated Press:

On Friday, a McCain radio ad attempted to present McCain and Palin as a unified force behind stem cell research. In fact, McCain supports relaxing federal restrictions on financing of embryonic stem cell research, a position opposed by abortion opponents. Palin opposes embryonic stem cell research.

The ad, however, does not mention the word embryonic, making it correct on its face. Supporters and critics of using stem cells from embryos do support research using adult stem cells to help conquer some diseases.

This type of advertising sleight of hand works because, as I review in this past column, few Americans are aware of the key differences between embryonic and adult stem cell research while the recent breakthroughs in adult stem cell reprogramming likely add further confusion.

nisbetmc Fri, 09/12/2008 - 12:51

Tags

2008 Election

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

This website sums this election up...

http://mccainpalinworld.com/

GOP Platform Calls for Banning ALL Embryonic Stem Cell Research...

nisbetmc — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:20:24 +0000

GOP Platform Calls for Banning ALL Embryonic Stem Cell Research...

If this National Review report is true, the GOP platform calls for making illegal all forms of embryonic stem cell research, even privately financed research. Definitely a story to watch.

UPDATE: Still can't find the full text of the platform but here is what the Washington Post reports: "In one controversial vote, the platform committee approved a total ban on embryonic stem cell research."

nisbetmc Wed, 08/27/2008 - 18:20

Tags

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

For some reason, I don't actually get an article loading when I follow that link.
Anyway, you don't really mean that anyway do you? Surely it's about *human* embryonic stem cell research? 'Cause we would sorely miss transgenic mouse technology.

i think that was a good info,..
nice job more blogs to create..
Busby SEO Challenge

Embryonic Stem cell research is the same as harvesting body parts. If as a society, we find harvesting stem cells from a fetus an acceptable procedure, then why not harvest the liver, kidneys, skin, bone and other parts? Perhaps we can evacuate the fetus's brain prior to birth and then market the body parts. By some estimation, such a body could be monetized in excess of $240,000 per developed fetus. While we are considering this, perhaps we can follow China's lead and start harvesting executed prisoner organs. Going one step further, perhaps we can consider the value of each person to society and perhaps those individuals deemed substantially less valuable than others can be required to "give parts" for the embetterment of society. Should we really concern ourselves with the notion that every person is equal under the law and that each person has their own goals and aspirations, desires and pains? Does that curious notion that "All people are created equal" have any place in our modern society?

Search the page for "Going Out With a Bang" if you don't have time to wade through the river of right-wing crap. "Pro-life" Luddite rats gnawing away at rationality as usual.

I watch a bit of the platform committee debating this on CSPAN (couldn't stomach it for long). One member was pushing pretty hard for a 'therapeutic research' exception, and others were pushing back in a fairly passive aggressive manner.

Anyone have the intestinal fortitude to look up the final platform wording?

The more you tighten your ban on stem cell research, the more independents will slip through your fingers.

After some difficult digging, I managed to find this draft of the 2008 Platform. It was last updated on Monday Aug 25, so it likely doesn't include any of the updates made this week. Here is the stem cell research section:

Funding Medical Research

We support federal investment in basic and applied biomedical research. This commitment will maintain America's global competitiveness, advance innovative science that can lead to medical breakthroughs, and turn the tide against diseases affecting millions of Americans' diseases that account for the majority of our health care costs. The United States leads in this research, as evidenced by our growing biotechnology industry, but foreign competition is increasing. One way government can help preserve the promise of American innovation is to ensure that our intellectual property laws remain robust.

Federal research dollars should be spent as though lives are at stake because, in fact, they are. Research protocols must consider the special needs of formerly neglected groups if we are to make significant progress against breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, and other killers.

Taxpayer-funded medical research must be based on sound science, with a focus on both prevention and treatment, and in accordance with the humane ethics of the Hippocratic Oath. In that regard, we call for a major expansion of support for the stem-cell research that now shows amazing promise and offers the greatest hope for scores of diseases with adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood, and cells reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells without the unethical destruction of embryonic human life. We call for a ban on human cloning, the creation of human embryos for research purposes.

Its too bad that they got their science so obviously wrong, it wasn't even very fun pointing out their mistaken belief that "adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood, and cells reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells" offer the "greatest hope", when they actually have the most limited applications and have had the least progress toward medical applications in recent years. I'll leave it to the rest of you to pick it apart more.

How Strategic Framing Killed NJ Stem Cell Funding

nisbetmc — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 09:25:18 +0000

How Strategic Framing Killed NJ Stem Cell Funding

The latest issue of Nature Reports Stem Cell Research runs a lengthy news analysis by Meredith Wadman on the political communication effort that ultimately killed the New Jersey stem cell bond initiative. As the analysis details, a number of framing strategies on the part of opponents helped cement defeat last November.

Below I connect details from the news analysis to generalizable themes and principles that shape the communication dynamics of the stem cell debate. I also link to the relevant published studies that I have conducted.

--> Faced with a tight state budget, anti-tax conservatives were able to unite their public accountability frame with the moral framing of conservative Catholic opponents, bridging these two latent meanings with one perfect frame device for the bond initiative: "Loan to Clone." (For more on frames and frame devices specific to science, see this special section of my blog.)

-->As we detail in our cover article at The Scientist, proponents of stem cell research have been able to unite support around the shared frames of social progress and economic development, while opponents have traditionally hewed to the moral frame. But following Proposition 71 in California, then in Missouri, and now in New Jersey, we see a new public accountability frame emerging, in this case focusing on whether or not stem cell research is science in the public interest or the private interest. As opponents powerfully suggest, are such bills simply benefiting "big biotech" at the expense of taxpayers?

-->As was the case in California following passage of Proposition 71, the public accountability frame in New Jersey appealed in part to the orientations of journalists and editorial boards with state newspapers writing editorials focusing in on the cost and potential risk to taxpayers of the bond initiative.

-->Churches remain a very important political communication context (for their role generally, see this study.) Religion also serves as a powerful perceptual screen on any messaging from stem cell proponents (see this study.) As the article reports:

Opponents of the measure had both money and messengers. On 7 October, New Jersey's priests read from their pulpits a written plea from all five of the state's Roman Catholic bishops, asking parishioners to pray that New Jerseyans vote against ballot question two. In a state where 40% of residents are Catholic, that had a large impact. By blanketing every parish, the church, for a "_de minimus_" cost, grabbed the secular media, says Pat Brannigan, the executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference.

--> As we find in this study, relative to issue specific activism in the stem cell debate, opinion intensity drives voter turn out. Unfortunately, for proponents of stem cell funding, the voices that speak loudest on this issue are usually intensely motivated by either fiscal or moral conservatism. In New Jersey, during an off year election with an absence of other mobilizing races to shape participation, you can see this differential effect in turn out across counties. From the article:

...turnout in counties that voted against ballot question two was around 32%. Six of those counties opposed the measure by nearly two to one. By contrast, in the five counties that decisively approved the measure -- essentially the Philadelphia and New York suburbs -- turnout averaged 22% and dipped as low as 10%. Young calculated that if turnout in four of the five pro-stem cell counties had matched the 34% turnout recorded in the 2003 state elections, the measure would have passed easily. The fallout from the loss was immediate.

-->In sum, New Jersey is a textbook example of the role of framing in mobilizing specific publics. Frames were crafted that made the stem cell bond initiative--an otherwise technical and lengthy ballot question about science--personally meaningful to anti-tax and religious conservatives. These frames were communicated and made highly salient in paid advertising but importantly in the powerful political communication context of churches, historically perhaps the perfect place for political organizing. The public accountability frame even played advantageously on the routines and orientations of journalists and news organizations, activating their instincts as watchdogs on perceived abuses of power or on undue influence in politics. As a result of connecting frames to values and picking the right communication channels, in an off year election, opinion intensity among fiscal and moral conservatives drove differential levels of participation and turn out, defeating the initiative.

nisbetmc Wed, 03/05/2008 - 04:25

Tags

FRAME: Ethics/Morality

FRAME: Public Accountability

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

An interesting summary, and we can see the same themes playing out in California. Eg a lot of people (including newspapers and politicians) who don't have a moral issue with stem cell research are instinctively suspicious of "Big Biotech."

I'm interested in the behavior of the churches. By reading a statement urging parishioners to pray that voters reject the measure, instead of urging them directly to vote against it, was the Church protecting its tax-exempt status?

Meredithe Wadman was incomplete in her analysis of what went wrong on NJ. The problem with the framing of those supporting the increased NJ funding for stem cell research also lies in the deceit of the voters.
http://thestemcellblog.com/2007/11/02/the-450-million-question/

If they had framed it as primarily an Adult Stem Cell Bill with just token funding for embryonic stem cell research, they might have found more support for the bill, from church folks and those who truthfully were skeptical about large Bio-Tech. In addition, one stem cell research center turned into four centers,.....no wonder people were suspicious.

Large Bio-Tech has NOT been interested in embryonic stem cell research, so as such would not be advancing the science voters are interested in advancing ie. embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cell research is already well funded on the federal level. Using Michael J. Fox and other families needing embryonic stem cell research was pure deceit.

THE DISCOVERY: What It Means for Framing & News Coverage

nisbetmc — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:23:04 +0000

THE DISCOVERY: What It Means for Framing & News Coverage

Conservatives are promoting Bush as the biomedical Atticus Finch. Shown here posing with a "snowflake" baby, adopted and born from left over in vitro clinic embryos.

Some collected thoughts on what the stem cell discovery means for the framing of the debate, trends in news coverage and public opinion:

---->As I wrote yesterday, perhaps the biggest impact on the framing of the stem cell debate is to inject a booster shot of resonance to conservative claims that pursuing embryonic stem cell research is not necessary and that we can gain everything we need from morally unproblematic adult stem cell sources. "Moving forward with social consensus," is how William Hurlburt has described this middle way frame.

The interpretation has been pushed since at least 2005 when cell reprogramming was highlighted in a Presidential Bioethics Advisory committee report. Yet with each successive scientific study on adult sources, the frame has gained more prominence.

Now as Sheryl Stohlberg writes in today's NY Times, the scientific facts on the ground lend greater credibility to conservative claims: "The findings have put people on both sides of the stem cell divide on nearly equal political footing. Each side can now say it has fruitful research to pursue."

As I wrote yesterday, the discovery is not only likely to make it increasingly politically untenable for some of the swing members of Congress to support expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research, it is also likely to catalyze a major trend of 50/50 balance in news coverage, with journalists weighing the scientific claims of conservatives in equal measure with those of many scientists.

This would be a major shift in the news portrayal of the debate, since until now, as I detail in my research, funding advocates have enjoyed more favorable coverage and have held the upper hand in terms of scientific authority. These favorable media trends have helped swing public support for expanded funding among key groups such as Catholics and Mainline Protestants nearly 20% since 2002.

---->The Bush White House is literally grinning. Bush in their mind was the ethical decider, the Atticus Finch who told scientists to go back to the drawing board and find a procedure that doesn't "cross an important moral boundary." One former Bush Bioethics adviser says that Bush pushed for a "a model of ethical scientific research for a morally pluralistic society,"

Here's what the Washington Post reports:

"The science has overtaken the politics," Karl Zinsmeister, the chief domestic policy adviser to President Bush, said in an interview yesterday. "If you set reasonable parameters and offer a lot of encouragement and public funding, science will solve this dilemma, and you don't have to have a culture war about this."

At the NY Times, Stohlberg has this additional quote promoting Bush as the biomedical Atticus Finch:

"This is very much in accord with the president's vision from the get-go," said Karl Zinsmeister, a domestic policy adviser to Mr. Bush who kept the president apprised of the work. "I don't think there's any doubt that the president's drawing of lines on cloning and embryo use was a positive factor in making this come to fruition."

Yet no less than James Thomson offers the WPost a different take on Bush as the stern ethical decider who pushed scientists to do better. "My feeling is that the political controversy set the field back four or five years."

---->In the same article, advocates for expanded funding present the first signs of their emerging counter-argument in support of staying on course with multiple paths of research:

"I don't think this changes the debate," said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), a key participant in the House debate. "We still need to encourage all types of research, and we need to put ethical oversight in place."

"While this is exciting basic research, it could still take years to get this to work in humans in a way that could be used clinically," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass. "I cannot overstate that this is early-stage research and that we should not abandon other areas of stem cell research."

---->The Bush White House is not the only actor claiming political credit. Mitt Romney is arguing that he is one of the few political leaders to take a consistent principled position on the balance between promise and ethics, incorporating advocacy for cell reprogramming research into his campaign platform:

Mitt Romney's campaign is seeking to capitalize on today's announcement that scientists have created stem cells without having to make or destroy embryos. The campaign points out that Romney has long called for a less ethically- and morally-charged alternative and highlighted an op-ed piece published today on National Review Online that praises him as the only presidential candidate who has embraced an unambiguous and principled stance on the alternatives, incorporating them into his proposed domestic policy. Romney's campaign also circulated an op-ed piece published in June, in which Romney called on Congress to support such research into alternatives.

nisbetmc Wed, 11/21/2007 - 01:23

Tags

Enviro/Science Reporting

FRAME: Middle/Third Way

FRAME: Technical Uncertainty

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

The Next Stage in the Stem Cell Debate Begins!

nisbetmc — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:48:42 +0000

The Next Stage in the Stem Cell Debate Begins!

James Thomson w/ Ian Wilmut (seated)

What happens politically when the two scientists most widely associated with therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research appear to abandon cloning and embryo extraction for a procedure that involves non-controversial sources of pluripotent cells? It signals perhaps the end of a grand Congressional coalition that has put aside partisan differences to work in support of expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research. It also likely marks the end to the hyper-competitive race among states to fund their own research.

Today, the journals Science and Cell published the decade's most significant breakthrough in stem cell research. James Thomson and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin and in Japan have reprogrammed human skin cells to create cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells. Here's how the UWisc-Madison news release defines the implications:

The finding is not only a critical scientific accomplishment, but potentially remakes the tumultuous political and ethical landscape of stem cell biology as human embryos may no longer be needed to obtain the blank slate stem cells capable of becoming any of the 220 types of cells in the human body. Perfected, the new technique would bring stem cells within easy reach of many more scientists as they could be easily made in labs of moderate sophistication, and without the ethical and legal constraints that now hamper their use by scientists.

"It's going to completely change the field," says Thomson, the scientist who in 1998 isolated stem cells from human embryos for the first time. "They are probably more clinically relevant than embryonic stem cells," he explains. "Immune rejection should not be a problem using these cells."

"This is a tremendous scientific milestone, the biological equivalent to the Wright Brothers' first airplane," Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology told Rick Weiss of the Washington Post.

Cloning pioneer Ian Wilmut adds a scientific and political exclamation point to the event with his announcement yesterday that he is pulling out of all therapeutic cloning research. At the time, Wilmut indirectly cited Thomson's forthcoming study as making work with human eggs unnecessary. Today he told Bloomberg News that Thomson's study "will revolutionize the way in which we study and treat human disease."

The study by Thomson follows only a few days the publication of successful extraction of stem cells from cloned monkey embryos for the first time. Hailed as a landmark, news reports however emphasized the uncertainties and potential problems in using large numbers of female eggs in any human application of the procedure.

The Wisconsin skin cell discovery is perhaps as significant politically as it is scientifically. This event will no doubt add resonance to the powerful "middle way" frame offered by Presidential bioethics advisers such as William Hurlburt who argue that expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research is unnecessary because of the promise of non-controversial sources. Hurlburt uses the frame device of "moving forward with social consensus" and has amplified the resonance of his message with each successive study that has shown the potential to use adult cells to derive pluripotent-like stem cells.

Yet to date, no announcement has been as scientifically dramatic as this week's. Thomson and Wilmut have moved on from the research that made them famous and have shifted focus to an area they consider more promising. "What a great bookend," Thomson said in an interview for the Washington Post. "Ten years of turmoil and now this nice ending. I can relax now."

However, major uncertainties remain and they mean that expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research is still needed. First is the problem of using retroviruses in the procedure which can catalyze cancer, a problem that Thomson, colleagues, and other experts are optimistic about overcoming. "Anyone who is going to suggest that this is just a side show and that it won't work is wrong," Doug Melton of Harvard University told the NY Times.

The second is that the stem cells derived from this new non-controversial procedure may not be as effective in generating therapies for certain diseases as those from embryos. Researchers will need to work with a mix of stem cell types to figure out which are best at generating effective therapies. In order to do that, they will require expanded funding for those derived from embryos. ""It's not the time to abandon embryonic stem cell research," Thomson is quoted as saying at a news conference.

However, despite this lingering need, this week's discovery makes things politically ever more murky. The grand coalition of Republican and Democratic lawmakers that have come together at the Federal level to back expanded funding is now likely to be squeezed thin, with lawmakers on the edges of this coalition dropping away as it will be far less politically tenable for them to claim support now that there is such strong evidence in favor of the "middle way" framing of this policy problem. Says UWisc. bioethicist Alta Charo: "It's going to fuel those who call for preferential federal funding only for non-embryonic stem cell research and it will certainly complicate any efforts to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research at the federal level."

At the state level, in a time of tight budgets and a poor economy, convincing voters to back big state financing of embryonic stem cell research will be an ever harder and harder sell. Moreover, with stem cell research likely to be a second tier rallying issue for Democrats in 2008, this discovery might just take the topic off the table.

The stem cell controversy has moved into a major new stage in its' life cycle and things are about to get very interesting.

nisbetmc Tue, 11/20/2007 - 08:48

Tags

FRAME: Middle/Third Way

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

Korean Cloning: The Greek Tragedy Continues...

nisbetmc — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 06:43:28 +0000

Korean Cloning: The Greek Tragedy Continues...

The NY Times has the dish on perhaps the final tragedy in the fall of Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk. Apparently Hwang's lab was the first to derive stem cells from parthenogenesis, or virgin birth, meaning they were derived from an unfertilized egg. "It could have been a seminal finding if they hadn't had their blinders on," one expert told the NY Times. Knight Science Tracker has the full run down on how other news agencies covered this latest twist in the cloning drama.

nisbetmc Sun, 08/05/2007 - 02:43

Tags

Stem Cell / Cloning Research

The following are what I have learned from the two reports of the SNUIC -- final report and supplement, the PD's book (tranlsation for English speaker's readership will be out in the near future), attending the trial of Hwang, reading thesis of a few young invovled researchers, and numerous news articles and bloggings that are a mix of information and non-information. And, reading Science 2004. And many many articles.

1. Hwang's team must have learned the nature of parthenogenesis soon after they got the referee report in July 2003. I did not ask Cibelli when he was contacted by Hwang's team for advice for the test. Possibly late in 2003. The referee had suggested parthenogenesis and asked for data for proof.

2. Hwang's team did RT-PCR test and FAILED to get paternal gene expression.
They fabricated RT-PCR data for the paper.

3. It is my understanding that Hwang ``commissioned" two people to reproduce parthenogenesis and failed. It seems that it was a secret sort of thing -- possibly even to most of the team members, which must have been related to the fabrication of the papers.

4. The Seoul National University Investigating Committee must have learned of the referee's suggestion of parthenogenesis in testimonies, tested and found the evidence in mitochondria DNA and 48 STR markers of NT-1 cells and oocyte donor's.

5. The committee chair at the college of pharmacology, SNU, being convinced of the first human parthenogenesis, tried to save Hwang Woo Suk and the university tried to make a new program to help the students and researchers to claim the first parthenogenesis and continue their research (presumably with the help of the government. SNU is a national university). Hwang did not budge and chose to ride on the falsehood, and the idea for a new program flopped.

6. The SNUIC with largely different committee members issued the Supplement to clarify the parthenogenesis using five DMR methylation and total 96 STR markers. Again with comparison to the tests on the oocyte donor's

-- The former test confirms the maternal origin of the NT-1 cells.
-- The latter confirms that the NT-1 cells inherited the meiotic crossover pattern.
Together, they prove that the cells were from parthenogenesis of an immature oocyte -- or a secondary oocyte.

7. The writers of Science 2004 must have known that the egg was an immature egg. Look at Table 1, especially the last row, and read a bit of the description in the text of the ``protocol". Be perplexed about the ``neat sampling" of mature eggs, sucess rates, etc. Then you will also agree that they must have known it at the time of the writing.

8. That is about what is in the paper about the poor successful NT-1 cell line so miserably disregarded. The cells were definitely self-renewing. It was very unfortunate, which I believe was related to patent applications. SNU held out for the patent applications paying the maintenance fee until Hwang finally gave up, and the August 2 paper by George Daley and his colleagues was out promptly in Cell: Stem Cell which I got to see recently.

9. The paper by Kim et al shows a characteristic of the meiotic recombination of the DNA, that is the exclusive homozygosity in the central region of the chromosomes, using Affymetrix 500K SNP probes and compares to the parthenogenetic pattern of a mouse. That is the basis of the claim (or reconfirmation) of the parthenogenesis.

-- What the collaboration did not have is the oocyte donor's cells to test and compare.
The consequence is lack of information of LOH (loss of heterozygosity).
The advantage is that they had plenty of SNPs to sweep the chromosomes.
-- It should be important to realize the duplicate alleles in Chr7 and X.
This implies that the cells must be from high passage number(s).
-- That itself is a data. I did not ask when the cells were parceled out, and I did not find the information in the paper either.

10. The NT-1 cells the SNUIC tested were collected from all the parites in possession of the cells in Korea, and most of them must be from (an) early period(s) and a fraction showed a clue that is consistent with the duplicate allele of Chr7. They saw it in one marker.

11. The advantage of the SNU test is that LOH can be seen in the central regions because they had both the NT-1 cells and oocyte donor's cells. In fact, I believe that that was the basis on which they could throw the verdict of parthenogenesis confidently in the Final Report. (it is an important point and had to be picked up.) That was also confirmed by the almost exclusive homozygosity in the central regions. And they entertained the frequency of the meiotic recombination.

``Almost" is the term I used because of the proximity of the line between LOH and ROH
(retention of heterozygosity: it is possible that I made up a new terminology. When meiotic pattern becomes an issue, it will be a useful lingo, in my opinion.) in some chromosomes and I do not know the ``natural" number of base pairs from the centromere at which the crossings tend to occur for each chromosome.

-- I suspect that chromosomes may have their given positions when they line up in the metaphase plate considering that Chr7 (duplicate) and X (lost or gained) seem to be prone to mishaps, for example. In the line-up, Chr7 may not be in the 7th place from whatever the ``coordinate origin" which may be determined from the formation and migration of the microtubles. It will be nice to know. I am looking forward to renumbering them, which will be finally the scientific coordinates. For example, pseudogenes scattered over different chromosomes may be ``explained" even though it could be a fluke that can happen in large number systems. I tend to favor the former.

12. I translated the Supplement into English with the help of a student at MIT who boasts the grammatical knowledge learned at junior high. (I learned Korean grammar when I was in middle school and no complaints.) That will be uploaded to arXiv.org when I find the proper field. Maybe tissue and organs/biology and cross-listed with condensed matter where biophysicists tend to be around -- also the field known for the well-publicized fraud at IBM. The title is ``The First Human Parthenogenesis Discovered in Fraud Investigation (I): Translation of the Supplement to the SNUIC Final Report". It doesn't sound like a seminal paper because the first page is just the cover page. The Supplement starts in the second page.

13. All the others on my odyssey related to the incident will be in `` ..... (II): Luck, Wiles, Loss, and Fab Extravaganza".

14. My take on the potential scenario of the parthenogenote is: A tiny immature oocyte escaped SCNT and electric shock, perhaps stuck on the dish, and a few hours later got
swept into a dish for activation. Everyone is likely to boo, ``what?? 100\% success rate?"

-- For them, I have to make sure to say that there is a claim by one of the committee members that the second author Ryu told him that he did in secret. It is apparent that the immature eggs were to be tossed out. On the other hand, Ryu and his wife had claimed that the immature eggs were used for encleation practice by his wife who was also a (rookie) researcher at Hwang's lab. The latter is printed in SNUIC Final Report and the PD's monograph. When patents and other aspects than science are at the core of teh attention of the authors, no one seems to say anything straightforwardly. Ryu had known that the cells had failed in producing paternal gene expressions before the final version of the paper went out. In other words, he knew that Science 2004 was a fraud.

-- If we assume hypothetically that the 66 immature eggs in Table 1 were bathed in for activation as described in Table 1, but without experiencing cutting, extruding, SCNTing, and fusing by electric shock as implied in the first page of Science2004, then the parthenogenesis success rate was 1/66.

-- I also have to make sure to write that it is an extremely inflammatory issue if Ryu did experiments with immature eggs secretly. Ryu was technically in charge of the lab and did not bother to identify the oocyte donor's ID correctly when he was asked by Hwang. The PD's monograph reads that Ryu did not know who the donor was between two possibilities, and that is most likely to be correct because he was not around when the oocytes were harvested at MizMedi and delivered to Hwang's stem cell lab.
-- What is known as the fact is that there are no records of the immature eggs. If Ryu had done the experiments, secretly meaning conscientiously with focus, it is extremely odd that there are no known records. If that is the case because he has his own records he did not share with anyone, that is a total violation of the collaboration. If he did parthenogenesis experiments purposefully, whether secret or not, and if he completely neglected to document them, that seems to be hard to comprehend.

-- Ryu indicated according to the presiding judge that Kang Sung Keun has the original lab notebook and he kept his own copy that is a photo copy of the original.

Then, the only conclusion one can come up with is that the team wanted to throw out the immature eggs and Ryu and his wife secretly put them in activation dish with others. Now what is very hard to comprehend at that point is that the embryo must have been growing because it was tended. It must have taken up a dish. Furthermore, Ryu was in charge of the lab. Documentation of the traffic of the cells was his job. There are too many rumors. It is possible that the claim of secrecy may not be true even though it was written in a blog site as if it was a testimony of the committee member in the court under oath. (I may upload the clarification if I have a chance to check the court transcript.)

15. The last but perhaps the most important for the issue of``ethics, science, and journal" is the last line in the abstract. I believe that it was a compromise to appease the referee who must have resisted to the publication of the paper claiming the first human (autologous) SCNT embryo stem cell line. Once the journal accepted the RT-PCR data in Fig.4D as the truth, then science dictates that the abstract can NOT read, ``it can be parthenogenetic too." It is a fraud. It is science lost in Science.

-- As an evidence, look at the maternally imprinted SNRPN. It is fully expressed in SCNT-hES-1 while the parthenogenetic Cyno-1 is completely devoid of the gene expression. SNRPN seems to be known from murine embryos to have its methylation completed by the stage of 4-cells, and it is completely consistent with the Cyno-1 data.
The full gene expression is a firm confirmation that the cell has paternal allele. There is no other way. It can not be parthenogenetic. When it can not be parthenogenetic, no science article says that it can be parthenogenetic too. It is not a science paper. Science was abandoned KNOWINGLY as far as I can tell and it was published as the cover page article. Not because of mistakes, or misunderstandings, but purposefully for ``fringe benefits" that was so large as to diminish science into nothing.

I am suspecting that it was Schatten who tipped the scale using his personal leverage he must have had especially in relation to the brief report Simerly et al and exchanges with the team of ACT published in Science in 2003 where they reported the ``missing spindle motor proteins" as the possible wreckers of the primate SCNTing they had been wroking on. I like the demonstration of the chromosome distributions -- normal and scattered. The sense of competitiion must have been enormous, and Schatten must have found Hwang a springboard for himself. Abundant oocytes, ``friendly attitude" of Hwang, and the publication was an opportunity for his leap. ACT had private money, and he had to go for federal funding, which he got based on Science 2004 and 2005. 16M from NIH. He applied for patent, and he asked for the directorship of the stem cell hub being planned in Seoul.

I strongly believe and urge that the correspondence of Schatten with the editor-in-chief should be open for public scrutiny. It was a fraud. If Schatten had not known the problems of the paper Science 2004, it is a huge problem because he was one of the leaders in that field. If he had known, it is worse. It was a fraud.

Schatten's influence and the nonsense in the last line of the abstract was the tipping point that gushed out total nonsense that jolted Korean society, mugged US Congress,

What's really amazing is that some Hwang supporters in Korea are already spinning the NYT article into one that supports their agenda. They are twisting the scientists' quotes in the NYT article so that it sounds like they are praising Hwang for a great scientific breakthrough. This is mostly based on a completely biased Korean news article with horrible translation (examples: "If they hadn't had their blinders on" was translated into "if they didn't have people who were blocking their eyes." Also, Dr. Gearhart's quote "Im delighted there was an explanation that didnt involve fraud" was translated into "I'm delighted by the fact that there was no fraud in their discovery.") and the reporter's own prejudice tacked onto the end. The last sentence of the article reads like this: "However, this flexible attitude shown by the U.S. media and scientists forces us to reconsider the current environment of Korean media and the scientific community, which mercilessly ignored a great research accomplishment due to the obsession with a minor fact called 'data manipulation.'"