Stem cell pioneer does a reality check

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

MADISON, Wis. — Seven years ago, when James Thomson became the first scientist to isolate and culture human embryonic stem cells, he knew he was stepping into a whirlwind of controversy.

He just didn't expect the whirlwind to last this long.

In fact, the moral, ethical and political controversy is still revving up — in Washington, where federal lawmakers are considering a bill to provide more federal support for embryonic stem cell research; and in Madison, Thomson's base of operations, where Wisconsin legislators are considering new limits on stem cell research.

Thomson, a developmental biologist and veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, made history in 1998 when he and fellow researchers derived the first embryonic stem cell lines from frozen human embryos. The breakthrough came after the news that a sheep named Dolly was born as the first cloned mammal — and together, the two announcements hinted at a brave new world of medical possibilities and moral debates.

Since then, five of the university's cell lines have been approved for federal funding under the terms of the Bush administration's stem cell compromise of August 2001. Other cell lines have been derived from frozen embryos with private funding, and the bill approved by the House last month would open the way for more.

Not surprisingly, Thomson believes that President Bush should call off his threat to veto the legislation — and that the federal government should put more money into embryonic stem cell research. "If you look at the average budget of, say, one of the major cancer centers, it’s probably about $10 million a year," Thomson told MSNBC.com last week in his Madison office. "Two cancer centers would represent the total federal investment in human embryonic stem cells in the United States. This is just not in balance in any way."

Some of Thomson's other pronouncements might seem more surprising: that supporters of stem cell research are overestimating the prospects for transplantation cures, that the current stem cell lines aren't well-suited for such applications anyway, and that there's no need to resort to therapeutic cloning right now — or perhaps ever.

Critics point out that embryonic stem cells are not being used in any clinical applications yet, while alternatives such as adult stem cells figure in scores of therapies. Thomson acknowledged that the field was still in its formative stage: "There have been companies that have gone into stem cells, but nobody’s made any money."

But he recently helped found a biotech start-up called Cellular Dynamics International that takes a different approach, aiming eventually to turn embryonic stem cells into human heart cells suitable for drug testing. "Nobody’s been able to test heart drugs on heart cells [outside the human body] before," he said. "That will change medicine a lot quicker than actually transplanting those heart cells."

Thomson predicted that in the long run, embryonic stem cells would play a more important role in fundamental research than in transplantation therapies — a view that doesn't sit well with the critics.

"You have to ask the question, why would you destroy living human embryos just to study them?" said Barbara Lyons, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life.

In last week's wide-ranging interview, Thompson explained the reasons behind the research, and touched on many other scientific and moral issues as well. Here is an edited transcript:

MSNBC: How do see this research developing in the next few years?

Thomson: I want to make a basic statement first — which almost never gets in the press, but I keep trying — on what I see as the legacy of these cells.

One is the basic science, and simply having better access to the human body. That’s the most important legacy. I’m very hopeful that there will be some transplantation applications for this technology, but they’re going to be very challenging. And it’s been so hyped in the press that people expect it to come the day after tomorrow. …

Ten or 20 years from now, I’m actually currently optimistic that there will be transplantation-based therapies, but even if there was none, and it was a complete failure, this technology is extraordinarily important.

The analogy I like to draw is with recombinant DNA. If you go back to the early ’70s, when people were all excited about this technology, they made a couple of mistakes in the predictions. One was that gene therapy would be pretty easy. Another was the blanket statement that it would solve a lot of problems. Well, here we are, 30 years out, and it really hasn’t changed people’s health in dramatic ways. There have been a couple of small successes, but it’s been very challenging.

I think that transplantation based on embryonic stem cells might have comparable challenges in getting into the clinics. That doesn’t mean it won’t be terribly important someday, but I think there are enough challenges there that there’s a good chance that most things people are trying will fail the first time, and it will take a lot of hard work to get it working.

The other analogy to recombinant DNA is that people completely underestimated how pervasive a research tool it would be. If you think about it, it does things you don’t even realize anymore. If you look at your laundry detergent, there are recombinant proteins in there to make your stuff whiter. Then there’s the O.J. Simpson trial, with PCR-based forensics.

I think the same things are going to happen with human embryonic stem cells. It will be a pervasive research tool that anybody interested in understanding the human body will use. And that will lead to knowledge, for the development of new drugs or whatever, that has absolutely nothing to do with transplantation. This will change human medicine in ways that don’t make the front pages. And people will not even realize it’s happened. My prediction is that that will be the long-term legacy of these cells.

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