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Researchers make breakthrough with adult stem cells
The battle over stem-cell research is fraught with spin and counterspin, and it's not just limited to embryonic stem cell issues. As others have noted, research into adult stem-cells has been ignored or grossly misrepresented as partisans attempt to convince the public that scientists must create and destroy human life for research purposes.

Predictably, major news that researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have made a breakthrough in turning adult cells into "precursor cells" has gone almost completely unmentioned by the mainstream media (it may have as much to do with its Christmas announcement as with media bias). But the discovery may make the debate over embryonic stem cell research wholly obsolete.

The scientists found that a small synthetic molecule called reversine can be a kind of cellular fountain of youth, turning cells normally programmed to create muscles around on their "differentiation pathway," turning them into the immature, malleable cells they started as.

"This has the potential to make stem cell research more practical," researcher Sheng Ding said. "This will allow you to derive stem-like cells from your own mature cells, avoiding the technical and ethical issues associated with embryonic stem cells."

In fact, says the Scripps Research Institute press release, this approach may be better than embryonic stem cells for more reasons than ethical ones:

Stem cell therapy would be most effective if you could use your own stem cells, since using one's own cells would avoid potential complications from immune rejection of foreign cells. However, in general it has proven very difficult to isolate and propagate stem cells from adults. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) offer an alternative, but face both practical and ethical hurdles associated with the source of cells as well as methods for controlling the differentiation of ESCs. A third approach [which may be developed from Ding's research] is to use one's own specialized cells and dedifferentiate them.

The Washington Times yesterday took note of several other promising developments in adult stem-cell research and problems in embryonic research. "I think what we're going to see is that the science is going to continue to show success with the adult stem cells, whereas we have seen no results in patients with embryonic stem cells, precious little in animals with embryonic, and frankly, negative results in animals with cloning," David Prentice, a cell biologist at Indiana State University, told the paper.

Vatican envoy murdered:

• Gunmen kill Pope's ambassador in Burundi | The country's president said the envoy was deliberately targeted (Associated Press)
  
  
• Vatican official is killed by gunmen in Burundi | The Vatican's senior official in war-ravaged Burundi was killed Monday after gunmen fired at his car as he returned from pastoral duties (The New York Times)
  
  
• Rebels accused of killing papal envoy | The Pope's ambassador to Burundi, Archbishop Michael Courtney, 58, was murdered yesterday by gunmen in the war-ravaged country (The Daily Telegraph, London)
  
  
• Papal envoy shot dead in Burundi ambush (The Guardian, London)
  
  
• Papal envoy's death highlights Burundi bloodshed (Reuters)
  
  
• Papal envoy shot dead in Burundi (BBC)
  
  

N.T. Wright's comments on Iraq, Israel, and other topics:

• Tom Wright: It's not a question of left and right, says the combative priest who opposes the war in Iraq and gay bishops (The Independent, London)
  
  
• Bishop attacks Blair as 'white vigilante' | In an interview with The Independent, the Right Rev Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, accuses the religious conservatives who back President Bush of espousing "a very strange distortion of Christianity", and calls for the creation of a UN army to settle international disputes (The Independent, London)
  
  

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December (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47