US researchers produce 17 new embryonic stem cell lines
http://www.100md.com
《英国医生杂志》
New York
Researchers in the United States have derived and identified 17 new stem cell lines from human embryos, in addition to the 15 that are currently known to be available for publicly funded research in the United States.
The research, released on the internet this week by the New England Journal of Medicine (www.nejm.com), is bound to stir up controversy in a country where stem cell research is a highly contentious issue.
The new stem cell lines were derived from human embryos that were produced through in vitro fertilisation for clinical purposes, after informed consent from parents and approval from a Harvard University institutional review board. The researchers started out with 286 frozen embryos but were able to derive only 17 individual stem cell lines.
Under additional testing the 17 new stem cell lines showed the capacity to form differentiated cell types in vitro. In an appendix the study includes a 21 page manual on the techniques the researchers used to culture and isolate the stem cells.
Under current US law the new cell lines cannot be used in research that is funded—even in part—by federal research funds. The cell lines are being made available under a material transfer agreement to selected researchers by one of the lead researchers on the study, Dr Douglas Melton, of Harvard University's department of molecular and cell biology.
In an accompanying editorial Dr Jeffrey Drazen, editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, and Dr Elizabeth Phimister, one of the journal's deputy editors, wrote that it is "welcome news" that the Harvard researchers have developed the additional stem cell lines.
"The report is notable in that it sets a standard for the characterisation of embryonic stem-cell lines, and the cell lines described are easy to culture in vivo," they write. The authors call on the National Institutes of Health to make the cell lines available to researchers funded by the institutes through inclusion in the human embryonic stem cell registry (http://stemcells.nih.gov/registry/index.asp).
The reports will provoke controversy in the United States, where debate over the moral and ethical implications of using harvested human embryos for research has been intense. Harvard University already drew criticism earlier this month when it announced that it plans to launch a multimillion dollar centre to grow and study human embryonic stem cells. To harvest embryonic stem cells, researchers must destroy embryos that are a couple of days old.(Scott Gottlieb)
Researchers in the United States have derived and identified 17 new stem cell lines from human embryos, in addition to the 15 that are currently known to be available for publicly funded research in the United States.
The research, released on the internet this week by the New England Journal of Medicine (www.nejm.com), is bound to stir up controversy in a country where stem cell research is a highly contentious issue.
The new stem cell lines were derived from human embryos that were produced through in vitro fertilisation for clinical purposes, after informed consent from parents and approval from a Harvard University institutional review board. The researchers started out with 286 frozen embryos but were able to derive only 17 individual stem cell lines.
Under additional testing the 17 new stem cell lines showed the capacity to form differentiated cell types in vitro. In an appendix the study includes a 21 page manual on the techniques the researchers used to culture and isolate the stem cells.
Under current US law the new cell lines cannot be used in research that is funded—even in part—by federal research funds. The cell lines are being made available under a material transfer agreement to selected researchers by one of the lead researchers on the study, Dr Douglas Melton, of Harvard University's department of molecular and cell biology.
In an accompanying editorial Dr Jeffrey Drazen, editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, and Dr Elizabeth Phimister, one of the journal's deputy editors, wrote that it is "welcome news" that the Harvard researchers have developed the additional stem cell lines.
"The report is notable in that it sets a standard for the characterisation of embryonic stem-cell lines, and the cell lines described are easy to culture in vivo," they write. The authors call on the National Institutes of Health to make the cell lines available to researchers funded by the institutes through inclusion in the human embryonic stem cell registry (http://stemcells.nih.gov/registry/index.asp).
The reports will provoke controversy in the United States, where debate over the moral and ethical implications of using harvested human embryos for research has been intense. Harvard University already drew criticism earlier this month when it announced that it plans to launch a multimillion dollar centre to grow and study human embryonic stem cells. To harvest embryonic stem cells, researchers must destroy embryos that are a couple of days old.(Scott Gottlieb)