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Embryo Stem Cell Research: Ten Years of Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

John A. Robertson
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Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research has been a source of ethical, legal, and social controversy since the first successful culturing of human ESCs in the laboratory in 1998. The controversy has slowed the pace of stem cell science and shaped many aspects of its subsequent development. This paper assesses the main issues that have bedeviled stem cell progress and identifies the ethical fault lines that are likely to continue.

The time is appropriate for such an assessment because the field is poised for a period of rapid development. President Obama has removed the Bush administration’s restrictions on federal funding. A huge influx of federal research funds is in the offing and presumably a more rapid maturing of the science will take place. Stem cell science is also moving into the clinical realm. In March 2009, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first clinical trial with an ESC-derived therapy for spinal cord injuries, an important first step — though by no means a final or a sure one — in moving ESC research out of the laboratory into clinical medicine. Finally, recent work with induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells suggests that non-embryonic sources of pluripotent stem cells may one day be routinely available. Such a development will lessen the temperature of the ethical debate while raising other issues.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Summer 2010 , pp. 191 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2010

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References

The FDA has also approved Phase I stem cell clinical trials for Batten Disease and Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease, which are much rarer than spinal cord injury. Lo, B., “Case-Based Reasoning in Stem Cell Clinical Trials: The Case of Parkinson's Disease,” Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics 38, no. 2 (2010). Since approving Geron's clinical trial, the FDA has put the study on hold pending more data on cyst formation and immunosuppression in the animal studies used to support Geron's application. Dimond, P. F., “Special Report, Geron's Setback with Testing Its hESC Therapy in Humans Points to FDA's Continued Cautionary Stance,” August 28, 2009, available at <http://www.genengnews.com/specialreports/sritem.aspx?oid=61364204> (last visited April 7, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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