Notes from Dr. Regner's Presentation on Stem Cells
by Carl Kaun

Dr. Kurt Regner, an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at UNLV, spoke to Halvason members about stem cell research this past Sunday, October 15, 2005.

Dr. Regner started by drawing a diagram illustrating the stages that researchers expect to apply in a therapeutic use of stem cells.  The first stage in the process is to use a microscopically thin needle to remove the nucleus from a patient's (e.g. skin) cell, and to place that nucleus in an egg whose nucleus has been similarly removed.  The environment surrounding the egg is then manipulated to cause the egg cell to divide, resulting in at first two cells, then four cells, then eight, and so on.  An eventual result of this division is a group of cells called a blastocyst, which contains some (partially) differentiated cells and some stem cells.  The stem cells are removed from the inside of the blastocyst and placed in a culturing medium, which Dr. Regner displayed as a flask.  In the culturing medium, the stem cells can divide somewhat indefinitely.  To be used in a therapy, the stem cells are caused to differentiate into one of about 220 kinds of tissue, which is inserted into the patient (e.g. by surgery) to improve the patient's condition.

The differentiation process is the most complex part of the process, and involves dozens of steps, entailing exposure to specific combinations of proteins at each.  Accomplishing this differentiation is the only stage of the process that has not been completed for humans, and the one in which research is being most actively pursued.

Dr. Regner explained that stem cells are so called because other types of cells can result from, or "stem from" them.  Embryonic stem cells produced in the manner described above can differentiate to produce every other kind of (human) tissue.  They are, in other words, fully pluripotent.  In contrast, adult stem cells -- taken from a developed person -- are partially differentiated, and can produce only certain other kinds of tissue.  Umbilical stem cells are similarly partially differentiated, and can produce only skin, blood, and bone tissues.

Dr. Regner also observed that adult and umbilical stem cells are not as "growable" as embryonic stem cells, in that they cannot be nurtured for more than about 40 hours.

The question was asked why stem cell researchers believe they can take the final step in the process described previously, to produce human tissues from stem cells.  Dr. Regner replied that researchers have nearly accomplished this final step for other species, notably the production of mouse neurons, and there is no known reason why the same should not be possible using the same general approaches for human tissues, even though the exact steps in the process remain to be worked out.

In vitro fertilization is a process in which an egg is fertilized with a sperm, and then divides and eventually produces a blastocyst.  Fertility clinics then insert the blastocyst into a woman's uterus, where it attaches and goes on to develop into a fetus, and eventually is born as a baby.  Stem cells can be withdrawn from a blastocyst produced by in vitro fertilization in exactly the same manner as described previously, and indeed all existing stem cell lines have been obtained in exactly this manner.  Similarly, a blastocyst resulting from the introduction of a person's cell nucleus into an egg would, if implanted in a woman's uterus, go on to be born as a clone of the person.  Perhaps because of these similarities, Dr. Regner was very noncommittal about exactly what the word "conception" meant, and also when life begins, suggesting that it may mean different things to different communities of people.

At one point in the discussion, Dr. Regner noted that we, the audience, had as thorough an understanding of stem cell research as the President and the members of Congress.

Dr. Regner went on to address the political climate surrounding stem cell research.

President Bush in 2001 authorized federal funding of stem cell research, at the same time limiting that funding to 70 existing stem cell lines, and declaring that he would not sanction processes violating the dignity of human life.  By that he meant approximately the destruction of human embryos.

In July 2006, President Bush vetoed H.R. 810, which would have funded broader stem cell research, on the grounds that this would have funded the deliberate destruction of human embryos, a moral line he would not allow our Nation to cross.

The President has signed the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act, which prohibits trafficking in human fetuses that are created with the sole intent of aborting them to harvest their parts.  In contrast with many foreign governments, this is the only law in the U.S. remotely related to fertility research.  Dr. Regner noted moreover, that this Act has no impact on the use of stem cells (which never become fetuses), and that in requiring intention it addresses a situation no one has ever intended to create.  But it did resonate with some voters.

While the federal government is hostile to stem cell research, there is nothing to prevent private stem cell research, and indeed the pharmaceutical industry is funding heavily in the area.  Additionally, while some states are like the federal government in their hostility to stem cell research, other states, like California, are considering investing in it, or at least incentivizing it.  Several other countries are also actively pursuing stem cell research, China, Singapore and South Korea notably among them.