Can science solve the stem cell debate?

According to the Financial Times‘ Clive Cookson, there may be a way to end the ethical debate over stem cell research: Scientists in the US have created human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, a discovery that appears to get round a basic ethical objection to stem cell research. The breakthrough ? published online on ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

According to the Financial Times' Clive Cookson, there may be a way to end the ethical debate over stem cell research: Scientists in the US have created human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, a discovery that appears to get round a basic ethical objection to stem cell research. The breakthrough ? published online on Thursday by the scientific journal Nature ? could help lead to greater public funding for the field and make it more appealing for commercial investment. Researchers from Advanced Cell Technology, a US biotech group, have generated stem cell cultures by plucking individual cells from newly fertilised embryos, which are not harmed. Stem cell production until now involved taking larger masses of cells from slightly older embryos, which are inevitably lost. The discovery ?has the potential to play a critical role in the advancement of regenerative medicine?, said Ronald Green, director of Dartmouth College?s Ethics Institute and head of ACT?s independent ethics board. ?It appears to be a way out of the political impasse in the US and elsewhere,? Prof Green added. ?I see this as a real opportunity for the Bush administration to address the need for embryonic stem cell lines, while maintaining their ethical position that embryos should not be destroyed to obtain them.? Here's a link to the actual article in Nature. The FT article does go one to assert that,"hardline critics of embryo research ? such as the US Conference of Catholic Bishops ? are unlikely to accept the manipulation even of a single embryonic cell, which they say could theoretically become a human being." Question to readers: assuming that this is a real breakthrough, will it sway a sufficient number of stem cell opponents to render the debate moot?

According to the Financial Times‘ Clive Cookson, there may be a way to end the ethical debate over stem cell research:

Scientists in the US have created human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, a discovery that appears to get round a basic ethical objection to stem cell research. The breakthrough ? published online on Thursday by the scientific journal Nature ? could help lead to greater public funding for the field and make it more appealing for commercial investment. Researchers from Advanced Cell Technology, a US biotech group, have generated stem cell cultures by plucking individual cells from newly fertilised embryos, which are not harmed. Stem cell production until now involved taking larger masses of cells from slightly older embryos, which are inevitably lost. The discovery ?has the potential to play a critical role in the advancement of regenerative medicine?, said Ronald Green, director of Dartmouth College?s Ethics Institute and head of ACT?s independent ethics board. ?It appears to be a way out of the political impasse in the US and elsewhere,? Prof Green added. ?I see this as a real opportunity for the Bush administration to address the need for embryonic stem cell lines, while maintaining their ethical position that embryos should not be destroyed to obtain them.?

Here’s a link to the actual article in Nature. The FT article does go one to assert that,”hardline critics of embryo research ? such as the US Conference of Catholic Bishops ? are unlikely to accept the manipulation even of a single embryonic cell, which they say could theoretically become a human being.” Question to readers: assuming that this is a real breakthrough, will it sway a sufficient number of stem cell opponents to render the debate moot?

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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