South Korean scientist, Dr. Hwang Woo-suk has made international headlines by creating a number of cloned human beings intended to be killed and harvested for their stem cells.  The doctor has obtained stem cells from clones created from patients with specific illnesses.

Dr. Hwang’s latest advance has been to take skin cells from patients with spinal cord injuries, type 1 diabetes, or a congenital immune disease. These skin cells were used to replace the contents of human eggs obtained from donors.  These modified single-cell embryos were stimulated to begin growing.   At a certain point of development, the embryos were killed to obtain their stem cells.  These stem cells were then cultivated and induced to multiply creating a stem cell ‘line’ that can, in theory, be used to treat the patients whose DNA the dead clone shared.  Dr. Hwang said, “Our work reveals the possibility that this technology could be applied in the patient himself in the future.” He reiterated the usual caveat, however, that the creation of the cloned cells does not indicate that cures are around the corner.

In this case the caveat is the reality.  Obtaining stem cell lines using cells from patients with spinal cord injuries and diabetes may suggest to many people that those patients can soon be treated with these stem cells.   However, the cells are still nowhere close to being available to help treat diseases.  Taking cells from these patients was purely symbolic because the resulting stem cell lines will never be usable for treating these patients.

Though the new cells don't rely on mouse feeder cells to grow, since they are obtained from cloned humans, they still had animal cell components injected into them.  "Scientists must also find a way to remove the remaining animal components from the laboratory procedures," said the report on their research scheduled to be printed in the journal Science on May 20th.   Even leading researcher Hwang Woo-suk admitted "we have to open so many doors before human trials.''

In fact, similar patients have already received experimental treatments using stem cells obtained from their own bodies or from umbilical cord blood.  Because these "adult" stem cells do not involve the risks of cloning, they can be used now for treatment of human patients. These "adult" stem cells are derived directly from patients to avoid tissue rejection issues. Sources include bone marrow, blood, muscle, brain, fat, nasal/sinus, skin, and even baby teeth. These stem cells are already widely used to treat a wide range of diseases including Parkinson’s, various forms of cancer, and spinal cord injuries. This research is advancing much more quickly than research using unethical cloning techniques. Similar successes are also being achieved using stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood.

If you are looking for imminent medical advances using stem cells, it is necessary to support research that relies on adult stem cells and those from umbilical cord blood.  The latest headlines from Korea may suggest otherwise, but human treatments using stem cells derived from killing cloned human embryos are still a long way off, if they ever arrive at all.