PRESS RELEASE - 17 OCTOBER 2005 - Immediate release

Technical fixes may not solve Embryo Stem Cell ethical problems

Dr Donald Bruce, Society Religion and Technology Project, Church of Scotland

Tel. 0131-240 2250,   Fax 0131-240 2239, Email: srtp@srtp.org.uk http://www.srtp.org.uk   or Church of Scotland Press Office 0131- 240 2243

Two US research groups claim to have found methods which could overcome the basic objection to human embryonic stem cell research. One seeks to extract cells without harming the early embryo, the other makes the embryo non-viable for a pregnancy. But do they meet the objections?

"Technical fixes like these do not often solve ethical dilemmas. The viability of the embryo is not the only crucial issue here," says Dr Donald Bruce, Director of the Church of Scotland's Society, Religion and Technology Project. "Christians in the UK are divided on the use of embryos to make stem cells. For many of those who see the embryo as a human person I doubt that either method would solve the basic ethical problem."

ES Cells without harming the Embryo

The first method is by Advanced Cell Technologies, whose scientists have derived embryonic stem cells from a single cell removed from an 8-cell mouse embryo. But they have implanted the remaining seven cells in a female mouse womb and produced apparently normal pregnancies in about half the cases. Hitherto, stem cells have been taken from later stage embryos in a way which destroys their potential to develop any further. This is seen as tantamount to murder by those who regard the early embryo as having the same moral status as a live human baby. If the new method could successfully be done with human early embryos, the researchers say here is a way to obtain embryo stem cells without destroying the embryo. Would this argument work?

"In the eight cell embryo method, you would be morally obliged to implant the remaining seven cell embryo to make a baby for the ethical argument to be valid," says Dr Bruce. "Many might object that it was too instrumental towards a future human baby to remove an eighth of its substance, not for its own sake, but for use as a medical resource for research or making cells for therapy. They might consider that the inherent human dignity of a real future human being was violated."

It also raises some awkward questions about informed consent. What would an eighteen year-old think who discovered that while she was still an embryo, one of her cells was removed to create an 'immortal' cell line for scientists to use in research or medical therapies? It could also challenge the strict separation of research from treatment, which would not normally allow an embryo about to be implanted to create a pregnancy also to be used for research, or for a research embryo to be implanted.

In practice, it is hard to imagine the circumstances under which it would happen. Would a fertile couple go through an IVF procedure to create a healthy embryo, just to make cells for some future therapy, knowing they risk losing the embryo if the seven cells did not re-implant successfully? Also, the risks of the procedure itself are low, but not zero. An infertile couple seeking IVF might therefore not want to risk their chance of having a baby, by adding an extra procedure to an IVF technique whose success rate is still low. The new method uses a method of cell extraction which is also the basis of embryo selection by pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). However, the ethical claim of creating embryo stem cells without destroying embryos means the method could not be used in conjunction with any real PGD treatment, because by definition this method accepts the principle of destroying embryos that are regarded as defected.

ES Cells from Non-Viable GM Embryos

In the second case, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research has adapted the nuclear transfer cloning technique used in Dolly the sheep to create mouse embryos that cannot implant into the womb, from which they extract embryonic stem cells. The scientists have genetically modified mouse cells to switch off a genetic signal which controls implantation and fused these cells with a mouse egg to create a non-viable embryo. If the embryo was never viable, it is suggested, here is a source of stem cells obtained without destroying a future life.

In this case, here objectors to embryo research argue that it is unethical to genetically modify human cells to make an embryo non-viable because it is engineering into it a disability which denies its potential to develop (although it would be illegal in the UK to implant what would be a cloned human embryo). Similar ethical objections apply to earlier suggestions for obtaining stem cells from other deliberately non-viable embryos by parthenogenesis or animal-human hybrids.

Summary

It is doubtful if either method be likely to be a satisfactory ethical solution for those in the churches who object to embryo research on principle. Few would be happy with genetically engineering cells to create deliberately non-viable embryos. Some might feel more comfortable with taking cells from the embryo in a way that did not ruin its viability, compared with present meth

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