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Published online 27 January 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/457516a
Stem cells ready for prime time
US regulatory agency gives the go-ahead for first clinical trials of a human embryonic stem-cell treatment.
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Time will tell whether this regulatory release will bring fortune to or doom the fate of ESC-based therapy. This is because all the hopes/hypes will be seen sooner than later.
One huge problem in this field is the volume of misinformation that abounds. Even Nature misses the fact that Geron already has preclinical data on hESC derived insulin generating cells that are proportionately responsive to blood sugar levels. Further, in the billions of cells that Geron has grown and injected for preclinical rodent studies in thousands of animals there has been not one tumor. Geron also has hESC derived cardiac precursors that unlike adult stem cells actually repair damaged heart tissue in animal studies, restoring near 100 percent cardiac function in a few weeks. All this information has been contained in recent Geron presentations which have suffered from little prior press interest.
Another bit of misinformation surrounds the fact that, as in this case, even Nature frequently does not distinguish properly between embryonic and other stem cells. Stem cells have been ready for the prime time for many years and are (e.g. bone marrow transplants, Mesenchymal stem cells to reduce autoimmunity etc.) in regular use. Embryonic stem cells are the new kids on the block who may/may not be able to prove themselves as good or better than what we already have.