Originally posted October 13, 2010

Wait and see

October 13, 2010

Stem cells have been approved for study in humans by the US Food and Drug Administration. The first patient to be part of this study was injected with a stem cell cocktail (emphasis mine) on Monday morning (October 11th).

In my brief search, I only found a handful of media outlets covering this story (here and here).

The FDA gave the license for this study to Geron, a Silicon Valley biotech company. They are specifically looking to see if their stem cell therapies will help patients who have had spinal cord injuries regain feeling/motor-control/other functions. The first subject of the study is a patient who is partially paralyzed as the result of a recent spinal cord injury.

The benefits of stem cell therapies have been boisterously argued over the past several years. (Of course, all of you know that already, ’cause you’re up on all of this.) Advocacy groups touting their potential and religious groups warning of the moral consequences of using stem cells derived from human embryos. All of these have been recently highlighted by a federal judge’s decision to restrict the NIH from funding stem cell research and the scientific discovery of a new method that can turn skin cells into stem cells.

Through all of this, it seems to me, that there has been a lot of hyperbole from some scientists and advocates on behalf of stem cell usage. (Perhaps the media are more prone to use those prone to hyperbole). Anyway, some of these people are completely certain that stem cells will be a panacea for spinal cord injuries, tissue growth, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancers, etc. ad infinitum. The truth is that we don’t know how these things are going to work in humans. We don’t know if they’ll be effective therapeutics for any of these illnesses. That is why this current study is a vitally important first step. We want to know if the hype is justified. We need to know if stem cell therapies can cure anything. It’s time to put up! Now, we just need to sit and wait … and see if stem cell therapies can reverse the spinal cord injuries of the patients in this initial study.

-mrh