Stem-cell researchers in Israel warily eye debate in Washington
by Dina Kraft, the JTA
Dr. Shulamit Levenberg pulls out a dish of human embryonic stem cells from
an incubator and carefully places them under a microscope to see how they
are beginning to take form as human tissue.
Levenberg, a researcher at the Technion University in Haifa, is working on
cutting-edge tissue engineering research with the help of human embryonic
stem cells ? research that she hopes will eventually lead to the creation
of lab-manufactured tissues and organs for transplants.
These days, Israeli scientists who have helped pioneer the field of
embryonic stem-cell research are warily eying Washington, where a showdown
is brewing between the U.S. Congress and the White House over federal
policy on research in the field.
A bill passed in May by the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to expand
government funding for embryonic stem-cell research and now is set to go to
the Senate. President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, which
would expand the number of research lines of stem cells eligible for
federal funding.
According to current law, funding is available only to research lines that
existed in 2001 and before.
Developments in Washington are a cause of concern for Israeli scientists
because if research funding in the United States decreases, there will be
less of a pool for funding worldwide.
?It may affect progress in the field if Bush stopped the process of more
liberal funding,? said Dr. Binyamin Reubinoff, who heads the Hadassah
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center. ?It has an influence on scientists and
the availability for money for research.?
In the United States, there has been opposition to embryonic stem cell
research from some Catholics and conservative Christian groups who link it
to human cloning and abortion.
Furthermore, Bush and his supporters claim that life is being destroyed by
using the stem cells because embryos are destroyed in the process of the
research.
American Jewish groups across the religious and political spectrum have
joined together to advocate for more stem-cell research.
And in Israel, following the dictates of Jewish law that do not view the
embryo as potential life until it is inside the uterus of an expectant
mother, such research is not controversial.
?In Israel the attitudes are much more positive,? said Levenberg, who
herself is an observant Jew. ?Here it is not thought of as killing the
cells but of using them to save life.?
Researchers are eager to use embryonic stem cells, which appear just days
after fertilization, because the cells have the ability to develop into
body tissue.
Theoretically, once the DNA of such cells is successfully manipulated in
the lab, they can one day be transplanted into humans to help treat a wide
range of diseases, among them neurodegenerative disorders such as
Parkinson?s and Alzheimer?s diseases and Multiple Sclerosis, as well as
heart failure, diabetes and other conditions.
In Israel funding for research is scarce and researchers rely heavily on
grants from abroad.
The Hadassah Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center has been one of the
leading labs for stem-cell research internationally. Hadassah, in
cooperation with universities in Australia and Singapore, was the second
group in the world to derive stem cells from human embryos.
The group produced six of the human embryonic stem-cell lines that are
currently available for federally funded research in the United States.
Some of these lines are among those that are distributed to labs
researching stem cells around the world.
In Jerusalem, Reubinoff?s team at Hadassah found that by implanting human
stem cells into the brains of rats, some symptoms of Parkinson?s disease
are alleviated. The discovery, announced last year, gives some hope to the
millions around the world who suffer from the disease because it may pave
the way for using embryonic stem cells as a treatment.
Along with the Technion and Hadassah, the Hebrew University is the other
cutting-edge research leader in the embryonic stem-cell research field in
Israel.
Recently, Hebrew University?s Dr. Nissim Benvenisty went to Capitol Hill
together with several other U.S. researchers to brief lawmakers in the
House and the Senate about embryonic stem-cell research.
A professor of genetics and the head of the stem-cell unit department at
the life sciences institute at Hebrew University, Benvenisty presented new
data from his lab as he tried to convince the lawmakers that embryonic
stem-cell research, properly regulated, was the responsible scientific way
to go.
Benvenisty?s research team was the first to genetically manipulate human
embryonic stem cells and in doing so, found that such cells have a lower
chance of being rejected by the body than other cells, he said.
His lab is also involved in taking diseased embryos that were discarded
during in vitro fertilization treatments and studying them in order to
better understand the diseases they carry.
He recalls getting word that he and his lab would be able to use human
embryotic stem cells for the first time. Previously they had been limited
to the embryotic stem cells of mice.
?I literally could not sleep at night,? said Benvenisty. ?We are in special
days where we can do real pioneering research; we call it ?the cell that
can do everything.?
?It can generate every cell in our body,? he said, while at the same time
it is involved in so many aspects of human medicine.
?I am sure it will revolutionize the way we will do research and also
transplantation medicine.?
In her lab at the Technion in Haifa, Levenberg describes the process she
and her team are undertaking to help create human tissue ? a technique she
learned while doing post-doctoral work at M.I.T. in Boston.
They have created sponge-like structures out of biodegradable scaffolds
made from a combination of polymers. On those scaffolds they attach cells
and by exposing them to certain hormones, are trying to grow specific types
of tissues, including skin and cartilage.
Levenberg and other researchers credit Israel for quickly assembling
regulations and guidelines that helped enable their research.
In 2001 the Bioethics Committee of the National Committee of Science wrote
the regulations that now govern the research in Israel. It stipulates what
kind of embryos could be used for research and how consent should be
procured from families who were no longer using the embryos as part of in
vitro fertilization treatments.
Since then, the guidelines have been studied around the world by other
countries attempting to set their policies for such research.
Jewish law?s tenet that an embryo outside of the uterus does not constitute
life helped pave an easier path for research in Israel, said Dr. Michel
Ravel, a professor in the department of molecular genetics at the Weizmann
Institute of Science and the chair of the committee that set Israel?s
regulations on embryonic stem-cell research.
?Jewish law has a strong tendency towards saving lives,? he said.
?Therefore it was easier than in many countries that are under Christian
influence to accept the ethical value of the guidelines.?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn
