Why spend so much time and money trying to come up with "alternatives" to embryonic stem cells?

[BushOut06]

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686252_1690920,00.html?cnn=yes

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In November, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and molecular biologist James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin reported that they had reprogrammed regular skin cells to behave just like embryonic stem cells. The breakthrough may someday allow scientists to create stem cells without destroying embryos — sidestepping the sticky ethical issues and opposition from the U.S. government that surround embryonic stem-cell research — but that day is still a ways off.
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I'm just curious, is this research simply being done to try and appease the far right, and create non-embryonic stem cells? It seems to me that we could get much further actually using the damned embryonic cells, rather than trying to come up with some alternative that might not even work, and even if it does, would still be a long way down the road.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Because the Inquisition won't let scientists work with the real thing.

Think about it. You're living in a time when a few religious kooks are oppressing scientific research.

[Hydra]

2. I've supported an alternative from the beginning

why bother fighting these wackos over what is life, and what is not? Make the stem cells from something else and start fixing things.

[TZ]

3. Because embryonic cells are not easy to get hold of

Even in countries that don't have the religous bans, there is a limited amount of embryonic cells available.
This technology would give a much larger source for research.
And parallel research (alternative methods) is something that's always done in science. Because scienctists understand that there are usually more than one approach to solving problems. Trust me, there are plenty of people working with embryonic cells in other places. But your concern is legitimate, that some non-scientists will pull funding for embryonic research based on hearing about alternatives.
However, most scientists despise having politics interfere with research so if a non-controversial method can be found, thats going to be atttractive to many, many researchers.
The best way here is to keep pushing for funding for BOTH types of research....

[mike_c]

4. some of that is to appease the right, but there are also sound biological reasons...

...to seek alternatives to embryonic stem cells, not the least of which is that the holy grail of stem cell therapy is ultimately to isolate-- or create-- totipotent cells from anyone. Tissues cultured from such cells would be indistinguishable from the bodies own tissues. No rejection issues, but the "fit" between such reconstructed tissues and the rest of the body goes beyond suppression of immune responses-- they would automatically share the somatic genome with the rest of the body.

[Demeter]

5. One Doesn't Have To Pay For Self-Generated Stem Cells

Nobody donates or sells them....limits the liability a bit, too.

[Igel]

6. There are also a number of kinds of non-embryonic stem cells.

In some cases, they'd avoid rejection, taking the cells from the patient. A number of potential therapies have been identified and tested in animals, and I think a few are in or nearing human trials.

We typically don't hear much about them. The stories surface and then go back into anonymity, simply because there are few (if any) people advocating for more adult/fetal/cord-blood/etc. stem-cell research. Nothing political in it, no great, bloated promises for fund- and ego-raising.

Meanwhile, embryonic stem cells--which may also include those made in ways similar to Yamanaka's (after he's disposed of the need to actually include a cancer gene in his process, of course)--have some drawbacks. They tend to become cancerous, or at least fairly routinely become precancerous. How they develop after that, I don't know.

They've also had a bear of a time producing new HESC lines. Seems women don't typically want to give up eggs with all the inconvenience and pain involved, and scientists are prohibited from actually buying them. They can reimburse expenses, and that's it. As for all the human embryos already around, I don't understand why there aren't more donations. There are some new ones, and a mess of money's been dumped into HESC research, but the results haven't been great. I haven't been able to tease out a comparison of the amounts of money put into HESC and into adult stem-cell research, because I'd have to know something about private/state funding and how NIH funding breaks down among the various kinds of stem-cell research, and haven't been able to find either.

But, in short, no, there actually *are* science-based reasons for not liking the HESC research paradigm.