Researchers may have isolated (or may be close to isolating) the gene that determines susceptibility to lung cancer:

The Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer Consortium (GELCC) examined 52 families who had at least three first-degree family members affected by lung, throat or laryngeal cancer. Of these 52 families, 36 had affected members in at least two generations. Using 392 known genetic markers, which are DNA sequences that are known to be common sites of genetic variation, the researchers generated and then compared the alleles (the different variations each gene can take) of all affected and non-affected family members who were willing to participate in the study.

First off, this is good news because it should provide some additional impetus for some people not to smoke. As the article explains:

Another interesting discovery the team made involved the effects of smoking on cancer risk for carriers and non-carriers of the predicted familial lung cancer gene. They found that in non-carriers, the more they smoked, the greater their risk of cancer. In carriers, on the other hand, any amount of smoking increased lung cancer risk. These findings suggest that smoking even a small amount can lead to cancer for individuals with inherited susceptibility.

Sure, many will argue that you would have to be crazy to smoke, anyway. Maybe the knowledge that you carry this gene would be enough to scare a long-time smoker into quitting; maybe not. But you would really have to be crazy to know that you carry this gene and go ahead and start smoking anyway.

Additionally, this news suggests a possible path to gene therapy treatments that could be used to prevent, maybe one day even cure, lung cancer. Great stuff.

Hat tip: M104 member and co-blogger Kathy Hanson

Posted by Phil at July 27, 2004 03:30 PM

FuturePundit Randall Parker reports that pregnant women often receive stem-cell therapy from the children they are carrying. Not only that, mothers (past and present) may turn out to be one of the best sources for fetal stem cells:

It is possible that many years after a pregnancy there are no longer cells in the mother’s body that are fetal and capable of becoming all cell types. But a better point at which to try to catch fetal cells from the blood stream of women would be while they are still pregnant or perhaps shortly after giving birth. If fully pluripotent stem cells can be isolated from the blood of pregnant women then this may well provide a source for such cells that will not raise religious hackles.

Randall notes a certain irony:

A confirmation of this result poses what seems to me an ethical problem for the religious opponents of embryonic stem cell research. If developing embryos effectively are donating human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to mothers and literally doing cell therapy to mothers then this natural process is doing something that at least some hESC therapy opponents consider to be morally repugnant.

It will be interesting to see where the various hESC research opponents come down on this result. Will they oppose the extraction of embryonic stem cells from a mother’s blood while she is pregnant. If so, on what moral basis?

My guess is that a large fraction of the hESC research opponents will decide that extraction of hESC from a mother’s blood is morally acceptable. No fetus will be killed by the extraction. The cells so extracted are not cells that would go on to become a complete new human life. If a sizable portion of the religious hESC opponents can be satisfied by this approach for acquiring hESC then Bianchi’s research may well lead to a method to get hESC that will open the gates to a much larger effort to develop therapies based on hESC.

Read the whole thing, including the comments. One reader observes that the opponents of stem cell research may spin this into a victory for their side, which might put the future of therapeutic cloning in jeopardy. This may be. On the other hand, if a means of acquiring embryonic stem cells can be developed that is acceptable to both sides of the debate, who’s to say that a mutually agreeable form of cloning (or a subsitute procedure providing the same benefits) can’t be developed?

One thing is for sure: it will prove a lot easier to “win” the stem cell debate by coming up with a solution that both sides like than it would have been to get one side to agree that we should walk away, or the other side to agree that it’s okay to kill an embryo. There’s a lot to be said for the win-win scenario.

Original Comments

FuturePundit Randall Parker reports that pregnant women often receive stem-cell therapy from the children they are carrying. Not only that, mothers (past and present) may turn out to be one of the best sources for fetal stem cells:

It is possible that many years after a pregnancy there are no longer cells in the mother’s body that are fetal and capable of becoming all cell types. But a better point at which to try to catch fetal cells from the blood stream of women would be while they are still pregnant or perhaps shortly after giving birth. If fully pluripotent stem cells can be isolated from the blood of pregnant women then this may well provide a source for such cells that will not raise religious hackles.

Randall notes a certain irony:

A confirmation of this result poses what seems to me an ethical problem for the religious opponents of embryonic stem cell research. If developing embryos effectively are donating human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to mothers and literally doing cell therapy to mothers then this natural process is doing something that at least some hESC therapy opponents consider to be morally repugnant.

It will be interesting to see where the various hESC research opponents come down on this result. Will they oppose the extraction of embryonic stem cells from a mother’s blood while she is pregnant. If so, on what moral basis?

My guess is that a large fraction of the hESC research opponents will decide that extraction of hESC from a mother’s blood is morally acceptable. No fetus will be killed by the extraction. The cells so extracted are not cells that would go on to become a complete new human life. If a sizable portion of the religious hESC opponents can be satisfied by this approach for acquiring hESC then Bianchi’s research may well lead to a method to get hESC that will open the gates to a much larger effort to develop therapies based on hESC.

Read the whole thing, including the comments. One reader observes that the opponents of stem cell research may spin this into a victory for their side, which might put the future of therapeutic cloning in jeopardy. This may be. On the other hand, if a means of acquiring embryonic stem cells can be developed that is acceptable to both sides of the debate, who’s to say that a mutually agreeable form of cloning (or a subsitute procedure providing the same benefits) can’t be developed?

One thing is for sure: it will prove a lot easier to “win” the stem cell debate by coming up with a solution that both sides like than it would have been to get one side to agree that we should walk away, or the other side to agree that it’s okay to kill an embryo. There’s a lot to be said for the win-win scenario.

Original Comments