Killing Science Softly

The BBC has reported that the Catholic Church has given £25,000 it doesn't have to a researcher in the University of Bristol to fund 'ethical' stem cell research. Professor Neil Scolding has decided to become a Vatican shill to get some funding to use adult stem cells to help cure multiple sclerosis.

Before you all starting lighting your torches and sharpening your pitchforks, I must say that developing a cure or even better treatments for a disease as debilitating as MS is very honourable and worthwhile. Attempting to do so using bad science isn't. The Catholic Church have realised that simply voicing their opposition to embryonic stem cell research isn't going to have the effect they're hoping for. Instead they have seized on the opportunity of these recessionary times by bending academics and researchers to their will with the temptation of lucrative research grants. 

The problem here is not the sponsorship of the Catholic Church although, that is worrying in itself. The real problem here is the attempt to steer research away from embryonic stem cells. I'm not going to go into the long version of the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells here but anyone who wants to can read more here. The basic difference between embryonic and adult stem cells is that embryonic cells are pluripotent meaning that they can be differentiated (made to change their basic shape and function) into any number of different cell types through instructions from DNA (in the case of a developing foetus) or external influences (in the case of an in-vitro experiment). Adult stem cells on the other hand are multipotent or oligopotent meaning that they can be differentiated into different cell types but not as many as embryonic cells nor can they replicate indefinitely as embryonic cells do. This difference is caused by the inherent purpose of each stem cell type. Embryonic stem cells are intended to grow a human from a group of blank cells using DNA as a schematic. Adult stem cells are intended as a short to medium term repair mechanism to replace the different cell types in a particular organ as they become damaged or die such as osteoblasts and osteoclasts in bones. 

As a result of this difference embryonic stem cells have a much wider application in disease research. In particular they can help to understand how diseases, which have previously been difficult to understand, such as cystic fibrosis behave and develop clinical models as a result.

The controversy of the use of terminated embryos in stem cell research has of course had some positive effects. The desire of some scientists to avoid such controversy has led to the development of induced pluripotent cells which use the delivery of genes to differentiated cells to achieve a pluripotent cell similar to an embryonic stem cell. This has already generated some breakthroughs, most notably this case study of sickle cell anaemia in mice.

The message to be derived from all of this then is twofold. Firstly to the Catholic Church, stop sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong and leave the science to good scientists who really are interested in saving lives. Secondly to scientists like Neil Scolding, your first duty is to the science. Any organisation like the Catholic Church who waves a carrot like that in front of you should start some alarm bells ringing straight away.