After a long political and legal fight, a revolutionary therapy finally enters the US clinic
Christopher Reeve died hoping that stem cell treatment could help him walk again. Nancy Reagan defied partisan politics to support Barack Obama in the hope that he would reverse George Bush Jr?s ban on US government monies being used to fund research involving human embryonic stem cells; she continues to hold that this research will help discover a cure for the Alzheimer?s disease that took her husband down. This is one promise Obama delivered on, reversing the aforementioned ban. In January 2009, USFDA gave California-based Geron permission to conduct the first clinical trial for a therapy based on human embryonic stem cells. Yet, entrenched opposition ensured that the matter remained stuck in the courts. There is, after all, a 1996 US law in place that prohibits taxpayer dollars being used to harm an embryo. But as long as cell batches can be culled using private monies, the Obama administration can fund subsequent work. This week, Geron finally initiated clinical trials by injecting a paralysed patient with human embryonic stem cells, which will hopefully help regenerate the nerves in his spinal cord.
This is a biggie for medicine. Animal experiments have already shown that paralysed rats were able to regain substantial mobility after being injected with the said cells. The impact on humans remains unknown so far. Hopes are running high, however. If embryonic stem cells can trigger appropriate genetic switches, then the horizon opens up for curing everything from cancer to blindness and Parkinson?s disease and diabetes.