Doctors have found another potential source for obtaining adult stem cells for use in scientific research — baby teeth. However, though the discovery adds to the plethora of non-controversial sources of stem cells, some lawmakers continue to bash President Bush for his stance against new federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and are pressing for legislation to open the floodgates for it.
Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) sent a letter to Bush urging the president to expand the current policy on federal funding and provide more cash to researchers who wish to obtain stem cells by destroying unborn human life.
In interviews last month, Specter and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) said they would like to hold a Senate hearing on the topic in May. And Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who has disappointed pro-life groups by abandoning them on this issue, said that he is “disappointed at the number of stem cell lines that have been available” to federally funded scientists, and that he will work with others on Capitol Hill “in reexamining the administration's policy.”
But pro-life advocates said they remain opposed to any changes.
“We expressed support for the president's policy when he enunciated it, and I don't believe that Congress will overturn it,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
The White House indicated it has no intention of changing its position.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president's policy was arrived at with “great care” and is based on advice from leading scientists that “existing lines [of stem cells] are more than enough to realize the promise of stem cell research in a way that adheres to the highest ethical standards.”
The president has said he favors research on “adult stem cells,” which are more plentiful and many believe are much more effective.
James Battey, who chairs the stem cell task force at the National Institutes of Health — the primary source of federal funds for stem cell research — said there is much basic research that scientists can do on the handful of older embryonic stem cell lines and it is premature for scientists to be chafing over the Bush restrictions.
The older cells still offer “an enormous research opportunity,” Battey said. “We're doing everything we can within what's allowed to move this research agenda forward as quickly as possible.”
This article originally appeared in The Washington Post.
Baby Teeth Offer Effective Source of Stem Cells
Instead of leaving baby teeth out for the tooth fairy, parents might do better to send them to doctors, who someday could harvest their hidden stem cells to help combat diseases, researchers reported Monday.
The stem cells in baby teeth can transform themselves into nerve and fat cells in laboratory dishes, investigators said. In the future, stem cells plucked from a child's discarded molar could be frozen in cell banks to benefit its donor for decades.
“These cells are a very surprising resource that is exciting, and (also important), they are very capable of providing huge numbers of cells,” said stem cell researcher Songtao Shi, a pediatric dentist at the National Institutes of Health.
All stem cells begin as “blanks” without a dedicated task, unlike nerve, blood, fat and other cells. They have the potential to become specialized, a power scientists have been attempting to harness in order to replace damaged cells in diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes.
Shi and his team investigated stem cells from adults and found stem cells in the pulp of adult teeth, while other teams have isolated stem cells from bone marrow, skin, brains and hair.
Two years ago, Shi's then 6-year-old daughter lost her first baby teeth. “I'm a pediatric dentist, so naturally I was the first person to take care of it,” Shi said.
“Then I thought about the pulp tissue left inside. I was a dentist for years, but I never even thought about baby teeth until I looked at my daughter's carefully,” he recalled. Because children are physically immature, stem cells from baby teeth could differ importantly from those from adults studied so far.
Shi and his team experimented with baby teeth from seven children. In findings made public last week and appearing online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Shi revealed stem cells from the pulp of baby teeth not only became a range of cells, but also could trigger bone formation in mice. They also found the cells multiply two to three times faster than stem cells from adult bone marrow and adult teeth.
“We were very surprised that they were that highly proliferative,” Shi said.
Incisors and canines only yield roughly 20 stem cells each, with molars yielding even less. Nevertheless, each stem cell from a baby tooth can reproduce itself many times, yielding trillions upon trillions of cells.
“We haven't had a problem with having enough cells to work with,” Shi said.
Someday, he added, “we can ask parents to put (baby) teeth that comes out in milk, put it in the refrigerator and give a call the next day, and we can get stem cells out. You can freeze them in liquid nitrogen and save them for years and years.”
If the cells are grown into tissues and implanted back into a person's body, they should avoid the immune rejection often seen in organ transplants. “But more studies definitely need to be done before we can use them to treat disease,” Shi said.
Developmental biologist Anthony Mahowald of the University of Chicago said one focus of further research should be what types of cells the baby teeth stem cells can become. One possibility: beta cells of the pancreas, “the source of insulin, or dopamine-producing cells, relevant to Parkinson's disease,” he said.
When employing stem cells from patients with genetic diseases, Mahowald added, “it will be important to demonstrate that gene replacement — that is, correction of genetic defects — can be accomplished in these cells.”
(Articles courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
