Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reduce Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms

Declan and I have been sleeping in the same place since Sunday (on Thursday night we returned to the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate; and on Friday night the gate was locked). We are tucked away, about twenty paces from the side entrance of a public building, down some twelve steps. It is actually quite cold and windy so probably not suitable for the winter. There is not a single pub, bar or club in the area; nonetheless, last night at about 11.30pm three or four guys came out of a car, congregated under the roof of the paved enclosure and lifted the place for fifteen minutes; then they left.

They were so out of context we take it as a warning. Declan jokes that perhaps we should make a stand and sleep outside Wood Street police station (the nearest station) – see blog "A trellis gate is installed in the porch" for Declan's latest letter to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights citing violation of Article 34 of the European Convention of Human Rights and requesting that the Court take this matter up with the Government (Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy).

The majority of emails that I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still going to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September "Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding"): yesterday I sent 127 and got three out-of-office-autoreplies; we also only got one signature.

hESCs reduce multiple sclerosis symptoms

Israel's Hadassah University Hospital and Hadasit, the technology transfer company of Hadassah Medical Organisation, announced Monday that scientists at Hadassah University Hospital have discovered a new application for human embryonic stem cells. They have demonstrated for the first time that transplanted neural cells derived from human embryonic stem cells can reduce the clinical symptoms in animals with a form of multiple sclerosis. The findings of the study are published in an article titled "Neuroprotective Effect of Transplanted Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Neural Precursors in an Animal Model of Multiple Sclerosis" in the Scientific Journal of PLoS One (see the article here).

The data presented in the report are the result of a long-term collaboration between Benjamin Reubinoff, director of the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center at Hadassah Hospital (and a signatory of Declan’s petition), and Tamir Ben Hur, director of the Neurological Department at Hadassah Hospital. Michal Aharonowiz and Ofira Einstein both from Hadassah, as well as Hans Lassmann from the University of Vienna also contributed. "Human embryonic stem cell-derived neural precursors were transplanted into the brains of mice with an experimental form of MS. The grafted human cells integrated in the mice brains and migrated towards the sites of inflammation. They suppressed the inflammatory process in the brain, and consequently protected the animals from demyelination and nerve cell extension (axonal) injury, which are the pathological hallmarks of MS," said Reubinoff.

MS is the most common disabling neurological condition affecting young adults. MS is caused by an inflammatory reaction of the patient's own immune system against the myelin sheath that envelops the nerve processes. The destruction of myelin leads to the degeneration and loss of nerve cells and permanent neurological disabilities. MS affects 2.5 million people worldwide.

"We believe that the encouraging therapeutic effects in the rodent model of MS justify moving ahead to clinical studies. We also anticipate that the anti-inflammatory effect demonstrated in the pre-clinical study may be combined in the future with the use of other human embryonic stem cell derived neural cells to repair the myelin in the brain," said Reubinoff.

The website of Hadassah Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center states the following in respect of the potential of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research for transplantation therapy:

Given their unique properties, hESCs are expected to have far-reaching applications in the study of early human development, the development of new drugs, and regenerative medicine. Human ES cell lines can serve as a renewable unlimited donor source of specialized human cells for transplantation therapy.

Human ES cell-derived mature cells could potentially be transplanted to restore tissue function in a wide range of human diseases that are associated with loss of cell function.

These conditions may include neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, Multiple Sclerosis, cerebrovascular accidents, spinal cord injuries, as well as heart failure, diabetes mellitus, and others. The number of patients that potentially could benefit from transplantation of hESCs is overwhelming. For example there are over 16 million patients worldwide with neurodegenerative disorders, and over 120 million diabetic patients. Moreover, transplantation of genetically modified hESCs may allow the transfer and expression of foreign genes in target organs in the course of gene therapy.

While the promise of hESCs for cell and gene therapy is remarkable, further extensive research and development are required to exploit their potential for regenerative medicine.

An article dated 2 October 2007 in the Jewish Advocate, titled "Hadassah brings Stem Cell Summit to Boston", quoted Rafi Hofstein, president and CEO of Hadasit, as saying: "It is common knowledge that the medicine of the future will be based on stem cell-derived treatments." In 2000, the Hadassah University Hospital in Israel teamed with Monash University in Australia and the National University of Singapore to become only the second group in the world to develop human embryonic cell lines. "[The Hadassah University Hospital] in Israel is at the forefront of stem cell medical research," Hofstein said. "We believe we are doing the right thing and something of great importance." Research has been slowed, however, due to a lack of funding for U.S. researchers, according to Hofstein. He said Israeli researchers cannot fully collaborate with their American counterparts because the Bush administration has limited the amount of funding available through the National Institute of Health.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group is the 3rd largest political group in the European Parliament. Speaking before the ALDE Conference "Secularism and Religions in the European Union" in the European Parliament (28-29 August), ALDE Group Leader Graham Watson (UK, LibDem) stressed that the Catholic Church has the right both to spread its word and to lobby governments with its points of view on matters like abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. But Watson believes that "for policy makers reason has to be the basis. Faith should not underpin policy-making."

Survey: Keep Religion Out of Politics

Declan and I are still looking for a place to sleep (on Thursday night we returned to the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate; and on Friday night the gate was locked). Still, a part of me welcomes leaving the porch behind. It shouldn't be difficult: I have been assaulted there three times; and as recently as 2 August I was urinated on. Also, the City of London police have woken us on numerous occasions mainly to put us under pressure to go into a homeless hostel, meaning Declan would have to 'sign on' for benefits, and consequently withdraw his application to the European Court of Human Rights (see blog "A trellis gate is installed in the porch" for Declan's most recent letter to the Registrar of the Court). And when these police visits didn't have the desired effect, a City of London Police 'No sleeping' went up on the back wall of the porch (see blog of 25 June "Police ‘No sleeping’ sign in the porch").

Today, a year ago, Declan submitted his application to the European Court with a request for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court: in a letter of 22 November the Court stated that it was not necessary to consider Declan's first request for priority because it would be examining his application "shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008"; seven months later, in a letter dated 16 June (see here), it is "as soon as practicable" – coincidentally, two days before Declan received this letter from the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre, his main bag, containing all our money and documents, was robbed in the centre (see here). On 4 July, he submitted a second request for priority, drawing to the attention of the Court a violation of Article 34 and requesting that the Court take this matter up with the Government – Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.



On Thursday, LiveScience reported under the headline "Survey: Keep Religion Out of Politics" that, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, for the first time in more than a decade a majority of Americans think religious organisations should stay out of politics. In addition, an increasing number are uncomfortable when politicians talk about how religious they are. Overall, 52 percent thought that churches and other religious institutions should stay out of politics, an increase of eight percentage points since 2004, when the last US presidential election was held. A huge shift came from voters who described themselves as conservative, with 50 percent saying churches should stay out of politics compared to 30 percent in 2004. Among Republicans, 51 percent held this view, up from 37 percent in August of 2004. And among Democratic voters, the percentage who wanted churches out of politics was almost unchanged since 2004 at 52 percent. Commenting on the results, the Pew Research Center said: "Where there was once a substantial partisan and ideological gap on this question, there is now far less of a divide."

Perhaps there are parallels between this development and the emerging anticorporate attitude among many young activists that prompted journalist Naomi Klein to write the book titled “No Logo”. Klein explains in the introduction to the book that as she was doing some research on university campuses in the mid-90s, she began to notice that many of the students she was meeting were preoccupied with the inroads private corporations were making in their public schools. They were angry that ads were creeping into cafeterias, common rooms, even washrooms; that their schools were diving into exclusive distribution deals with soft-drink companies and computer manufactures, and that academic studies were starting to look more and more like market research. They worried that their education was suffering, as institutional priority shifted to those programs most conducive to private-sector partnership.

“Successful multinational corporations are increasingly finding themselves under attack,” Klein writes. But what are the forces pushing more and more people to become suspicious of or even downright enraged at multinational corporations, the very engines of our global growth? Perhaps more pertinently, what is liberating so many people – particularly young people – to act on their rage and suspicion? Klein provides some answers to these questions. “That corporations have grown so big they have superseded government. That unlike governments, they are accountable only to their shareholders; that we lack the mechanisms to make them answer to a broader public,” she writes.

Consider, for example, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown turning up in the US on a three-day visit from 15 to 18 April, only to be upstaged by Pope Benedict XVI (MacAskill, Guardian, 15/4); or the Pope’s rejection in July of an invitation to address the European parliament, prompting Mary Honeyball MEP, a labour spokesperson in the European Parliament Women's Rights Committee, to write in the Guardian that the pontiff was “effectively holding the EU to ransom” (Honeyball, Guardian, 25/7). As for accountability, there is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops: despite recent statements by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the National Academies and the International Society for Stem Cell Research emphasising that studies of all types of stem cells should continue in parallel, the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website continues to display their two recently released print ads describing embryonic stem research as “obsolete” (the ads were distributed at the Democratic Convention in Denver and at the Republican Convention in Minneapolis/St Paul by pro-life groups, according to LifeSiteNews.com).