Students take steps into the world of stem cells

By: BRADLEY J. FIKES - Staff Writer | Saturday, January 13, 2007 5:52 PM PST ∞

LA JOLLA ---- For patients, California's stem cell research program represents potential cures. For young scientists looking to become stem cell scientists, it means support in their careers.

Legal challenges have held up $3 billion in bond money intended for the emerging field of stem cell therapy. But thanks to some creative work-arounds, the money spigot is now flowing. One of the first priorities is attracting the next generation of scientists who are needed to ensure stem cell research's future.

One of them is Benjamin O'Connor, who has been worried about the finances of breaking into the field.

"Funding for young scientists in the past decade has not been enthusiastically supported ---- especially if you like stem cell research," he said.

O'Connor wants to study human embryonic stem cells, restricted by a cutoff of almost all federal funding by President Bush in 2001.

Thanks to the state program, he's now getting that chance.

O'Connor is in a class of 32 local graduate and postdoctoral students who recently got training grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM. They're now attending a CIRM-funded course offered by UC San Diego, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Scripps Research Institute and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research. These four research powerhouses conduct stem cell research together as the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine.

The students met Monday afternoon at the Burnham Institute for an orientation. Over pizza, beer, wine and soft drinks, the students got to know one another and learned about the course.

"There's not a lot of experts in embryonic stem cells, and that's a skill I want to acquire," student Rob O'Brien said. "This training will help us to do that. ... You can't get that from reading a paper. You have to be with someone who knows what they're doing."

Stem cells, found in embryos, umbilical cords and amniotic fluid, are the ancestral cells that give rise to the different tissues and organs of the body. Researchers hope to grow stem cells into desired cell types and transplant them into injured or diseased patients to replace absent or defective cells.

Probing the unknown

Katherine Ruby and John Brock have been studying spinal cord injuries. They say that stem cell therapy looks like a promising approach.

"It's a new avenue of thinking in the lab," Brock said.

Tissue grown from stem cells has been used to restore some function in rats with injured spinal cords. However, this has not yet been done in humans.

Ruby said that restoring movement in humans may be harder because regenerated nerve fibers have to grow much farther in humans than in rats. Other factors may be responsible.

"We don't know. That's the point," Brock said.

Evan Snyder, director of Burnham's stem cell program, had a similar take on why it's important to use human embryonic stem cells in research. Snyder co-wrote a recent scientific paper that reported using stem cells taken from amniotic fluid to grow muscle, bone, fat, nerve, liver and blood vessel cells. The paper was published in the Jan. 7 issue of Nature Biotechnology.

Snyder said it's likely that embryonic, fetal and so-called "adult" stem cells will each find their own niche.

"Each one gives us another set of tools," Snyder said. "We want as many tools as we can have."

New territory

Not all the students are trained in biology; some are crossing over from other fields such as bioengineering, bioinformatics and chemistry.

Those without knowledge of how to work with stem cells will be taking an additional hands-on course with stem cells, said Larry Goldstein, director of UCSD's stem cell program. They'll learn how to identify stem cells, how to keep stem cells alive in culture, and how to keep them from prematurely differentiating. When that's done, these students will be able to contribute the knowledge from their specialties, working side-by-side with the biologists.

This cross-fertilization may lead to new insights, said Goldstein, who will be leading some of the class discussions.

"This is a big experiment. We've never done anything like this before," Goldstein said.

The consortium doesn't have its own building; it's using its member institution's facilities for the time being. But working together will be easy, said Mark Mercola, a professor of stem cell and regeneration at UCSD and at Burnham who will also teach in the course.

"We are all within a mile of each other. We interact frequently," Mercola said.

Interaction is also the plan with students, Mercola said. Those who are familiar with stem cell cultivation will serve as teacher assistants to their classmates who are learning those skills.

"We hope that then some of the people will take (the skills) back to their own labs," Mercola said.

Responsibility

The stem cell funding will pick up some of the burden not being met by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the largest single funder of biomedical research in the United States.

"NIH funding has been in a slump," said Pamela Itkin-Ansari, an associate professor of stem cell and regeneration at Burnham. "CIRM is keeping California competitive, and it is keeping the U.S. competitive."

Ethical training takes up a full third of the curriculum. Mary Devereaux, director of the biomedical ethics seminar series at UCSD, will lead the ethics part of the course, which will heavily lean toward issues with human embryonic stem cell research.

Devereaux said the most-debated subject, the ethics of killing a human embryo to get stem cells, "masks" other important concerns. These include ensuring the informed consent of women who donate egg cells for research, and ensuring access to therapies for those who can't afford them.

Researchers also have an obligation to explain the importance of their research to the public that's paying their way.

"Some of you have been studying fish and flies and things that go bump in the night," Goldstein told the students. "It's not always obvious to the public how this relates to humans. For better or worse, the world is watching us, not just in San Diego, but in California."

Contact staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at (760) 739-6641 or bfikes@nctimes.com.

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