Bioethics essay: "Direct Reprogramming & the End of Embryonic Research"

Welcome to this week's installment of my ongoing essay series about contemporary bioethics issues. As always, constructive feedback is welcome. Here is a list of the previous topics I've treated so far:

• “Did the Congo nuns get permission and set precedent?" (Nov. 1)
• "The Pope Speaks to Pharmacists ... and Connecticut?" (Oct. 29)
• "Long-Term Complications for Premature Infants" (Oct. 22)
• “The Evil Effects of Legalizing Euthanasia” (Oct. 10)
• “The Moral Implications of Artificial Wombs” (Oct. 1)
• “Mandatory Organ Donation Initiatives” (Sep. 26)
• “Human-Animal Hybrids and the Catholic Response” (Sep. 20)

This week's topic:

“Direct Reprogramming & the End of Embryonic Stem Cell Research”

I submit that a recent discovery made public in the last week has radically changed the landscape of the ethic stem cell debate and further precludes embryonic stem cell research.

The “direct reprogramming” of adult cells (such as skin cells, for instance) to a non-differentiated state, previously accomplished successfully in mice, has now been done in humans. Richard Doerflinger, director of pro-life activities for the USCCB, said that this discovery is “completely acceptable ethically and also perhaps more promising scientifically and medically than embryonic stem cells have been in the past.”[1] Currently, the technique involves disrupting the DNA of the skin cell, which could raise the probability of cancer. However, this DNA disruption is a “byproduct” and “experts said they believe it can be avoided.”[2] The technique is straightforward, with one person being quoted as saying “People didn't know it would be this easy … thousands of labs in the United States can do this, basically tomorrow.”

Direct reprogramming has two distinct technical advantages over cloning: it does not require a huge supply of unfertilized human egg cells and it does not bring into being (and later kill) a human person. Furthermore, it is eligible for federal funding under current law.[3] As a result of these and other benefits, such notable scientists as Ian Wilmut (who became a household name as the director of the research team that first successfully cloned a sheep and named it Dolly) have publicly abandoned cloning in favor of direct reprogramming research.[4]

Focusing research on the far-more-promising technique of direct reprogramming has been made more urgent by recent news that scientists have successfully cloned primates (again, previously up to this point the technique had primarily been used with mice).[5] The cloning process, in comparison with reprogramming, is plagued by inefficiency, and demands many unfertilized egg cells. Fr. Thomas Berg, director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, noted that the breakthrough is a “double-edged sword.”[6] On the one hand such research can provide insights into human biology. On the other hand, research must never cross the line into developing human cloning techniques carried-over from primate testing, he said.

The recent discoveries made in direct reprogramming, of course, do not change the fundamentally unethical nature of embryonic stem cell research. Human life cannot be weighed proportionally with possible future scientific benefits. The Catholic Church has consistently taught this truth. Most recently at the U.S. Bishops’ fall meeting in Baltimore they unanimously issued a new statement re-condemning stem cell research which involves the destruction of innocent nascent human life.[7] These recent discoveries do, however, discredit the argument put forward by proportionalists that embryonic human beings can be sacrificed for scientific progress, because their argument rests upon the premise that embryonic stem cell research is the most promising path towards deriving usable pluripotent stem cells. The first successful human tests of direct reprogramming all but definitively put the lie to their line of reasoning. +++