Stem Cells: New Science may Change the Debate

What would happen if a scientist could change any of your body’s cells into an embryonic stem cell, instead of having to kill an embryo to farm one? The stem cell debate would change.

During the last election Michael J. Fox leaped into American politics, telling voters in several states that George W. and his fellow Republicans were staunching off embryonic stem cell research funding and basically annihilating the science that could cure every known disease. At best, Mr. Fox’s and the Democrats’ attacks were duplicitous.

The political debate regarding stem cell research, like most political debate, is based on short fiery phrases and emotional rhetoric. As free speech goes, it is generally powerful stuff. Honestly, though, is not the best friend of political rhetoric, and when the debate is about science, honesty is distilled further because most of us (and the politicians) do not have access to information about the science or an inclination to learn about it.

To give a bit of clarity to the stem cell debate, a little science may help.

Broadly there are two types of stems cells; embryonic and adult. As one might guess, adult stem cells (there are 220 types – blood, skin, hair, etc) are found in adults. Adult stem cells regenerate our bodys’ cells with new blood cells, brain cells, skin cells and more. Embryonic stem cells are produced in the embryo and guide the growing child from fertilized egg to full term child.

The debate focuses on funding embryonic stem cell research. The issue is that the extraction of embryonic stem cells kills the embryo. Many Americans believe this is kills a human life. Contrary to this train of thought, many Americans think the killing of the embryo is outweighed by the potential benefits that might accrue from the research. This is today’s debate: should the government fund research that kills an embryo or not.

President Bush was the first President to fund embryonic research and did so on 78 embryonic stem cell lines that had already been discovered. To date, hundreds of millions of federal dollars have been allocated for this research. Listening to the media, one might believe that no funding has been provided by the federal government. This is simply not true. Federal funding will not be provided for any new research that would kill embryos. Private research dollars are not affected.

The debate, however, may be about to change dramatically.

Scientists in Canada, Japan and the United States have done something quite extraordinary; they have been able to change a monkey’s skin cell into an embryonic cell. Though not conducted with human cells, this experiment is amazing. A real life comparison is a bit hard, but it may be a little like changing your Yugo into a Lexus by adding a couple of drops of water. Duplicating this feat with human cells will take stem cell research into a new realm.

Over the few last years, several core science facts have been demolished. Scientists had believed that stem cells, as they changed from their embryonic form through a short cascade of diminishingly less powerful adult stems, could not return up the power ladder. A multipotent stem cell could not become the more powerful pluripotent or totipotent stem cell. They also believed that once a stem cell turned into specific type of adult stem cell, say blood cell, that it would forever be that kind of cell.

Not only have scientists shown adult stem cells to have ‘plasticity,’ the ability to change into different types of adult stem cells, but now the possibility arises that embryonic stem cells may be created from any cell in our bodies.

As these new possibilities arise it becomes apparent that our genes are more powerful than we have imagined. The monkey skin cell was transformed into its embryonic state by vectoring in a few very specialized genes into the cell. Specifically, the OCT4 gene is thought to be the controlling gene that transforms the cell from somatic to embryonic. Scientists also have shown that only about 1155 genes control the pattern of growth from an embryo to a living child, and that the OCT4 gene may be the stick shift of the progression.

By 2008, we will know more about the realities somatic to embryonic conversion, the plasticity of stem cells, and the specifics of embryonic development. The embryonic stem cell debate, however, may already be forever changed and the results to follow will probably mean that if not any cell in the body, at least adult stem cells may be altered to present a wholly different type adult stem cell or, even better, an embryonic cell.

Politicians are short on scientific knowledge and long on electioneering, but this new research will hopefully quell the bombast and allow scientists to maneuver past the moral dilemma of killing an embryo to acquire embryonic stem cells – and get on with what looks like fantastic life-saving science.

Shorten the War

Entice the Markets to Find New Energy Source

Money is the fuel of war. Without money, today’s terrorist or yesterday’s cold warrior is just some guy looking for a job.

Shortening this new Hundred Years War on Terrorism comes down to taking one of the two fuels that makes this war run hot – hate or money. Democracy will help reduce hate, but it’s a very slow process. It may work in Iran. In Saudi Arabia, it will take a few mis-steps to get it right. Iraq – well, there is plenty of hate and money to go around.

So that leaves the money. Most of the dollars come from oil. Whether the checks are from Iran to Hammas, or a Saudi Prince to Wahhabi schools in Pakistan, the predominance of terror funding is derived from oil profits. The Middle Eastern economies are oil-based. Take away oil and oil profits, and the war won’t end, but its length will be severely diminished.

The West still needs to hunt down financiers. The CIA and FBI needs to track down bad guys. We need to find a way to win in Iraq. But we really need a different energy supply to lamp off oil dollars. So who does that?

Three choices. The government, business or you and I. I am voting for the latter. The government does almost nothing well, and having had some chance to direct energy policy over the last 6 years we have a big ZIP. Which is actually probably a good thing. More important, the government shouldn’t be in the business of picking product winners. Business solutions, well, that hasn’t produced much either.

With government targeting tax breaks and research dollars and laws mandating specified percentages of types of renewable energy sources for feeding the general supply of energy, we are still held hostage to purchasing most of our energy from overseas. If the environmentalists start scaring America about gasoline as much as they did with nuclear energy, offshore drilling and drilling at Anwar, we’ll be riding horse and buggyies shortly and we’ll all have a big windmill in the back yard.

The problem with most non-gas solutions is they are not affordable. Even Hybrid autos don’t have a payback for the better fuel mileage for years.

So what is the right solution? Good question.

History says humans generally find good answers. First, there has been a long steady road of human choice for energy source. For millennia, wood filled our needs. As humankind dug itself out of the Dark Ages and began to proliferate in Europe, the landscape was scrapped of its woodlands. Other sources were going to be required because it was farther and farther to the nearest tree to fuel the fireplace.

Coal was the answer. Coal dominated the market, with wood as a second source. In the United States where there were still lots of trees, wood still played a large roll. And then there were cars and gasoline. And lots of electricity. Lots. Coal fired plants. Natural gas fired plants. Nuclear plants. And a tiny bit of wind and photo electric.

So how do we find the next energy solution. Know one thing, science and technology will get us to the next solution. Well into the future energy will be freely available, clean and extremely cheap. Although fissionable nuclear energy is available today, and cleaner than any of our other sources of energy, clearing the environmentalists back to their caves will be difficult. Strangely, the environmental impact of nuclear plants are miniscule compared to the gases cars spew out.

Harnessing the strong nuclear force via fusion will likely occur later this century or early next century. The fuel for these plants, like stars, is hydrogen. Building a star on the surface of the earth has its share of technological hurdles, but we will get there, just not in time for this war.

There is some possibility that we may be able to harness the power of gravity, a hugely available source of energy. There is a ways to go here. Scientists have known what gravity is and how to measure since Newton. What they don’t understand is how it works. Once they figure this out, the possibilities for gravity based energy production becomes possible.

In the mean time, the opportunity to bring America’s best and brightest to the forefront of energy production is now.

There is nothing like a contest to bring out the best in us. The X-Prize for sub-orbital flight (to the end of space) engaged a significant number of entries. The winner, Burt Ruttan, that renegade aerospace engineer came up with the winning solution. We need this contest to continue.

A contest for energy solutions would not hurt us and it could provide prizes for several different categories: increasing efficiencies in gasoline engines, new fuels and alternative fuels, hydrogen fuel cells, any time of fuel cells, batteries, etc.

My recommendation is raise $100,000,000 to be put in a prize kitty for all comers; big business, small business, and scientists working independently – everyone with an idea needs to get involved. Even you and I. Folks with an idea without the time to execute the science should publish ideas for others to execute.

So let’s have a contest: Here are some suggests prizes

Increased fuel efficiency for cars – 50%

o Engine Efficiency

o Engine Alternatives

o Hybrids

o Formerly unheard of solutions

New technology/Improved Technology

o Hydrogen Fuel Cost Reduction (50%-100%)

o Hydrogen Fuel Cell Efficiency (Over 50%)

Alternate Fuel Cell Solutions (Must Be Equivalent of Better than Gas Engine Efficiency at same cost.)

Alternative Battery Solutions (Increased Efficiency, Reduced Cost)

New Solutions

o Alternative Energy Source (near zero pollutants)

§ Car

§ Electricity Production

§ Other Concepts

Let me know your ideas. We’ll get this thing going. Find new clean energy and turn off the money spigot in the Middle East.

God and the Perfect Proton: Not proof, just awe.

Getting a clear picture of the beginning of the Universe is not easy. About the only thing scientists are sure of is that the entire universe was at one time all scrunched up into an area smaller than the point of a pin, and very, very, very hot. And then it exploded smoothly outward, expanding and evolving into the universe we see today, filled with galaxies and stars and black holes and comets. As far back in time as scientists go, back to time Zero, the beginning, some speculate and wonder who made the rules for this universe, this elegant universe.

Cosmologists, physicists who study the beginning of the Universe, tend to steer clear of religion, so God lurks in the Big Bang only at the edges. Steven Hawking and Alan Guth, two of the century’s greatest cosmologists, hint that the rules of the Universe came from somewhere, perhaps God. Even Einstein suggested with respect to the creation that ‘God doesn’t roll the dice.’ But these public queries regarding God are minimal, so God is placed on the sidelines in Physics, and generally on the sideline closest to the beginning of the Universe where so much shock and awe exist.

There are some items, though, about our Universe that are just truly amazing to leave to leave at the edges of science or religion, and should be plopped right in our laps for consideration.

The Proton for instance. Protons have spin and charge and are made up of three quarks. Yes, these facts are interesting, but not at all amazing. There are approximately 10⁶⁴ protons in the Universe. You bet, that is a bunch of protons, but still not amazing considering all the stars that can be seen with the naked eye, which seem considerable. But what is truly astonishing about the proton is that each and every one is identical. Now that is amazing. What are the chances that so many Protons could be created, that they would all be perfectly identical? No chance. It seems that it would be unbelievably and stunningly impossible.

Dr. Lee Smolin suggests that the chances for creating a Universe that would support life is 1 in 10²⁴⁰. Those odds are pretty slim. But what about all these perfect Protons? What are the chances of creating 10⁶⁴ protons and they are all identical - one in never? I can’t even get two pancakes the same size. Heck, the chances of winning the lottery look pretty darn good compared to making two exact replicas of proton.

Imagine in the first moments of the Universe, the Big Bang, that unimaginably large and smooth explosion of energy could create over the course of seconds and minutes, a titanic flood of Protons that are all identical. Consider the heat alone – a trillion degrees – wouldn’t that make a mess of everything. A fire of a few thousand degrees will turn your home into ashes. Wouldn’t that hot stew have some imperfections? You bet. But no, not for protons – nothing but perfection – it’s just really hard to imagine. Were there some bad Protons that wound up on the scrap heap? If so, where is that heap? I want to know about the rejects. But, alas, there appear to be none. To make matters even more astonishing the Proton has identical cousins as well: Neutrons and Electrons suffer the same perfection. In fact everything with which the Universe is built has the same kind of perfection built in.

While taking chemistry and physics in high school, none of this was mentioned, which I now find disturbing. It would have made these classes vastly more interesting and me more mindful of the perfection I studied. Also, knowing that without this perfection that most matter could not exist as we know it would have made me pay a bit more attention. Knowing that stuff like water and steel and Coke could not exist unless every Proton were exactly the same is important. If protons were not perfect there would not likely be any elements, compounds or solutions. Forget Coke, there would be no me! Hey, Mr. Whitaker (my 11^th grade Chemistry teacher), you should have let on to this perfection. I would have paid more attention.

I am now. There is more, though. Even more amazing.

Cosmology is not a new science. Speculation about the creation has gone on for centuries. Over the last century, with big telescopes and bigger cyclotrons, scientists have sought to understand the nature of stars on a grand scale and the building blocks of matter on tiny scale. In the small world, our understanding of the tiny has gone from atoms, to point particles like the Proton, to quarks and now to ‘strings’ as the basic building blocks of matter and energy.

Somewhere inside the Proton is a string. Strings are a bit esoteric. They vibrate with discrete rhythm. They are one-dimensional. (Yep, that is pretty hard to imagine.) They are so small it would take a cyclotron the size of our solar system to create enough energy to create a collision between two Protons to see a string. Physicists ram protons and neutrons into one another, like billiard balls, to see what happens. Generally, unlike billiard balls, matter comes apart and show us what is inside. In the ‘70s scientists found quarks, maybe someday they will see strings.

But given all the energy required, Hell will likely freeze over before we see a string. This not withstanding, strings, too, appear to have the malady of perfection. They too, as the building blocks of matter, must all be perfect. If the string is the primogenitor for matter and energy, then how do strings become the perfect precursor to the perfect Proton. Like Einstein suggests, “God doesn’t roll the dice.” Perfection takes a plan, and plan way better than required to build the highly reliable Honda or Toyota.

God certainly is not the manager of a Proton factory. I don’t think He is the kind of ‘creator’ that would build one Proton at a time in preparation for the creation of the Universe. But working with what appears to be nothing at all, no length, width or height – no matter or energy – from nothing at all, He generated a massively perfect universe from four forces – gravity, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and electro-magnetism. And these laws, like the Proton, are immutable and the same everywhere. The rules for gravity are the same everywhere as are the rules for all the forces. And with these four forces, the superstructure of the Proton and its kin were formed, to perfection.

Does all this perfection really mean God exists? The perfection that exists is no proof of God. But what are we left with to believe in. Chance as the creator of such perfection. There are many secularists who believe in chance Most certainly, this is an extraordinary Garden of Eden we live in and are about to explore. Consider the perfection of everything that exists. Chance perfection. Holy moly. I think not. It’s no proof, but consider - A perfect Proton every time, that is truly amazing.