Announcement by Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., that it has found a way to develop colonies of human embryonic stem cells with little risk to the parent embryo triggered a flood of stories. Nicholas Wade’s NY Times story leads the paper, as do those of several other writers. The Alameda, California company’s researchers describe their work — at a lab in Massachusetts — in this week’s Nature. It’s getting the breakthrough tag — a word that is overused but may apply if the hype pans out. Its key is to harvest one of the embryo’s cells at an earlier stage of development, two or three days after fertilization, than with standard techniques. Fertility clinics often pluck one cell from such eight-cell embryos for genetic testing as it is. Often, the embryo itself remains viable. Many have produced pregnancies and apparently fully healthy children, reports say. The company says this second use of a biopsied cell satisfies moral worries over embryo destruction. Skeptics from the White House on down are unsure of that. The conversation has shifted a bit, but the exasperation quotients may go up even further.

British media reaction is divided. The Times’s Nigel Hawkes in the UK says in an editorial commentary (he also does a news story) the achievement may be more public relations than scientific coup. At the Daily Mail, however, Fiona MacRae calls it “a revolutionary technique.” Jacqui Thornton at the Sun just calls it amazing.

The stories present reporters with two challenges: to describe the technique itself. That is helped by the press material and the journal piece. More difficult is to include a decent exploration of the work’s ethical and political dimensions. Some outlets split the task up among several reporters and stories, and a few papers editorialized immediately. The LA Times editorial page says scientists are trying too hard to appease religious conservatives.

Stories:

NYTimes Nicholas Wade; AP Matt Crenson; Los Angeles Times Karen Kaplan; Boston Globe Gareth Cook; San Jose Mercury News Steve Johnson; USA Today Dan Vergano; Washington Post Rick Weiss; San Francisco Chronicle Carl T. Hall; Chicago Tribune Jeremy Manier; Houston Chronicle Todd Ackerman; Philadelphia Inquirer Marie McCullough; Baltimore Sun Dennis O’Brien; Reuters Maggie Fox; Times (UK) Nigel Hawkes; Daily Mail (UK) Fiona MacRae; The Sun (UK) Jacqui Thornton; The Herald (UK) Stewart Paterson; Nature.com Helen Pearson;

Editorials: Los Angeles Times; Times (UK); Times (UK) Nigel Hawkes;

Grist for the Mill: ACT press release

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Health & Medicine Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.