Years passed and I read about the work the South Koreans had done with stem cells. In 2004 and 2005 Hwang Woo-Suk fraudulently reported that he succeeded in creating human embryonic stem cells by cloning.

Back then it wasn’t known it was a fraud, so it was very exciting to think that a long list of diseases could be treated.

I founded the stem cell research company Stemagen [2] with another gentleman whose father had died of ALS. We went out for drinks one night and we started talking about our parents. We wanted to do something that would be a legacy for them.

For Better Or Worse?

The moment we decided to start Stemagen, I read all there was to read about the various cloning efforts in the past. The cloned sheep Dolly in 1997 was very interesting, but at that stage people were not focusing on the stem cell aspect of cloning; they were focusing on the reproductive possibilities of cloning.

Human reproductive cloning is just simply wrong ethically from a medical standpoint and a scientific standpoint, even ignoring any religious issues associated with it. The reason that's true is the majority of reproductive clones in other species are actually abnormal, with very high miscarriage rates, very high stillbirth rates, fetal anomalies, death soon after birth, et cetera.

It would just be absolutely wrong to take a human being and put them through what may well involve significant suffering for really no good end. Even though people could take the techniques that we’ve developed and attempt to do it (or perhaps even be successful doing it), we hope that they would not do that.

On the other hand, therapeutic cloning does not involve any type of risk to human life and actually provides tremendous potential for the relief of suffering in real human beings who are going through some awful things.

I’m a pure scientist in some ways, and I know that many different studies or findings could be used for evil. Our job as scientists is to make the most of this technology and make it available to the greatest number of other scientists who can help us do good things with it. There’s really no effective way for an individual scientist to stop someone else from using the knowledge for something they shouldn’t.

We need to be honest about the techniques that we used. They need to be able to be replicated by other people, and so, we are providing a roadmap. I would hope that the legislation that’s in place and the great public disapproval that would result from any attempt to clone a human would dissuade anyone from going down that path.

What is it they say? There is no technology that hasn’t been used for some evil purpose at some point. Quite honestly I do think that someone will attempt human reproductive cloning. I do think it’s inevitable, and it’s virtually impossible to legislate that away.

Claim To Fame

I am touted as the first man to, quote-unquote, “clone himself.” (chuckle) There are different types of cloning. At the cellular level, yes, it’s true I am the first man to clone himself. We thought a great deal about how to deal with the issue of whose cells we should use and whether we should let the world and the scientific community know who the first cellular clone was. In the end we decided that we wanted to put a human face on cloning.

I didn’t anticipate it would create the firestorm of controversy that it’s created, but I’m still glad we went down that path. We received thousands of e-mails and phone calls from people who need help.

I think by coming forward and putting a face to it we made it very real, and now people around the world know that cloning is here. I believe that very soon it will be used therapeutically, so I think our purpose was served.

Pure Science

What happens is an informed and consenting woman donates an egg and we remove her genetic material from the egg. Then we place a single skin cell inside that egg.

The machinery inside that egg does something very amazing. It returns that genetic material inside the skin cell back to an immature state - it turns the clock back to the day when that DNA was part of an embryo. It recreates, really, the beginning of life. It’s an astonishing process.

One other group had done this with a stem cell in humans, but other than that, there’d been no evidence that anyone had been able to take a fully differentiated adult cell and create a cloned embryo from it.

What we’re really interested in is creating disease-specific and person-specific stem cell lines. The procedure of taking cells from a person takes no more than a minute or two. You can take some skin cells from the arm, for example, and in one to two minutes, you can get the cells that you need to carry out this process.

This process enables us to study the causes of specific diseases, such as Alzheimer’s Disease, ALS or Parkinson’s Disease, and then research a variety of treatments for these diseases. If the stem cell lines are created for any given individual and are later transplanted back into the individual, they will not be rejected by the individual.

Sweet Success

I always thought that when our research was successful that I would just be pleased that we accomplished this when others had not. (chuckle) In reality, it is transcendent - when you look through the microscope, you see what you may have looked like a long time ago, at least in part.

When I looked down and saw that cloned blastocyst, it brought tears to my eyes. I had done this for my mother, and I realized, had she only been able to live a few years longer, maybe we could have used this technology to help her. It was emotional to see that potential, which she never had a chance to experience.

There’s a big misconception out there that we decided to destroy these embryos for some reason. There was so much skepticism about this process because of the scientific fraud from the past that it was critical that there be no doubt that they were clones.

In the process of analysis, the embryos were destroyed by necessity. In other words, to get the genetic material from inside the cells to analyze it, you have to destroy the cell. We would have LOVED to avoid destroying.

Now we’re working full-time on creating stem cell lines, and people are watching with great interest.

The Pope And The President

There are a variety of opponents to our work. We were condemned by the Vatican and mentioned in a negative light in President Bush’s State of the Union address. In a sense it’s an honor because it shows that we’re doing something significant. It’s not everyday that you get condemned by the Vatican and President Bush in the same week. (chuckle)

The leading national Catholic magazine did call and interview me for their next issue, and I really appreciated that they wanted to be journalists first, Catholics second. They said, “Obviously you know our position, but we don’t want to print ours without getting yours.” There’s usually no dialogue between the researchers in the embryonic stem cell field and those who oppose it.

It doesn’t make sense to me that it’s such an emotional and contentious topic. Logically, this is not life. I agree it’s a potential life, but the vast majority of embryos never become life. The majority generate, don’t implant and die. A fetus is a life. That argument makes sense to me, but it doesn’t make sense to me to look at an embryo in a lab and give it all the rights of a human life.

The Big Scoop

We have some news we’re very excited about. I’ll give you the scoop: We have just received institutional review board approval to begin working with certain disease states and stem cells. We have an upcoming egg retrieval in approximately two weeks and will be using cells obtained from a person with ALS. We’re very excited to move on to the next phase.

Cloning is the here and now, whether we like it or not, so we should strive to understand it. As we all know, the FDA recently approved cloned animals for human consumption. Cloned animals are a bit of a stretch from what we do, but I assume they’ve looked very carefully at this.

What is clear about cloned animals is that the majority of them have problems. We know that the next generation, that is animals borne from cloned animals, is normal. From a scientific or medical standpoint, it’s hard to imagine there will be a problem with consuming a cloned animal.

However, I think consumers always have a right to be informed. They may have religious issues with it or may feel that not enough research has been done to determine the safety of this.

I certainly think that food from cloned animals should be labeled. No one should be in a position where they feel like they are supporting something that they don’t believe in. That’s even more important than the health issues, which are extraordinarily minimal.

Looking Over One's Shoulder

Stem cell research is a very competitive field. People from different companies are always looking at what the other guys are doing, trying to see how far along everybody else is. You want to let people know you’re making progress, but don’t want to say too much. It makes for some interesting meetings. (chuckles)

This research involves the careers of various people, so you do protect what you’ve done until you’re sure you've done it right. It’s friendly competition. I know we’re ahead right now and want to stay ahead, but we also want to bring people with us and bring the whole field together.

It’s also a very expensive field. We’re privately funded - I have contributed, as have others who are interested in this kind of research. We’re applying for grants through the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, and we anticipate that will be another source of funding. We don’t plan on going public any time soon; we like the flexibility of being private.

The Century Of Stem Cells

No one really knows how long it’s going to take before we create products that are commercially viable or if there will be a payback. If you’re doing this type of research, you should be doing it for love and not money.

There’s a very good chance the money will never come, but, how can your focus be on money when you look at, literally millions of people suffering from degenerative diseases with absolutely no treatment available?

I think this is the future of medicine. It will be the "Century Of Stem Cells"...the century when all these diseases that have eluded treatment will be readily and routinely treated. I think within 10 or 20 years people will look back at the 1990s and the early 21st century and say, “My gosh, we were so backwards.”

It will be viewed as a time when there was a lot of controversy about something so life-saving and life-improving. It will be astonishing to anyone that there ever could have been a vote against this kind of research.

*****

If you enjoyed this tale, you may also enjoy: The Family That Walks On All Fours [3]