Senators Specter and Durbin are giving Advanced Cell Technologies a raft of crap over their paper in Nature last week demonstrating that hES lines could be derived from single cells.

The problem is, because human embryos are exceedingly difficult to come by, the researchers maximized the probability of getting lines by taking all the cells out of the embryo thereby destroying it. It was clear to anyone who read the article that the embryos were destroyed in the process. However, the researchers, despite not making this abundently clear to the press, did show two important things.

1. That hES cells could be derived from this earlier-stage blastocyst. This was not clear before.
   
2. That hES cells could be derived from single cells. I was confused by this as well since they were destroying the embryos, but now I see it was a practical issue to get as many cells as possible from a limited source.
   

Now, the problem is that they didn't do in the paper what was reported by the lay media, which is create ES cells without affecting viability of the embryo. I am guilty of this myself, I guess because I assumed no one would have a problem with this being a "proof-of-principle study." Basically, it would have been expensive, difficult, time-consuming, and possibly unethical to remove cells from embryos destined for implantation into humans for this scientific study, and I think it is quite reasonable to say this was beyond the scope of their study. They merely wanted to show it was possible to derive hES cells from single cells at this early stage. They performed an experiment to maximize the possibility of this happening, and it isn't ACT's fault that the entire media establishment over-interpreted their results (although it really isn't much of an over-interpretation).

Now I understand why the Senators are irritated about this kind of research, it is kind of a pointless distraction designed to appease rightwingers who will never be satisfied no matter what we do. But I really don't think the authors were purposefully dishonest, and it really isn't their fault the paper was over-interpreted, because, after all, they did prove it was possible to generate hES cells from single cells that were equivalent to genetic screening samples used safely in IVF. The fact that they didn't then implant the embryos to prove viability is besides the point. That ability isn't in question.

Anyway, everyone is a loser here. The Senators for being jackasses, ACT for having their integrity impugned for coverage that wasn't their fault (and isn't really inaccurate if you think about it), and the public for having valuable research delayed to satisfy the pointless ethical concerns of a vocal religious minority.