Scientists pause research with lab-bred bird flu

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists who created easier-to-spread versions of the deadly bird flu said Friday they are temporarily halting more research, as international specialists debate what should happen next.

Researchers from leading flu laboratories around the world signed onto the voluntary moratorium, published Friday in the journals Science and Nature.

What the scientists called a "pause" comes amid fierce controversy over how to handle research that is high-risk but potentially could bring a big payoff. Two labs — at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison — created the new viruses while studying how bird flu might mutate to become a bigger threat to people.

The U.S. government funded the work but last month urged the teams not to publicly reveal the exact formula so that would-be bioterrorists couldn't copy it. Critics also worried a lab accident might allow the strains to escape. The researchers reluctantly agreed not to publish all the details as long as the government set up a system to provide them to legitimate scientists who really need to know. The National Institutes of Health is creating such a system.

"We recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks," lead researchers Ron Fouchier of Erasmus and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of Wisconsin wrote Friday in the letter. They were joined by nearly three dozen other flu researchers.

They called for a public international meeting to debate how to learn from the work, safely. And they agreed to hold off on additional research with the existing lab-bred strains or that leads to any new ones for 60 days.

A U.S. official praised the development.

The moratorium "is a really good idea, because a lot of very important issues are at hand," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who expects most flu researchers doing such work to sign on. "There aren't a lot of people who are doing that, I can assure you."

The U.S. also wants international input; researchers are talking with the World Health Organization.

Today, the so-called H5N1 bird flu only occasionally infects people, mostly those who have close contact with sick poultry. But when it does, it is highly lethal. The lab-bred H5N1 strains were a surprise because they showed it was easier than previously thought for the virus to mutate in a way that lets it spread easily between at least some mammals — in this case, ferrets.

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Mutant bird flu research halted

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20 January 2012 Last updated at 23:40 GMT Almost all H5N1 human cases have been contracted through contact with live or dead poultry Scientists who created a potentially more deadly bird flu strain have temporarily stopped their research amid fears it could be used by terrorists.

In a letter published in Science and Nature, the teams call for an "international forum" to debate the risks and value of the studies.

US authorities last month asked the authors of the research to redact key details in forthcoming publications.

A government advisory panel suggested the data could be used by terrorists.

Biosecurity experts fear an altered, more contagious form of the virus could spark a pandemic deadlier than the 1918-19 Spanish flu outbreak that killed up to 40 million people.

'Right step'

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) recommended key details be omitted from publication of the research, which sparked international furore.

"I would have preferred if this hadn't caused so much controversy, but it has happened and we can't change that," Ron Fouchier, a researcher from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, told Science Insider.

"So I think it's the right step to make."

While the H5N1 strain of bird flu is extremely deadly when caught by humans, its impact has so far been limited because it is not easily transmissible between humans.

But the latest joint research, by Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, altered the strain and found it was much more easily passed between ferrets.

A senior US health official says "not everyone needs to know how to make a lethal virus"

Two scientific journals now want to publish the research - albeit in redacted form - and are trying to work out with the US government how to make the data accessible to "responsible scientists".

The World Health Organization said in a December statement that limiting access to the research would harm an agreement between its members.

The NSABB is made up of scientists and public health experts, 23 from outside the government, and 18 from within.

'Flatly false'

It cannot stop publication but makes recommendations to researchers.

The scientists' letter published on Friday argues that knowledge of more infectious strains before they mutate in nature is valuable for public health.

"More research is needed to determine how influenza viruses in nature become human pandemic threats," the statement says, "so that they can be contained before they acquire the ability to transmit from human to human, or so that appropriate countermeasures can be deployed if adaptation to humans occurs."

But some said the 60-day pause on research was not enough.

One critic of the studies, Richard Ebright, a biologist at Rutgers University, told Science Insider that the letter "includes flatly false statements" making assurances about the safety of H1N1 research labs.

Reports say that a meeting debating the research and steps forward could come during a World Health Organization meeting in February.

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Scientists hail gain in human embryonic stem cell research

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The achievement is an "important step" in stem cell research, scientists say They used a technique similar to the one used to clone Dolly the sheepThe motivation for the research was to eventually cure diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes

(CNN) -- For the first time, researchers have succeeded in creating human embryonic stem cells by injecting DNA from a skin cell into an unfertilized egg, according to a study published Wednesday.

To achieve what is being called an "important step" in stem cell research, scientists in New York used a cloning technique similar to the one used to clone Dolly the sheep.

"This work now demonstrates for the first time that the human egg has the ability to turn a specialized cell into a stem cell," said Dieter Egli, who along with fellow study author Scott Noggle led the research team at the New York Stem Cell Foundation.

"The goal of this research was to create patient-specific embryonic stem cells with the patients' DNA for the eventual use in cell replacement therapy," Egli told CNN.

He said the motivation for the research was to eventually cure diseases such as Parkinson's, diabetes and many other illnesses.

In 2005, researchers in South Korea claimed to have created the first human embryonic stem cells by cloning an embryo. A year later, it was revealed that the data had been faked.

This new study, published in the journal Nature, shows researchers have finally succeeded in creating human embryonic stem cells. They weren't perfect though because they have too many chromosomes -- 69 instead of the usual 46 -- making the cells suitable for research purposes only, not actual treatments.

In the past, efforts to create human stem cells using cloning meant taking an unfertilized egg, removing egg's nucleus with its 23 chromosomes and replacing it with the nucleus of a skin cell (which has 46 chromosomes) and placing the egg in a chemical bath to make it divide as if it had been fertilized by sperm.

Researchers started out with 270 donated oocytes or unfertilized eggs, provided by sixteen egg donors, Noggle said.

Egli said through a process of elimination, he and his colleagues determined that it was the removal of the egg's genome, not the introduction of new DNA or chemically initiating cell division, which was preventing the egg to develop far enough along so stem cells can be extracted. Noggle says 63 eggs were needed to develop two cell lines, of which one was viable.

"It's the machinery within the egg that allows the egg to progress normally in development," said Ted Golos, who is a professor of Comparative Biosciences at the school of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Golos, who is not involved in this new research, says this new study isn't a giant leap forward but it's an interesting one. Now the challenge is to figure out how to remove the egg's chromosomes, without removing the machinery or spindle, which helps the egg divide. Egli said he and his colleagues are working on just that.

Researchers have been using adult stem cells like bone marrow for treatments for decades. But adult stem cells have been programmed for one part of the body and are not easily converted to correcting problems in other parts of the body.

Then the first major advance in human embryonic stem cell research came In 1998, when Jamie Thomson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, extracted the first stem cells from an existing human embryo.

In 2007, researchers in Japan and California reported the creation of stem cells by bypassing eggs altogether and reprogramming skin cells directly into dividing like fertilized eggs with the addition of four viruses.

These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells. Since then, researchers have found these cells have some limitations as well. While some opponents of embryonic research believe advances in the "less controversial" adult stem cell and iPS cells eliminate the need for embryonic stem cell research, most experts in the field believe all three research paths need to be explored to eventually find the right treatment for the right disease.

Dr. Alan Trounson, who heads the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which funds embryonic and adult stem cell research, says if researchers are able to take the next step and figure out how to make embryonic stem cells without the excess chromosomes, then they can begin to compare them to iPS cells and determine how different or similar they really are.

Egli agrees.

"We need to better understand the biology of the human egg for reprogramming without the egg genome," he said.

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Cloning Research Gives Way To Bioethics Questions

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Researchers in New York are reporting that, for the first time, they've used cloning techniques to successfully create human embryos in the lab. Guy Raz talks about the ethical implications of this research with Insoo Hyun, associate professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University.

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GUY RAZ, host: Now that scientists have used cloning techniques to create a human embryo, there's sure to be debate about the ethics of all this. Insoo Hyun is an associate professor of Bioethics at Case Western Reserve University, and he joins me now. Welcome to the program.

INSOO HYUN: Good to be here. Thank you.

RAZ: A we just heard from Joe Palca, some people are morally opposed to this kind of research. What is their argument?

HYUN: Well, some people may think that we are now down a slippery slope toward getting cloned babies. And that's certainly a major concern for policymakers and the public.

RAZ: Well, what about the possibility, though, of reproductive cloning? I mean, are we going down that slope?

HYUN: Well, as the research shows, human reproductive cloning is a really, really long ways away because human research clinics, just to get stem cells, is so difficult. And every technology has a good use and has a bad use. And the reasonable response to this fact is not to ban this technology altogether, but it's to prevent the abuses of this technology.

Reproductive cloning violates all international guidelines for stem cell research and all U.S. guidelines.

RAZ: But of course, every time new research like this comes out, that's the first thing people think about.

HYUN: Exactly. Many people go right to the science fiction scenarios of how this technology might spin out of control.

RAZ: Now, to make these cloned embryos, the ones that Joe was reporting on, scientists needed a supply of human eggs. These were researchers in New York. They seem to be able to get all they needed. But other researchers in other states have had problems convincing women to become egg donors. What did the researchers in New York do differently?

HYUN: The researchers in New York followed New York State laws in allowing for compensation for time, effort and inconvenience of the egg donors. Prior to that, all other attempts to recruit egg donors were miserable failures because women simply were not willing to provide their eggs under all that stress for free.

What's curious is that in all research locales, healthy research volunteers that give up part of their bodies for research - whether it's a little bit of a lung, a little bit of a liver or bone marrow - are very often paid for their time, effort, and inconvenience in recognition of that sacrifice and that effort they had to put in, to help the research team. Egg donors for stem cell research are the glaring exception in these states.

RAZ: So in New York, women can be paid. In other states, they can't be paid for donating eggs for research?

HYUN: Yes. In other states, they can get their expenses covered - whether it's cafeteria meals or parking tickets or babysitting fees - but they can't get any further financial recognition of their sacrifice.

RAZ: But in other instances, in those same states, they can get paid for donating eggs, right, if it's for other purposes?

HYUN: In all other states, women donors can get paid to donate their eggs to a couple who's seeking fertility treatment, that's certainly true.

RAZ: So explain the thinking behind the restrictions on paying women to donate eggs for this kind of research.

HYUN: The main concern is that when you put money on the table, women would not give a fully voluntary choice to participate. So the idea is that paying women for the time and inconvenience may be exploitative of women who are in desperate need of money. That's the main concern, that it undermines people's voluntary choice.

RAZ: Now, this research was done with private money. During the administration of George W. Bush, there were strict limits on federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells. Many of those restrictions have been lifted by the Obama administration. Could this work today, that it was announced today, could it have been done with federal dollars?

HYUN: No, it could not have. One restriction is still in place, and that is that you cannot use federal funds to do research where embryos are created and destroyed in the process. But more importantly, researchers today cannot even study these new stem cell lines using federal funds because it came from a research embryo.

RAZ: If researchers are willing to use private money, are there still limitations on what kinds of stem cell research they can carry out in the U.S.?

HYUN: There are. You cannot, for example, put these cloned human embryos into a uterus to try to produce a pregnancy.

RAZ: But they still have greater leeway, right, and fewer restrictions than they would if they used federal money.

HYUN: That's absolutely correct. And that's why this research was able to get done in New York State.

RAZ: Insoo Hyun is an associate professor of Bioethics at Case Western Reserve University.

Professor Hyun, thank you so much.

HYUN: Thank you.

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. Bright green cats are new tool in AIDS research

CHICAGO | Sun Sep 11, 2011 1: 24 pm EDT
Cats green radiant a strain of wheat with cells, infection by a virus have to CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. scientists, the cat AIDS, noting that can help resist caused to prevent that the disease in cats and AIDS research in people advance developed.
The study, published Sunday in the journal nature methods, involved inserting monkey genes, that the virus in feline eggs or ova, to block before they are fertilized.
The scientists also eingefügten jellyfish gene that the modified cells luminaires have a eerie green colour-make easy to see the modified genes.
Show they are resistant to feline immunodeficiency virus, or FIV, which causes AIDS in cats taken from the cats tests on cells.
"The offers the unprecedented ability, which impact the AIDS protection genes in AIDS threatened animals," said Dr. Eric Poeschla the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who led the study, in a telephone interview.
Poeschla said, that in addition to humans, cats, and to a certain extent, chimpanzees, which causes only mammals that develop naturally occurring viruses, the AIDS.
"Cats of this all over the world suffer," he said.
Such as the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV in people, FIV will fight eradicate infection of T cells.
FIV infects primarily feral cats, of which there are billions in the world, half Poeschla said. It is of bite, mostly by men, transferred to the defense of their territory, but pet cats are also affected.
People and cats are proteins, as limiting factors, to combat the usually viral infection against HIV and FIV defenseless, because potent counter weapons developed the virus. But some monkey versions of this restriction can control of virus factors and one used the team gen from the rhesus monkey.
For the team, the staff in Japan, was the trick to the monkey-gen for the constraint factor-known as TRIMCyp - cats cells against infection by the virus to block.
GREEN FLUORESCENT PROTEIN GENE
To do that it uses a harmless virus to the genes in the eggs, a process to insert that monkeys, is already mice, pigs, sheep and marmoset in other mammals.
Easier to check, what cells had the monkey-gen, the team of a green fluorescent protein gene from the jellyfish Aequorea Victoria, which glow green makes them inserted.
"We have it easy just shining a light on the animal, or under the microscope for cells."
The method worked so well that almost all descendants from the modified eggs have the restriction factor genes. And, these defence proteins are body by the cat.
The team has put two of the three original luminous green cats, the litters, a total of eight kittens, the glowing cells, as well as have created to make.
But the point is not that the generations of disease-resistant, glowing to breed cats. Rather, the team plans to study these cats as a new way to the development of treatments for HIV and the cat version of the disease.
The work researchers said several uses.
"This technology can be applied to a variety of species, of which there is a clear many applications and potential benefits are," Dr. Laurence Tiley said of the University of Cambridge, in a statement.
"It will be interesting to see what enthusiasm in cats, they receive ability and offers of HIV and the neuro-biological research communities, and other research opportunities." "A representative non-Primate animal model would be to study a fantastic new tool for HIV Pathogenesis."
Poeschla team has taken so far only cells of animals and found resistant tested against FIV. But finally they plan, set the cats with the virus and see whether they are protected.
"If you could show that you protect, which transferred these animals, it will give us a lot of information on the protection of people would," said Poeschla.
For cats result can finally be new drugs for FIV, or gene therapy, he said.

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