"Mischaracterizations and outright lies have been a steady diet from this 'industry' ... but the public is generally easily manipulated so the lies continue. Lanza'a mischaracterization doesn't surprise me. But thanks for the solitary ping ..."
I don't think you read this right or read the article either. I read the article. Lanza says that the experiments were repeatedly done on the same embryo to remove multiple cells, which in essence destroys the embryo. So Lanza did not lie. The editor screwed up in the press release by overstating the results of the article.
As an educator who has spent the last five years developing curricula based on the advances in stem cell research, I empathize with Maher's commentary of ACT's advance publication. Having reviewed the article post-embargo, I immediately turned to the supplementary Table 1 Maher mentions in his commentary. Not only does the chart appear confusing, the Materials and Methods section makes no mention of the fragmented embryo fate. To the credit of the research team, the title of the article does not claim to have placed the manipulated/ fragmented embryos into humans and as Maher points out, as many as six cells were removed from a single 8-cell embryo.
The authors make reference to previous studies in which blastocyst formation was possible post- fragmentation or PGD. However, the authors fail to mention that embryos formed via IVF and subjected to natural or human induced (PGD) fragmentation on the order of >25 % loss (missing 1 to 2 blastomeres), fail to maintain the correct cell number [that is a typical purposeful ommission by ACT, and they do that too often to skew the presentation]. In these cases, the ICM and trophoectoderm cell numbers are reduced and apoptotic pathways altered. So whether this technique will take us any closer to meeting the ideology of the Bush Administration has yet to be seen. Without a viable and robust trophectoderm, implantation will be less likely. So like ANT and the other methods being touted in the name of pro-life, this man-made manipulation reduces the efficiency of embryo implantation and maintenance.
I would like to add to Maher’s criticism. These “breakthroughs” in science remain funded by the private sector. The murkiness in the data table here is reminiscent of other papers that ACT has published over the years. Other privately funded projects suffer from the same scattered approach. Much of the important information is not in the research paper. The actual materials and methods must be cobbled together by reading the news, and not just one news source, but many. I find that the most detailed and accurate reviews appear in news published outside the U.S. (the source of the embryos, the informed consent, the negative results etc).
Katayoun Chamany
Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts