>Lee Silver, author of is someone that I’ve read about on the ‘net and about whom Robert George and Patrick Lee said, “He hides his ideology under a veneer of science.”
He was the guest on Carl Zimmerman’s Bloggingheads.tv November 30, discussing reprogrammed skin cells.
Dr. Lee is convinced that if a couple of more labs reproduce the reprogramming (and others have since, Jaenisch and Yamanaka’s lab have already published follow-up results), then reprogramming will probably be the way we get embryonic stem cells, rather than by destruction of embryos.
However, he claims that the naming of the cells “induced Pluripotent Stem cells” or iPC’s is a political move to hide either the fact that the opponents of embryo-destructive research are being fooled or being hypocrites.
From the thread following the interview:
Actually, human ES cells (unlike mouse ES cells) are perfectly capable of differentiating into trophoblast (Nature Biotech 20:1261; 2002). Why do you think this isn’t common knowledge? (Hint: politics) And mouse ES cells can be turned into whole mice quite efficiently with a technique that does NOT involve blastocyst injection or tetraploid embryos (Nature Biotech 25:91; 2007). Concerning your next post, how do you know what the intent was behind naming these cells iPS cells?
. . .
The question is whether continued research will soon get us to the point where fibroblasts cells can be transformed into cells that are completely indistinguishable from human ES cells, with the potential to form every human cell type (including, eventually, blastomeres which could, in theory, develop into babies without any further “tinkering”). With all of the accomplishments of the last ten years, it is very hard to imagine that this won’t be possible. The ONLY reason to doubt it is based on a religious-inspired faith that there is something FUNDAMENTALLY different between blastomeres and ES cells.
So now, it’s a religious opinion that there’s some difference between blastomeres and ESCs?
Hat Tip to The Daily Transcript at ScienceBlogs.
LifeEthics 
>I'm behind the eight-ball on this post. What does this person mean by saying that "blastomeres could develop into babies without any further tinkering"?
Posted by Lydia McGrew | December 15, 2007, 2:19 am>Is this person arguing that the iPSC's can be transformed into full-fledged human embryos? Is that true? I wouldn't think so, but what do I know.
Posted by Lydia McGrew | December 15, 2007, 2:21 am>He's wrong – and I believe he knows he's wrong. The methods that have been used "to turn them into embryos" are similar to making chimeras. Some day some one may be able to reprogram the adult, specialized cell into acting like a zygote. However, I haven't seen any reports that anyone's trying. the comparisons are with the markers or measurable proteins from embryonic stem cells that are well past that stage.
Posted by LifeEthics.org | December 15, 2007, 9:20 am>That's what I thought. The business about "of course it could make a trophoblast" sounds like sheer insistence without evidence.
Posted by Lydia McGrew | December 15, 2007, 2:52 pm