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JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL

meet some of the world’s top political by expanding and improving its on-line things at once, but nothing forever. The minds. Approximately six IOP Fellows are resources. It is also expanding opportuni- student body changes, [so] they created a on campus each semester to lead study ties for students’ firsthand contact with dynamic range of programs designed to groups and conversations with under- politicians and journalists from across the engage students.” David Kaden ’06, Gra≠’s graduates and students from other Har- globe by bringing them to Cambridge— successor as IOP president, estimated re- vard schools, as are short-term visiting fel- thus adapting its original mission to the cently that around 2,500 undergraduates lows such as former Washington Post editor demands of today’s more international are exposed to the institute’s programs Benjamin Bradlee ’43 and Nesreen Bar- generation of students. each year, and that somewhere between wari, M.P.A. ’99, of the Iraqi Transitional Ilan T. Gra≠ ’05, who served as presi- 250 and 300 students make it a central ex- Government. The high-profile speaker se- dent of the IOP from 2003 to 2004 and is tracurricular activity that complements ries o≠ers dozens of lectures and ques- helping to edit a book of essays and their ambitions and interests in public tion-and-answer sessions each year. Stu- speeches for the anniversary, said the in- service, journalism, and international dents can also join policy groups to stitute has been able to adapt to this a≠airs. produce working papers on issues as di- country’s changing political climate be- Shaheen and Gra≠ have kept this in verse as sex tra∞cking, legislative redis- cause of the breadth of its mission. “To the mind as they plan for the September tricting, and healthcare policy. degree [the IOP has] changed, [that was event. Besides arranging the keynote ad- “One of the things we know from our built in as] part of the original plan,” ex- dress by Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54 surveys is that college students who meet plained Gra≠, who will enter Harvard and several panels (including one on “The an elected o∞cial are twice as likely to be Law School this fall after a year as a writer World in 2031”), the IOP sta≠ is in talks to engaged politically,” Shaheen said re- at the New Democrat Network, a political have MTV news correspondent Gideon cently. “That’s a pretty amazing statistic.” organizing group based in Washington, Yago help moderate one of the events. The IOP is seeking to enhance this impact D.C. “[The founders] decided to do many �rebecca o’brien

Therapeutic ton received permission to pursue the re- cause of the Bush administration ban on search only “after more than two years federal funding of stem-cell lines created Research Approved of intensive review by eight di≠erent after August 9, 2001, “there is no taxpayer institutional review boards and stem-cell money being used for any embryonic Scientists at harvard and the a∞liat- oversight committees at five di≠erent in- stem-cell work,” Hyman added. “This is ed Children’s Hospital Boston announced stitutions,” said University provost Steven all [made possible by] private donation.” on June 6 that they had begun experi- E. Hyman. “This highly unusual collabo- For his research into diseases of the ments with somatic cell nuclear transfer rative e≠ort of the Harvard In- blood, Daley, of Children’s Hospital Bos- (SCNT). By combining donated human stitute,” he noted, “involves researchers ton (and an associate professor of medi- eggs with skin cells from patients who at Columbia University Medical Center’s cine at Harvard Medical School), will use have sickle-cell anemia or diabetes, the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, Boston frozen, failed-to-fertilize eggs donated by scientists will attempt to clone diseased IVF [a center for assisted reproduction], couples who have ended their fertility cells and then to derive stem-cell lines the Center for Reproductive Medicine at treatments. Faculty of Arts and Sciences from those cloned cells. If successful, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the professors Eggan and Melton, tackling dia- e≠orts will result in stem-cell lines that New York Stem Cell Foundation.” Be- betes, will instead seek donations of fresh carry specific diseases, eggs. “We don’t know and thus rapidly accel- which strategy will erate research into caus- work in the long run,” es and cures. Daley said. For example, Because of the highly the researchers antici- charged ethical and pate, but don’t know, political debate over the that fresh eggs may be work, scientists George harder to come by; pre- Q. Daley ’82, M.D., Kevin viously frozen eggs, on Eggan, and Douglas Mel- the other hand—those that failed to fertilize Having performed somatic cell nuclear during assisted repro- transfer successfully with ductive e≠orts—might mouse embryonic stem not function. By taking cells (right), Harvard researchers are now “separate but comple- starting to work with mentary approaches and

human cells. JUSTIN IDE/ NEWS OFFICE by working together

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and communicating,” Daley said, “our py in a petri dish. Daley has already used hope is that we will actually answer these this technique to successfully restore par- questions.” tial immune function in a mouse with Although no one has yet published a severe blood disease. In that experiment, credible paper reporting the derivation of he cloned a cell from the mouse’s tail, a human embryonic stem-cell line from a derived a stem-cell line, repaired the blastocyst created by nuclear transfer, the defective DNA in a petri dish, verified that technological hurdles appear surmount- it had been fixed, and then put corrected able. A group in the United Kingdom has cells back into the mouse, where they reported success with SCNT using fresh reconstituted its blood and immune sys- eggs, but made no attempt to tem. As a practicing physi- derive a stem-cell line from cian, he hopes one day to use the resulting cell mass, which this therapeutic cloning tech- was destroyed instead as part nique to cure his patients. of a definitive proof that the The diseases the scientists nuclear transfer had succeed- hope to study, such as dia- ed. Melton, in an earlier col- betes and Parkinson’s, are fre- laboration with Boston IVF quently the result of complex and the laboratory of An- interactions among multiple drew McMahon, Baird pro- genes and the environment. fessor of science, has created That means “it is impossible more than 30 human em- in the laboratory to use estab- bryonic stem-cell lines for lished molecular techniques free distribution to scientists to make cell lines or animal around the world. Separately models for [study],” said Eg- To ensure that egg donors’ consent is at least, then, the two halves gan. “In fact, it is di∞cult even fully informed, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute created a handbook for donors. of the problem Harvard sci- to identify [such] patients Freshly donated eggs, rather than frozen entists now propose to tack- using genetic methods until ones, may be necessary for successful le have been solved (see box). they step into the clinic with nuclear transfer. Successfully bringing them the disease. This is one of the together would create a pow- only methods we can imagine using chemical or electrical stimuli. erful new tool against dis- using for making cell-based Of much greater ethical concern to the eases. Because stem cells are models of these diseases.” oversight committees that reviewed the self-renewing once isolated Opponents object to such Harvard team’s proposal was egg dona- in a petri dish, scientists work on ethical grounds: they tion (which clouded the now discredited

would be able to set out JUSTIN IDE/HARVARD UNIVERSITY NEWS OFFICE believe it involves the des- therapeutic cloning work of South thousands of samples of dis- Stem-cell scientists truction of an embryo that Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk). Egg eased cells and then test (from top) could become a person. That donation involves a series of carefully Douglas Melton, di≠erent drug compounds on George Q. Daley, is scientifically debatable, timed injections with three di≠erent hor- each sample to see if one and Kevin Eggan. because a sperm-fertilized mones, sexual abstinence for a month, cured the disease. egg starts dividing immedi- frequent visits to a nurse, and a surgical Another advantage of such stem-cell ately and thus has the capacity for self- procedure under anesthesia to retrieve lines is the opportunity they present for directed growth, whereas cloned cells are the eggs. To avoid even the appearance of “homologous recombination”: gene thera- coaxed into cell division by scientists improper inducement, egg donors will not be compensated, except for their ex- Therapeutic cloning is a two-step process. Scientists must first transfer the nucleus penses. And to ensure that their consent of a skin (or other somatic) cell that they want to clone into an enucleated egg (one is fully informed, the Harvard Stem Cell that has had its nucleus—hence all its DNA—removed).This is extremely difficult to Institute has created the Research Egg execute successfully: in effect, it is performing surgery on a single cell. The second part Donor Information Book to explain the of the process, derivation of a stem-cell line from the new cell created by the nuclear research and the medical risks. Who transfer, is also challenging. Scientists coax the cloned cell to divide for several days might be willing to donate? “At this until they have a mass of four to 50 undifferentiated cells. Stem cells must be har- point,” said Eggan, “we might guess that vested from this cluster, called a blastocyst, at just the right moment; researchers have women [whose family members] are about a 24-hour window during which this fleeting cell-type can be successfully trans- a±icted with diseases that we are inter- ferred, to be grown indefinitely in culture on a bed of feeder cells. ested in studying might step forward to participate. That is our best hope.”

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