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The Stem Cell Divide: The Facts, the Fiction, and the Fear Driving the Greatest Scientific, Political, and Religious Debate of Our Time

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The review below can be found at the ScienceReport-dot-net website.

Human stem cell research is a major hot button topic that divides the conservative and scientific communities. Religious conservatives see it as tampering with nature and even playing God. Scientists, on the other hand, see the potential to treat many of the life threatening diseases of our times - from heart disease and diabetes to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

There's no question that there's been a lot of hype surrounding both sides, so it's refreshing that in The Stem Cell Divide provides a non-biased look at the science and politics surrounding this controversial topic.

The book is divided into 3 parts: Discovery of the Stem Cell's Unique Abilities, The Race to Harness the Power of Life, and Stem Cell Cures and Curses. There are two appendices: one describing how human cells are cultured and the other describing California's legislation concerning the funding of stem cell research. The book also has a fairly extensive glossary.

The first part of the book is concerned with stem cell basics. This section is designed to get novices up to speed with the history and process of stem cell research. Bellomo clearly explains why embryonic stem cells have advantages over adult stem cells, the scientific research up to this point, and our main sources for embryonic stem cells - namely stem cell cultures maintained by Dr. James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin and potentially, the thousands of unused embryos that are discarded at in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics.

The second part of the book discusses the opposition President Bush has faced from his own party by his decision to veto any bill that allowed federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Bellomo makes it extremely clear that the issue at hand is not whether embryonic stem cell research should be legal - it already is allowed, remains unrestricted, and is perfectly legal - but whether it should be federally funded.

On August 9, 2001, Bush announced that federal funding would only be allowed for researchers who experimented on the 60 or so existing embryonic stem cell lines. Determined to keep biotechs within the state, California responded with Proposition 71, legislature that essentially made conducting stem cell research a state constitutional right and allowed $3 billion in funds to be given over 10 years to stem cell research facilities, and specifically, embryonic stem cell research. That sparked a number of other states to also propose legislation to fund embryonic stem cell research.

At the federal level, President Bush has faced opposition in Congress. In May 2005, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill allowing federal funds to be used for embryonic stem cell research. Even staunch supporter, Dr. Bill Frist, broke from the Bush camp to support the legislation, saying:

"We should federally fund research only on embryonic stem cells derived from blastocysts left over from fertility therapy, which will not be implanted or adopted but instead are otherwise destined by the parents with absolute certainty to be discarded and destroyed."

Bellomo also addresses the rise and fall of Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, the South Korean researcher who claimed incredible advances in stem cell research and became somewhat of a celebrity in his home country. His promising career came to a crashing halt when it was made public that he had fabricated much of his results and had breached ethical guidelines when he paid women to donate their eggs for embryonic research. Scientists are still trying to decipher what, if any, part of his research is valid and what was fabricated.

Finally, in the third part of the book, Bellomo discusses the promises of therapeutic cloning - when embryonic stem cells are removed from the blastocyst, harvested in a culture dish and then injected with the nucleus from a donor cell so that the cell makes copies of the donor genetic material. Therapeutic cloning offers great potential to generate replacement tissues and organs for illnesses and injuries that currently have no cure and will greatly reduce the rejection rate for patients that need organ transplants. It is thought that if organs and tissues are grown from a patient's own cells, their body will be much less likely to reject the transplant than if that organ was donated by someone else.

Bellomo doesn't shy away from alternatives to embryonic stem cell research, covering briefly the pros and cons of using adult stem cells and germ cells, before tackling some of the key arguments for both sides.

Ethically, conservatives argue that embryonic stem cells are still the foundations of human life and therefore they have a right to life. As James Sherley of MIT says,

"A human life begins when a diploid complement of human DNA is initiated to begin human development. Therefore, a life can be initiated by the fusion of sperm and egg or by the introduction of a diploid nucleus into an enucleated egg (ie cloning)"

James Thomson argues from a different perspective.

"The bottom line is that there are 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States, and a large percentage of those are going to be thrown out. Regardless of what you think the moral status of those embryos is, it makes sense to me that it's a better moral decision to use them to help people than to just throw them out. It's a very complex issue, but to me it boils down to that one thing."

Advancements in cellular research may eventually make therapeutic cloning more acceptable as scientists learn to remove the inner cell mass of a blastocyst without destroying the embryo or as research into how diseases develop helps find cures that don't require such practices. The final chapter offers predictions of where Bellomo sees the progress several years into the future.

While the byline of the book "The facts, the fiction, and the fear driving the greatest scientific, political, and religious debate of our time" suggests that it will tackle the ethical, religious, and political debate on stem cell research, the book only briefly tackles the ethical arguments for each side while focusing on the scientific process, experiments, and funding legislation.

The writing style is accessible and explains the science in clear terms with diagrams. This is a great, matter-of-fact overview of stem cell research that allows its readers to draw their own conclusions based on the facts presented. It will be useful to those looking for a comprehensive introduction to the subject as well as those looking to catch up with the latest research.

The Stem Cell Divide is what I have grown to expect from this author. I find all of the books that I have read written or co-authored with him to be informative, well researched and easy for a non-scientist or student to read. He makes science exciting for the non-scientist.

I like the way that the book does not take sides but delivers the facts and lets the reader come to their own conclusions. The book helps to sort out the media hype, fact from fiction.

I would urge others to read this if they are having trouble understanding what is really going on in the stem cell world.

Concise, engaging, and surprising free from bias (except a general pro-research slant). The Stem Cell Divide gives a sort of whirlwind tour of the issues, the politics, and the early history of cellular science. To take just 1 example, while I don't yet have any children, I'm convinced after reading this book (and seeing many websites) that banking the cord blood of your children is like taking out extra insurance against possible future disease.

It is amazing to find out that we know so much and at the same time so little about stem cells and how they can turn into replacement organs (good) or tumors (definitely bad).

This book explains the miracles, both of nature and science, that we're finally unravelling and made me hopeful that we're on the edge of some great things.

What really grabbed me was the chapter on how we might be able to solve the issue of aging and organ replacement in one sweep, thereby attaining clinical immortality. After that, the sky's the limit.

THE STEM CELL DIVIDE: THE FACTS, THE FICITON AND THE FEAR DRIVING THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC, POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS DEBATE OF OUR TIME is even more relevant given President Bush's recent veto on the research than when it first appeared, before the fact. It offers a pro/con look at stem cell research, considering both sides as evenly as is possible and considering religious, ethical, and health implications of stem cell potentials. It's a 'must' for any who would survey the research's potential and the roots of the controversy surrounding it.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book is an excellent source for information on both sides of the stem cell argument. Delivers facts in a clear and precise method.

I've just started going to college. One project I have is to do a powerpoint presentation on my chosen major, or a specific subject within. My major is Biotechnology I hope to push this to a PhD, and do Stem Cell Research. I know very little about SCR at this point in my schooling. I find this book very informative and put in plain english for anyone to read and understand. I have a much more clear view of CSR with this book and I am anxious to learn more.

This book purports to be a neutral look at stem cell research. It is not. It is a well-written PR piece that is clearly FOR such research. If you want an interesting account of how SCR came about and where it's headed, this book is a fairly easy read with interesting stories. But the author has a vested interest in SCR. When referring to ideology, he only points out "conservatives" and rarely uses the word "liberal." His hope for increased SCR bleeds from the book. He barely even states anything resembling a religious, moral or ethical argument against embryo-destructive research.