Word: stems
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...diversity is not one-sided. By introducing a wider range of viewpoints into the community, Harvard has increased the number of potential disagreements, and of potential views that some might find offensive. Even in the most sensitive, most self-conscious environment, conflicts that stem from differing views are unavoidable...
...While stem cells are scarce and difficult to extract in children and adults, they are plentiful in umbilical-cord blood. For that reason, the new gene- therapy technique is particularly applicable to newborns. And the parents of both infants involved in this month's California experiments had ample warning that they would need the new treatment...
...risk, both mothers chose to have amniocentesis after becoming pregnant again last fall. The test results showed that neither fetus was producing ADA and that the babies would have SCID. It was then that Dr. Diane Wara, the pediatric immunologist who had treated the Rigginses' other child, suggested the stem-cell trial. Lori Riggins was easily convinced. "You only get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get large amounts of stem cells," she says. "That's at birth, and we didn't want to pass up that chance...
...also agreed to have their son be part of the experiments. Immediately after Andrew was born, the obstetrician snipped his cord and drew out the umbilical blood. She rushed it to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles, where a team led by Drs. Donald Kohn and Kenneth Weinberg separated the stem cells and endowed them with normal ADA genes. Then the newly equipped stem cells were injected into the baby's bloodstream. Two days later, Wara went through the procedure on Zachary Riggins in San Francisco, after his stem cells had been shuttled to Kohn and Weinberg in Los Angeles...
...guard against the possibility that the gene therapy will not work, doctors will initially treat both infants with weekly injections of PEG-ADA. "We have no intention of letting these children get sick while we're waiting to see if the stem cells ((become functional))," says Wara. "When we see that this has happened, then we will start withdrawing the enzyme replacement." But will it happen? "My personal hunch is that this is going to benefit these two children," says Kohn. "If it does, then we can go on to more common diseases...