Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts
京都大学/Gladstone Instituteの山中先生のグループから、ヒトでのiPS (induced pluripotent stem) cell樹立の成功が報告された(Cell PressのPress Release。
山中 伸弥教授（物質−細胞統合システム拠点/再生医科学研究所）らの研究グループは、ヒトの皮膚細胞からES細胞（胚性幹細胞）と遜色のない能力をもった人工多能性幹細胞（iPS細胞）の開発に成功しました。ヒトiPS細胞は患者自身の皮膚細胞から樹立できることから、脊髄損傷や若年型糖尿病など多くの疾患に対する細胞移植療法につながるものと期待されます。またヒトiPS細胞から分化させる心筋細胞や肝細胞は、有効で安全な薬物の探索にも大きく貢献すると期待されます。
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – November 20, 2007 – Acclaimed stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, has reported that he and his Kyoto University colleagues have successfully reprogrammed human adult cells to function like pluripotent embryonic stem cells. Because it circumvents much of the controversy and restrictions regarding generation of embryonic stem cells from human embryos, this breakthrough, reported in the journal Cell, should accelerate the pace of stem cell research.
先日のJTPAサロンでも触れたが、2006年のマウスでの成功(PubMed)に続き、これは本当にインパクトのあることだ。San FranciscoのGladstone Instituteも完璧なタイミングでYamanaka Labをリクルートしたと言える。
一方、気になるのは日本。
イギリスのThe Timeは７月におこなったインタビューの内容を掲載しています。東京特派員Leo Lewisの「But why? I asked him. Why, in a country that has not banned the use of human embryos in stem-cell research, do you feel the need to devote quite so much energy to finding an ethical alternative? 」という問いに対して、
Ethics, he said, were a big part of the story but not all of it: he has a strong personal distaste for the use of human embryos, a passionate belief that patient care trumps everything and a visceral loathing for the Japanese government. For a quiet genius, he became quite animated on the subject, launching a venomous attack on the "stupid" bureaucracy and the fact that every great Japanese scientific advance seems to provoke a soul-destroying entanglement with red tape. What he wants is for Japan's biotech industry to thrive on the world stage. In the realm of stem-cell research, Japan is dreadfully held back by the regulations and Yamanaka wanted to give companies across the country a competitive edge.
here were two terrible flaws with official Japanese attitudes to stem-cell research, he said. To illustrate the first, he pulled out a 500-page wodge of paper. This, he said, is what I have to fill out in triplicate every time the laboratory wants to use a single human embryonic stem cell for a single experiment. Then it takes a month to write and another month for the government to process, by which time a rival lab in the UK might have done the experiment a dozen times. "If this lab wanted to be competitive," he said, "I would have to get rid of one scientist and put two full-time paperwork administrators in their place."
The answer, he said, was to find a way of producing stem cells synthetically and giving labs like his around the world the chance to to what they should be doing - saving lives rather than civil servants' jobs.
His second attack was on the dangerous fickleness of Japan's Health Ministry - a fault that effectively forced hugely promising long-term scientific projects either to be squeezed uncomfortably into too short a space of time or abandoned due to lack of funding. The problem, said the Prof, was that the bureaucratic head of the ministry changed every three years or so. As each new chap comes in, he feels the need to stamp his influence on the direction of scientific research, and devises a new funding budget. This budget, said Yamanaka, is drawn-up on a non-scientific whim and consistently diverts money away from existing projects (no matter how successful or world-changing) and into new ones. Basically, he said, if you can't complete your project in three years, forget it.
Is the synthetic stem cell Japan's greatest ever invention? – Times Online
"red tape"とは昔法案の書類を赤いテープで束ねたことに由来する「官僚的形式主義」の意。
本文中では「Japan's Health Ministry」となっていてネット上では「厚労省」との訳が見られるが、が実際はもっと複雑だ。
研究費は主に文部科学省がソース。
「ヒトに関するクローン技術等の規制に関する法律」及び同法に基づく「特定胚の取扱いに関する指針」を所管するのは文部科学省。ヒトES細胞研究も文部科学省の管轄。
一方、厚生労働省も「ヒト胚研究に関する専門委員会」という厚生科学審議会科学技術部会を開催している。
こういう状況は特派員氏には判り難いのであろう。基礎研究がダイレクトに臨床・法律・倫理にインパクトを与える今日、霞ヶ関も大きなチャレンジを受けている。
