Religious leaders have raised ethical doubts over one of Australia's primary coronavirus vaccine hopes because scientists have used foetal cells in its development.
Developers at Oxford University and pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca are using cell lines from an electively aborted foetus in the vaccine candidate, with Anglican, Catholic and Greek Orthodox leaders questioning the practice.
But using foetal cells in vaccine development isn't new and the Catholic Church has previously expressed qualified support for the use of vaccines derived from these cells under certain circumstances.
We spoke to Bill Lott, a virologist at QUT's Institute of Health and biomedical innovation, to understand the role of foetal cells in vaccine development.
The foetal cells used in vaccine development are derived from a small number of foetuses which were legally terminated decades ago.
The Oxford vaccine uses HEK (human embryonic kidney) 293 cell lines, obtained from a female foetus in the Netherlands in 1973.
"We're using tissues that were from foetuses that were aborted 40, 50, 60 years ago," Dr Lott said.
"It doesn't require newly aborted foetuses."
While living human cells can only divide around 50 times, those foetal cells have been genetically modified so they can divide an infinite number of times.
"That's why we can use the cells that we harvested [decades ago] today," Dr Lott said.
"They're not the actual original cells, they've been immortalised and then propagated over the decades."
This means we'll never need to replace specimens used in development.
"Just by analogy, buying ivory is illegal [because] if you create a market for ivory, then it creates the demand to kill more elephants," Dr Lott said.
"In this case, that's not happening because these foetuses were aborted 60 years ago, 50 years ago, and using these immortalised tissues now is not going to create a need to go and get new ones."
In fact, scientists would prefer to keep using HEK 293 cell lines because they have been repeatedly tried and tested in a laboratory setting and found to be safe.
"When you're making a vaccine you require safety testing," Dr Lott said.
"If we went back and used a different cell type, you're throwing an unknown into the consideration.
"So that will severely slow down your ability to make these things.
"Using HEK 293, we've used it for decades and we know that it's safe."
This week, Australia's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth pointed out the use of foetal cells had been a "reality" in past vaccine development.
"The reality for vaccines is that they need cell cultures in order for us to grow them," he said.
"The human cell is a really important part of their development.
"There are strong ethical regulations surrounding the use of any type of human cell, particularly foetal human cells.
"This is a very professional, highly powered research unit at Oxford University.
"I think we can have every faith that the way they have manufactured the vaccine has been against the highest of ethical standards internationally."
Breaking down the latest news and research to understand how the world is living through an epidemic, this is the ABC's Coronacast podcast.
So, how do foetal cells help with vaccine development? Dr Lott explained they operate like a "vaccine factory".
First, scientists need to develop the vaccine candidate and then combine it with an adenovirus vector.
An adenovirus is a particular type of common virus that causes illnesses like bronchitis, pneumonia and a sore throat.
For instance, when you get a cold, you may be infected with an adenovirus, a coronavirus or a rhinovirus.
A vector is an organism that spreads infection by moving pathogens from one host to another.
So an adenovirus vector? "That's an adenovirus that has been sort of emptied out and then you put a different kind of genome in there to make protein," Dr Lott said.
The next step is to put the vaccine/adenovirus vector combination into a big vat of foetal cells.
"The viral vector infects these HEK 293 cells really, really efficiently," Dr Lott said.
"One reason why you use the HEK 293 is because you get essentially 100 per cent infection with the adenoviral vector.
"And what it does is it turns the HEK 293 cells into a vaccine factory."
What do we mean by "vaccine factory"? Dr Lott explains foetal cells begin producing "tons and tons of that modified adenovirus" which they then "spit out into the liquid bit of the cells" called the cell culture media.
"[The foetal cells] start cranking out this massive amount of modified adenovirus, and then you purify those things away from the cell tissue," he said.
"You pull the [cell] media off, and it's just going to be full of the vaccine and essentially no tissue.
"And that's what your vaccine is."
The foetal cells will operate as this "vaccine factory" regardless of whether the vaccine is effective or not so the next step generally involves animal and then human trials of varying scale.
Inherent in the whole process is stripping away the conditioned cell media, where the foetal cells are contained.
The head of the World Health Organization has warned we may never get a silver bullet for COVID-19. What could that future look like in Australia?
That means a successful vaccine developed using foetal cells will have no remnants of those cells in the final product.
"You purify the vaccine away from the cells that they were grown in, and then you destroy all the cells," Dr Lott said.
"So then you're going to take that liquid and you'll purify it some more, but there are not going to be any [foetal] cells in there.
"There's nothing left when it becomes the vaccine that gets delivered."
Foetal tissue has been used with innovative effect in various strands of medical research.
The difference is some of those processes require fresh foetal cells not the "immortalised" cells vaccine developers can use.
"The vaccine work is pretty straightforward," Dr Lott said.
"But cancer research, the research into the mechanisms of various things cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, rheumatoid arthritis that all required fresh foetal tissue."
Scientists studying Zika virus used foetal cells to discover that the virus crossed the placental membrane and caused brain damage in unborn foetuses.
"[That research] brought out a whole raft of therapies and protections for unborn foetuses [and] "saved a lot of lives, including [the lives of] unborn foetuses," Dr Lott said.
Foetal cell lines have been used in the development of various vaccines, including for chicken pox, Ebola, polio, rubella, shingles, Hepatitis A, and rabies.
Foetal tissue has also facilitated breakthroughs in the treatment of various medical issues including cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, IVF, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, AIDS, and spinal cord injuries.
Scientists have many different methodologies for developing vaccines and there are a variety of reasons why foetal cells aren't always used.
Billions are being poured into the race to find a coronavirus vaccine, with the winner owning a powerful political tool. During the last pandemic an Australian company got there first.
"Some of them don't use it because of ethical issues," Dr Lott said.
"Some of them don't use it because they're not using an adenovirus [vector], so they don't really need the HEK 293.
"And there are other [development] strategies.
"There's an mRNA strategy that's very popular.
"So some of them don't require it."
The development of a coronavirus vaccine was time critical because of the virus' devastating public health and economic impacts, Dr Lott said.
Therefore, it was important for scientists to diversify their methodologies in order to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible.
Both stem cells and foetal cells are critical to innovations in medical research but what's the difference between the two?
Dr Lott explains stem cells are basically the earliest iteration of a foetal cell before the cell differentiates itself into, for example, a hair cell, liver cell, eye cell or skin cells.
"A stem cell is simply a cell that can turn into a different cell types," Dr Lott said.
"That first embryonic stem cell can eventually turn into any kind of cell in your body.
"So you've got embryonic stem cells, and then you've got adult stem cells, and in between are the foetal stem cells [which] are partially differentiated.
"So foetal cells contain not only stem cells some of the foetal cells have already differentiated into their final cell type."
In 2005 and again in 2017, the Catholic Church expressed qualified support for the use of foetal-cell-derived vaccines but only if there was no available alternative.
A 2005 "moral reflection" issued by Pope Benedict XVI specifically addressed the issue.
"As regards the diseases against which there are no alternative vaccines which are available and ethically acceptable, it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health," the Pope wrote.
"However, if the latter are exposed to considerable dangers to their health, vaccines with moral problems pertaining to them may also be used on a temporary basis.
"We find a proportional reason, in order to accept the use of these vaccines in the presence of the danger of favouring the spread of the pathological agent."
In 2017, the life ethics arm of the Catholic Church issued a statement that: Catholic parents could vaccinate their children with a "clear conscience" that "the use of such vaccines does not signify some sort of cooperation in voluntary abortion".
Earlier this year and in the context of the coronavirus vaccine race, John Di Camillo, an ethicist with the National Catholic Bioethics Center, confirmed: "One is allowed to make use of [vaccine derived from foetal tissue] where there's a serious threat to the health or life of the individual, or of the greater population.
"This does not amount to a strictobligationto use it, but it certainly can be a legitimate choice in conscience if theres that serious reason, and there's no other reasonable alternative."
Link:
- Shinobi strikes deal with electronics powerhouse Panasonic to create new cell therapy manufacturing platform - FiercePharma - April 19th, 2024
- The Stem Cells Market expected to grow at the value of USD 28.1 Billion by 2030 with a 10.48% CAGR. - WhaTech - April 19th, 2024
- Scientists produce in vitro model of cell differentiation during early facial development - Phys.org - April 19th, 2024
- Somite: AI-Based Stem Cell Therapy Company Closes $5.3 Million In Funding - Pulse 2.0 - April 19th, 2024
- Paralyzed man who can walk again shows potential benefit of stem cell therapy - ABC News - April 5th, 2024
- Stem Cells Market Innovations Investigated by Industry Overview and Global Forecast - WhaTech - April 5th, 2024
- New tool provides researchers with improved understanding of stem cell aging in the brain - University of Wisconsin-Madison - April 1st, 2024
- The PTM profiling of CTCF reveals the regulation of 3D chromatin structure by O-GlcNAcylation - Nature.com - April 1st, 2024
- Signatures of Autofluorescence Used To Study Stem Cells Aging in the Brain - Technology Networks - March 30th, 2024
- Two decades of embryonic stem cells: a historical overview - March 28th, 2024
- Researchers at Phoenix Children's First in the World to Produce Mouse Lungs in Rats - The Malaysian Reserve - March 26th, 2024
- Unlocking the mysteries of early human development through blastoid models - News-Medical.Net - March 24th, 2024
- Unlocking the Secrets of Aging: Researchers Reveal Key to Intestinal Balance - SciTechDaily - March 17th, 2024
- Human stem-cell-based therapy for Parkinson's disease proven safe PET - BioNews - March 13th, 2024
- Exploring the inner workings of stem cells: When location changes the message - Phys.org - March 9th, 2024
- Confronting IVF: Human Embryos Are Persons With a Right to Life - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence - March 7th, 2024
- When Location Changes the Message - UConn Today - University of Connecticut - March 7th, 2024
- Distinct pathways drive anterior hypoblast specification in the implanting human embryo - Nature.com - March 6th, 2024
- In light of the Alabama court ruling, a look at the science of IVF : Short Wave - NPR - March 3rd, 2024
- The weird way Alabamas embryo ruling takes on artificial wombs - MIT Technology Review - February 25th, 2024
- Alabama's biggest hospital to suspend transfer of embryos after court ruling - ABC News - February 24th, 2024
- Stem Cells: FAQs Answered for Patients and Caregivers - Corporate Wellness Magazine - February 22nd, 2024
- Charles River Collaborates with Pluristyx, Expanding its Portfolio of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells - Business Wire - February 22nd, 2024
- Breakthrough Stem Cell Treatments for Stroke Recovery: What You Need to Know - Medical Tourism Magazine - February 20th, 2024
- Global Cell Isolation Market Size To Worth USD 13.4 Billion By 2033 | CAGR of 12.5% - Yahoo Finance - February 20th, 2024
- The Mechanism of Positional Cues in Embryonic Development and Signaling Molecules in Cell Fate - Medriva - February 18th, 2024
- Regeneration of the Retina Using Pluripotent Stem Cells: A Comprehensive Review - Cureus - February 5th, 2024
- CRISPR/Cas9-mediated deletion of a GA-repeat in human GPM6B leads to disruption of neural cell differentiation from ... - Nature.com - January 29th, 2024
- Global Human Embryonic Stem Cell Market Analysis 2024-2034: A Deep Dive into Applications, End-users, and ... - GlobeNewswire - January 26th, 2024
- No, Rep. Steve Scalise Didn't Vote Against Stem Cell Research From Which He Is Now Benefiting - Yahoo News - January 14th, 2024
- Clinical applications of stem cell-derived exosomes | Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy - Nature.com - January 12th, 2024
- How Stem Cell Embryo Models Won Method of the Year - Technology Networks - January 12th, 2024
- Changing the public perception of human embryology - ESHRE - January 11th, 2024
- How the Human Body Regenerates New Cells Every Year - Laughing Squid - January 4th, 2024
- Lab-grown models of embryos increasingly resemble the real thing | Mint - Mint - January 4th, 2024
- Singapore should ban reproductive applications of synthetic human embryos - BioEdge - January 4th, 2024
- Machine learning-based estimation of spatial gene expression pattern during ESC-derived retinal organoid ... - Nature.com - December 21st, 2023
- The development of embryos may be less shaped by genes than we thought - New Scientist - December 21st, 2023
- Embryonic stem cell - Wikipedia - December 13th, 2023
- Researchers discover a mechanism that controls the identity of stem cells - Phys.org - December 9th, 2023
- 'Fascinating and completely unexpected': Tiny robots fix neurons - FierceBiotech - December 5th, 2023
- Establishment and characterization of matched immortalized human ... - Nature.com - December 5th, 2023
- Proteomic insights into the associations between obesity, lifestyle ... - BMC Medicine - December 5th, 2023
- New therapy can treat rare and hereditary diseases - ScienceNorway - December 5th, 2023
- Scientists Still Can't Be Trusted on Gene Editing - Progressive.org - December 5th, 2023
- Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology and Renowned ... - Yahoo Finance - December 5th, 2023
- 4.4 Million Funding Injection Fuels World-Class Bioscience Research Programme - India Education Diary - December 3rd, 2023
- A two-kinesin mechanism controls neurogenesis in the developing ... - Nature.com - December 3rd, 2023
- What happens when nature and cities collide - CNN - December 3rd, 2023
- Pro-Life This Week: December 1, 2023 | ALL - All.org - December 3rd, 2023
- A look at the international race to create human eggs and sperm in ... - NPR - December 1st, 2023
- Synthetic genetic circuits to uncover the OCT4 trajectories of ... - Science - December 1st, 2023
- Why the Novo Nordisk Foundation is betting big on stem cells - pharmaphorum - November 29th, 2023
- Charity Watchlist Helps Donors Ensure Their Year-End Gifts Don't ... - All.org - November 29th, 2023
- A green glowing monkey has been created in China. What were the ... - Genetic Literacy Project - November 29th, 2023
- Fetal Bovine Serum Market to reach USD 1.26 Bn by 2029, emerging at a CAGR of 5.3 percent according to a ne... - WhaTech Technology and Markets News - November 29th, 2023
- Implications of Gene Therapy in Dentistry and Periodontics: A ... - Cureus - November 27th, 2023
- Study shows how to treat hereditary, rare diseases - ETHealthWorld - November 27th, 2023
- Drugs identified that may reverse brain fog caused by COVID-19 - New Atlas - November 27th, 2023
- The genes that made us truly human may also make us ill - BBC.com - November 25th, 2023
- Therapy to treat rare, hereditary diseases: Study - Hindustan Times - November 25th, 2023
- How the growth of a giant single cell is intertwined with daily self-rhythms - Phys.org - November 25th, 2023
- On this day: Mahmoud Abbas becomes leader of Fatah in 2004 - In-Cyprus - November 25th, 2023
- Evaluation of A-ring hydroxymethylene-amino- triterpenoids as ... - Nature.com - November 25th, 2023
- Disruption of the autism gene and chromatin regulator KDM5A alters ... - Science - November 23rd, 2023
- Scientists Created a Monkey With Two Different Sets of DNA - Smithsonian Magazine - November 23rd, 2023
- Genomic tug of war could boost cancer therapy - Science Daily - November 23rd, 2023
- What are stem cells? Throw light on various types of stem cells and ... - Insights IAS - November 23rd, 2023
- The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation awards $10.5 million to new ... - EurekAlert - November 23rd, 2023
- Daily briefing: Why these PhD scientists went into teaching - Nature.com - November 23rd, 2023
- Innovative Therapy Targets Rare, Hereditary Diseases - Mirage News - November 23rd, 2023
- Scientists uncover "genomic tug of war" that influences ... - News-Medical.Net - November 21st, 2023
- DOT1L is a barrier to histone acetylation during reprogramming to ... - Science - November 21st, 2023
- Tumor microenvironment composition & related therapy in HCC | JHC - Dove Medical Press - November 21st, 2023
- T-Therapeutics raises $59M in series A for T-cell receptors - BioWorld Online - November 19th, 2023
- A $3bn bet on finding the fountain of youth | Mint - Mint - November 19th, 2023
- A better way to study Parkinson's disease in the lab could lead to ... - EurekAlert - November 17th, 2023
- Global Stem Cell Therapy Market to Reach USD 928.6 Million by ... - GlobeNewswire - November 17th, 2023
- MKL/SRF and Bcl6 mutual transcriptional repression safeguards the ... - Science - November 17th, 2023
- METTL1-Related Genes and Immune Characteristics in SLE | JIR - Dove Medical Press - November 17th, 2023
Recent Comments