One Sensational Hand

A decade ago, Dennis Aabo Sørensen lost his hand in an accident.  Now, thanks to an international team of physicians and technicians, he can feel objects once again, this time through the use of a bionic hand that is directly connected to the nerve cells in his arm. 

Sørensen is the world's first amputee able to use his bionic hand to experience the sensation of feeling.  Because he can feel what he touches, he is able to use his bionic hand with far more agility than other amputees, knowing instantly when he is squeezing something too hard and likely to crush or harm it.

Photo Credit: Sensory feedback enabled prosthesis, close-up.  Credit: LifeHand 2/Patrizia Tocci.  LINK to Video. 

 

“The sensory feedback was incredible,” reports the 36 year-old amputee from Denmark according to a press release from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.  “I could feel things that I hadn’t been able to feel in over nine years.” In a laboratory setting wearing a blindfold and earplugs, Sørensen was able to detect how strongly he was grasping, as well as the shape and consistency of different objects he picked up with his prosthetic. “When I held an object, I could feel if it was soft or hard, round or square.”

 

The bionic hand, of course, is equipped with touch sensors.  But the real key is the bi-directional or two-way connection between the hand's electronics and the brain's neurons.  Tiny, cell-size links between electrodes and nerve endings were implanted into Sørensen's arm.  Then his new hand was attached and the wires connected. 

 

Over time and with a little practice, he could feel different shapes and degrees of hardness.  The sensation was as fast as normal touch.  Signals passed from the bionic fingers to the brain and then from the brain to the hand, controlling its movements.

 

For those in need of bionic hands, this work marks a real milestone.  Ordinarily we take two-way processing for granted.  But the way things feel helps us use our hands with versatility and skill. 

 

What this means in broader terms is a little less clear.  Bionic restoration is a key frontier in today's medicine.  But the technologies of healing or restoration can quickly become the technologies of enhancement.  Perhaps someday, we will look back at Sørensen's hand as a kind of evolutionary advance, bringing not just the restoration of touch but the extension of power. 

 

The paper, entitled "Restoring NaturalSensory Feedback in Real-Time Bidirectional Hand Prostheses," is the work of an international team largely based in Italy and Switzerland.  It appears in the 5 February 2014 issue of Science Translational Medicine. 

Deep Brain Cognitive Enhancement: The Latest News

The search for new methods of cognitive enhancement has just reached new depths.  Researchers in Austria and the UK report exciting new evidence that a form of noninvasive deep brain stimulation enhances the brain’s ability to do arithmetic. 

"With just five days of cognitive training and noninvasive, painless brain stimulation, we were able to bring about long-lasting improvements in cognitive and brain functions," says Roi Cohen Kadosh of the University of Oxford and lead author of the report that appears in the May 16, 2013 issue of Current Biology.  His comments were provided by the journal.

Photo Credit.  Photo by Ad Meskens of an original oil painting by Laurent de La Hyre (French, 1606-1656).  The title of the painting is Allegory of Arithmetic (Allegorie van de rekenkunde) and it dates to about 1650.  The original painting is in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.  It was photographed on 18 July 2007 by Ad Meskens, who has made it freely available with proper credit.

In this study, the team used a form of noninvasive deep brain stimulation known as “transcranial random noise stimulation” or TRNS.  The TRNS input was combined with more traditional math training and drills.  Twenty-five young adults, males and females, were divided into two groups, one receiving math training with the TRNS and the other receiving math training combined with a “sham” version of TRNS, a kind of placebo. 

Not only did those who received TRNS do well immediately, but the benefits lasted for at least six months.  In addition, brain monitors detected different brain activity for those receiving TRNS.  This suggests that TRNS modifies brain function.

According to Cohen Kadosh, "If we can enhance mathematics, therefore, there is a good chance that we will be able to enhance simpler cognitive functions."

In the paper’s conclusion, the authors state that TRNS “can enhance learning with respect to high-level cognitive functions, namely algorithmic manipulation and factual recall in mental arithmetic. When this learning is based on deep-level cognitive processing, as is the case for calculation arithmetic, such enhancements are extremely long-lived both behaviorally and physiologically.

Then they sum up with these words:

Both the behavioral and physiological changes displayed extreme longevity, spanning a period of 6 months, but only when learning involved deep-level cognitive processing. By its demonstration of such longevity and, for the calculation task, generalization to new, unlearned material, the present study highlights TRNS as a promising tool for enhancing high-level cognition and facilitating learning. These findings have significant scientific and translational implications for cognitive enhancement in both healthy individuals and patients suffering from disorders characterized by arithmetic deficits.

The paper, Snowball et al.: "Long-Term Enhancement of Brain Function and Cognition Using Cognitive Training and Brain Stimulation," appears in the May 16, 2013 issue of Current Biology. 

Lights and Brains: Injectible LED's Interact with Brain Cells

The quest to put computers in the brain has just come a step closer.  Tiny LED lights have been implanted deep in the brains of rodents.  The LEDs themselves are the size of individual neurons.  They are packaged with other tiny sensors into an ultrathin, flexible device.  The whole device is small enough to be implanted using a needle that positions the device at precise sites deep in the brain. 

Once implanted, the device communicates directly with the brain at the level of cells.  It communicates wirelessly with a module mounted above the rodent’s head, one small enough not to interfere with activity and removable when not in use.  The device itself is completely contained within the brain where it was implanted without any damage to surrounding cells.  Signals sent through the device stimulate genetically modified brain cells, signaling for example for the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine. 

Photo Credit: MicroLED device next to a human finger.  Image courtesy of University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and Washington University-St. Louis.

 

"These materials and device structures open up new ways to integrate semiconductor components directly into the brain," said team co-leader John A. Rogers according to a press release from the University of Illinois.  "More generally, the ideas establish a paradigm for delivering sophisticated forms of electronics into the body: ultra-miniaturized devices that are injected into and provide direct interaction with the depths of the tissue."

The device itself is a feat of engineering requiring the effort of an international team based in China, Korea, and at multiple centers across the US.  By miniaturizing the device to the cellular scale and by creating a totally wireless interface, researchers overcame several challenges at once.  For example, larger implantable devices always run the risk of creating scars or lesions in the brain, which may cause serious problems.   "One of the big issues with implanting something into the brain is the potential damage it can cause," team co-leader Michael Bruchas said. "These devices are specifically designed to minimize those problems, and they are much more effective than traditional approaches."

In addition, because this device communicates and receives its power wirelessly, there are no wires or optical fibers passing from the brain to the outside world.  Previous devices were larger and nonflexible. They were implanted only on the surface of brain structures, but this new device is implantable deep within those structures and able to interact with units as small as a single cell.

Along with the LED lights, the device includes temperature and light sensors, microscale heaters, and electrodes that can stimulate and receive brain electrical activity.  Power to the device is provided wirelessly through a radio frequency system. 

It is impossible to predict the future of efforts to connect brains and computers. This work obviously represents a significant advance toward that end.  "These cellular-scale, injectable devices represent frontier technologies with potentially broad implications," Rogers said. Being able to monitor and trigger the brain of living animals at the cellular level is likely to become a profoundly valuable tool for research.  Medical research, too, is also likely to be affected, not just in responding to patients with paralysis but also in research and perhaps even therapy in other diseases involving the brain or other organs, where these devices are also implantable. 

Some, of course, will speculate about even wider implications for this technology.  Will it open the way to control people by controling their brains?  Perhaps.  Will it open the way for our brains to communicate with computers and the internet?  There is little doubt that this step will inspire more work along those lines. 

This article is entitled "Injectable, Cellular-Scale Optoelectronics with Applications for Wireless Optogenetics" and is published in the April 12, 2012 issue of the journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Stem Cell Advance: Brain Cells Inserted in Monkey Brains

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are reporting a significant step forward toward the day when stem cells may be used to treat brain diseases such as Parkinson’s.

Working with three rhesus monkeys, the research team created a personalized stem cell culture for each monkey.  Cells taken from the skin of the monkey were induced to a state of pluripotency by means of a process called “induced pluripotency.”  Once in a state of pluripotency, the cells were guided forward in the process of differentiation until they became neurons and glial cells.  Along the way, the cells in the culture were given a genetic tag so the cells would glow under a florescent light. 

Then the cells were implanted in the brains of the rhesus monkeys.  Because the source of the cells was the monkeys themselves, the DNA matched and there was no immune reaction.  After six months, researchers discovered that the cells were so fully integrated into the monkey brains that in many cases, they could only be recognized by their green florescent glow.

"When you look at the brain, you cannot tell that it is a graft," says senior author Su-Chun Zhang, according to a press release from the University of Wisconsin. "Structurally the host brain looks like a normal brain; the graft can only be seen under the fluorescent microscope." 

Caption: This neuron, created in the Su-Chun Zhang lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, makes dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in normal movement. The cell originated in an induced pluripotent stem cell, which derive from adult tissues. Similar neurons survived and integrated normally after transplant into monkey brains—as a proof of principle that personalized medicine may one day treat Parkinson's disease. Date: 2010.  Image: courtesy Yan Liu and Su-Chun Zhang, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The three monkeys involved in the experiment were given tiny lesions or scars in their brain to mimic Parkinson’s disease.  Another lead researcher, Marina Emborg, commented on how the inserted cells integrated themselves into the brain.  “After six months, to see no scar, that was the best part."

What makes this work significant is that it is the first use of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) involving a primate, setting the stage for further work someday involving human beings.  According to Zhang, "It's really the first-ever transplant of iPS cells from a non-human primate back into the same animal, not just in the brain," says Zhang. "I have not seen anybody transplanting reprogrammed iPS cells into the blood, the pancreas or anywhere else, into the same primate. This proof-of-principle study in primates presents hopes for personalized regenerative medicine."

One of the keys to their success is that the iPS cells themselves were not transplanted into the monkeys.  Because iPS cells are pluripotent, they can give rise to cancer or other problems.  In this work, the researchers carefully guided the iPS cells so that they were almost at the final stage of differentiation, and then made sure that their cell culture was completely purified so that no potentially cancer-causing cells would slip through.  Quoting Zhang once again: "We differentiate the stem cells only into neural cells. It would not work to transplant a cell population contaminated by non-neural cells."

Because of these precautions, the experiment succeeded in introducing new cells into the monkey’s brains without any obvious problems.  But in this experiment, too few cells were introduced to help the monkeys overcome the symptoms of Parkinson’s.  Solving that problem is the obvious next step.

According to the paper, “this finding represents a significant step toward personalized medicine,” which may someday be used to treat a wide range of diseases in humans.  Because the original source of the cells was from the individual monkeys themselves, there was no immune rejection.  If the same technique can be applied to human beings, it may mean that an individualized culture of iPS cells could be created for each patient, then carefully guided forward in the process of differentiation, and then implanted to regenerate organs or tissues damaged by injury or disease.

What makes iPS cells especially attractive is that no embryos are used in their creation, and so almost no one objects to this line of medical research.  But if regenerative medicine is successful, someday it will be used not just to treat disease but to off-set the effects of aging or to enhance those who are well.  Then, we can be sure, many will object to this technology, but even more will use it.

The article, entitled “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-DerivedNeural Cells Survive and Mature in the Nonhuman Primate Brain,” is freely available at the open access journal, Cell Reports in its March 28, 2013 issue. 

 

Enhancing Healthy Kids: A Warning, But Who's Listening?

The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) has just issued new guidelines calling on doctors to stop prescribing cognitive-enhancing drugs to healthy kids.

Drugs like Ritalin and Adderal are widely used, not just by adults and university students, but increasingly by children, and not just those who are appropriately diagnosed as experience difficulites with attention or focus, such as Attention Deficit Disorder. 

PHOTO: Ritalin SR (a brand-name sustained-release formulation of methylphenidate, from Wikimedia, 16 June 2006, created by Sponge. 

Perviously, the AAN raised concerns drug enhancement by adults.  It concluded that there is no moral basis for objecting, provided that the patient is acting autonomously in requesting the prescription.  But when it comes to prescribing for healthy children, the AAN report makes this claim:  "Pediatric neuroenhancement remains a particularly unsettled and value-laden practice, often without appropriate goals or justification."  

The Report notes that enhancing children is fundamentally different from enhancing adults.  For doctors, it raises concerns for "the fiduciary responsibility of physicians caring for children, the special integrity of the doctor–child–parent relationship, the vulnerability of children to various forms of coercion, distributive justice in school settings, and the moral obligation of physicians to prevent misuse of medication."

Based on these concerns, the AAN Report advises that "the prescription of neuroenhancements is inadvisable because of numerous social, developmental, and professional integrity issues."

The primary objection raised by the AAN is that children lack the competency to act as autonomous moral agents.  If they were competent, then their request for enhancement would be honored.  Sure, children can be coerced, manipulated, confused, and ambivalent about their needs.  Kind of like the rest of us. 

Whether age brings moral competence is a good question.  But perhaps what this report shows us once again is that when secular bioethics meets enhancement technology, about all it can say is this: If you want it and if you can prove your competence, you can have it. 

The AAN report, “Pediatric neuroenhancement: Ethical, legal,social, andneurodevelopmental implications,” is published in the March 13, 2013 issue of Neurology.

Enhancement at Work: A New Report

A new report on human enhancement and its growing impact on the workplace has just been released by top-level British science and policy groups. The Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Science, the British Academy, and the Royal Academy of Engineering collaborated on a research project throughout 2012, resulting in the November 2012 report.

Image from the cover of Human Enhancement and the Future of Work.

Among the conclusions: "Advances in a range of areas in science and engineering such as neuroscience, regenerative medicine and bionics are already enhancing, or could in the next decade enhance, the physical and cognitive capacity of individuals in the workplace." The report is entitled Human Enhancement and the Future of Work.

Even the advocates of human enhancement find something uniquely troubling about the prospect of enhancement technologies in the workplace. Will employers coerce their workers? Will use of enhancement technology be a non-negotiable prerequisite for success in an increasingly competitive work environment? Will employees have full access to information about potential side-effects?

The report notes the following: "Cognitive-enhancing drugs present the greatest immediate challenge...They are already available without prescription through internet purchasing, are relatively cheap and are increasinly being used by healthy individuals."

In response to these challenges, the report does not recommend sanctions or bans, but it does press the case urgently for widening the dialogue and reforming policies and regulations.

Human Germline Modification: A Step Closer?

Human germline modification—often described as "designer babies—has come a step closer. It has been shown that in nonhuman primates, it is possible to transplant specialized cells that produce sperm. When combined with other steps, this may make germline modification feasible and safe for human use.

The new research involves nonhuman primates. Its purpose is to set the stage for clinical trials in human beings. The goal for using this technique in human beings is to overcome infertility, especially for cancer survivors who were treated with radiation or chemotherapy. In men, that treatment may destroy the ability to produce sperm. If the cancer treatment occurs after puberty, sperm can be stored in advance. But if the treatment occurs before a young boy's body produces sperm, permanent infertility may result.

"Men can bank sperm before they have cancer treatment if they hope to have biological children later in their lives," according to University of Pittsburgh researcher Kyle Orwig, lead researcher. "But that is not an option for young boys who haven't gone through puberty, can't provide a sperm sample, and are many years away from thinking about having babies," Orwig said according to a press release from the university.

Photo by Bertrand Devouard, 2006, available at Wikimedia

No medical solution is now available, but the report published today opens the possibility that in the future, young male cancer survivors will be transplanted with cells that can restore their ability to produce sperm and to become fathers. To be clear: Orwig's group did not work with human subjects. But by showing that the technique works in rhesus monkeys, they help make the case that it could work in humans and should be tried.

"This is the first study to demonstrate that transplanted spermatogonial stem cells can produce functional sperm in higher primates," Orwig said. "This is an important step toward human translation." The study is published in the November 2012 issue of the journal, Cell Stem Cell.

The cells that were transplanted into the rhesus monkeys are called "spermatogonial stem cells" or SSCs. Researchers used frozen or cryopreserved SSCs.

In the future, one possibility is that SSCs might be produced from stem cells, such as induced pluripotent stem cells. In addition, the SSCs might be genetically modified before they are transplanted. In nonhuman animals, this would provide a new way to create transgenic animals for research.

Another possibility is that this technique, if used to restore fertility to men who cannot produce sperm, might also be used for human germline modification. In a 2006 article, Hiroshi Kubota and Ralph L. Brinster (a pioneer in developing this technique) suggested that SSC transplantation may be used for precisely this purpose. "Another potential clinical application using human SSCs is GERMLINE GENE THERAPY" (Capital letters in original). They suggest that "germline gene therapy using SSCs will become a promising and feasible approach, although considerable ethical concerns exist."

What makes all this especially interesting is that by transplanting SSCs, researchers may make it possible for fertility to be restored without the use of in vitro fertilization. The Orwig paper suggests this quite clearly: SSC transplantation may be capable of "enabling the recipient male to father his own genetic children, possibly through normal coitus." If the SSCs are genetically modified first, we would have germline modification without IVF.

When human germline modification is suggested, many find the idea frightening. It is generally assumed that religious people will be universally opposed. That is not true, not even among Catholics.

What the official Catholic position opposes is the destruction of human embryos or even their creation outside the human body, which IVF requires. The Vatican is not opposed to using high tech medicine to create healthy babies.

In 2004, this is what a Vatican commission had to say: “Germ line genetic engineering with a therapeutic goal in man would in itself be acceptable were it not for the fact that is it is hard to imagine how this could be achieved without disproportionate risks especially in the first experimental stage, such as the huge loss of embryos and the incidence of mishaps, and without the use of reproductive techniques. A possible alternative would be the use of gene therapy in the stem cells that produce a man’s sperm, whereby he can beget healthy offspring with his own seed by means of the conjugal act.”

It almost sounds here like the Vatican was suggesting the technique that is being developed. It should be noted that this statement was released while John Paul II was pope. It was drafted by a commission headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now Benedict XVI.

One should not expect Catholics or any other religious community to lead a chorus of praise for human germline modification. At most, one might expect guarded comments from religious leaders, coupled with the demand that this technology be limited to therapy and not used for enhancement. But the key point is this: if human germline modification technology is developed, religious leaders may actually be open to its use.

But if it is developed for therapy, who really thinks it will be limited in that way? If it works to create a healthy baby, why not use it to create a better baby?

The article, entitled "Spermatogonial stem cell transplantation into Rhesus testes regenerates spermatogenesis producing functional sperm," appears in the November 2012 issue of the journal, Cell Stem Cell.

Resveratrol and Enhancement? Not So Fast

Does resveratrol help healthy people become even healthier? Does it improve metabolic health and possibly even help us live longer?

A new study casts doubts on these hopes. In the October 25 issue of Cell Metabolism, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine publish the results of their study involving 29 healthy middle-aged women. They asked whether resveratrol boosts metabolic health. When they ran the tests and collected the evidence, the answer was simple: No.

The study divided the women into two groups. Fifteen were given 75 milligrams of resveratrol each day, the same as they would get in 8 liters (more than 10 bottles) of red wine. The other fourteen received a sugar-pill placebo.

Researchers measured the women's sensitivity to insulin and the rate of the glucose uptake. The result, according to Samuel Klein, senior investigator, is that "we were unable to detect any effect of resveratrol. In addition, we took small samples of muscle and fat tissue from these women to look for possible effects of resveratrol in the body's cells, and again, we could not find any changes in the signaling pathways involved in metabolism," Klein said in a press release issued by Washington University School of Medicine.

Photo Credit: Robert Boston. No usage restrictions.

This study is small, but what makes it interesting is that it involves healthy human beings. In nonhuman trials, resveratrol seems to enhance the health of healthy animals. And in human trials involving people with metabolic problems, resveratrol seems beneficial.

According to Klein, "Few studies have evaluated the effects of resveratrol in people," Klein explains. "Those studies were conducted in people with diabetes, older adults with impaired glucose tolerance or obese people who had more metabolic problems than the women we studied. So it is possible that resveratrol could have beneficial effects in people who are more metabolically abnormal than the subjects who participated in the study."

That point goes right to the heart of the human enhancement debate. Often, "enhancement" is distinguished from therapy. While therapy improves the health of the sick, enhancement improves the health of the healthy. This study seems to suggest that resveratrol may be therapeutic, but it is not an enhancement.

Right now, however, the picture is not completely clear. Those who drink red wine in moderation are less likely than others to develop heart disease and diabetes? Is it the resveratrol, the wine, or the interactions between them?

According to Klein, "We were unable to detect a metabolic benefit of resveratrol supplementation in our study population, but this does not preclude the possibility that resveratrol could have a synergistic effect when combined with other compounds in red wine."

The article, entitled "Resveratrol Supplementation Does Not Improve Metabolic Function in Nonobese Women with Normal Glucose Tolerance," appears in the October 25 issue of Cell Metabolism.

Brain Stimulation and Human Cognitive Enhancement

Who wouldn't want to be smarter? And what parents don’t want academic success for their children?

Now it appears that simple electrical devices that stimulate the brain are able to enhance human cognitive performance.

An Essay in a recent issue of Current Biology describes recent advances in “non-invasive brain stimulation” (NIBS). One approach in particular—“transcranial direct current stimulation” or TDCS—is described in detail. According to the essay, TDCS is a simple tool that is “portable, painless, inexpensive, apparently safe, and with potential longterm efficacy.” It may be used to help those suffering from impaired cognitive abilities.

More to our point, however, is that TDCS shows remarkable potential for human enhancement. Simply put, this device seems to have the power to make normal children and adults smarter than they would normally be. To quote the essay, TDCS has the potential “to enhance fundamental human capacities, such as motor and sensorimotor skills, vision, decision making and problem solving, mathematical cognition, language, memory, and attention—improvements that seem to persist without apparent cognitive side effects.”

The main point of the essay is to invite broad discussion about the neuroethics of cognitive enhancement. A good deal of attention is focused on whether TDCS or similar techniques should be used on children. The authors argue that having smarter children will benefit everyone. Their conclusion: “If it is handled judiciously, TDCS could prove to be an inexpensive and widely-deployed technology with substantial benefits to individuals and society.”

Anyone following the debate about human enhancement will see this as further evidence that in terms of the technology, “the future is here.”

Sure, there’s a lot to think about here before we rush out and strap TDCS devices on our heads. Anyone worried that mobile phones pose a health risk will probably not think this is such a good idea.

But many of us human beings value our cognitive abilities above everything else. If TDCS is a safe way to become smarter, then why not?

According to the Christian tradition, human beings are created in the image of God. One way we resemble God is through the power of intellect, which we share with the animals but which we alone exhibit to such a lofty degree that we can be compared to God. According to Gregory of Nyssa, one of the great theologians of the fourth century, “The Deity beholds and hears all things, and searches all things out." No surprise there. But then Gregory adds: "You too have the power of apprehension of things by means of sight and hearing, and the understanding that inquires into things and searches them out.”

How expected that by inquiring into all things and searching them out, we now seem to be learning how to enhance the very power of thought and discovery.

If we enhance our intelligence will we become more like God? Not quite. Intelligence may be one way we can and should resemble God, but it's not the only way. In fact, intelligence by itself can be worrisome.

Much to his credit, Julian Savulescu (a co-author in the TDCS essay) is one of very few who has urged us to pay attention to the question of “moral enhancement.” Quite simply, smarter people who are not also morally better people may turn out to be very dangerous people. So after reading the essay on how to enhance cognition, let me suggest you look at a 2008 paper by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, entitled "THE PERILS OF COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND THE URGENT IMPERATIVE TO ENHANCE THE MORAL CHARACTER OF HUMANITY."

Is Aging a Disease of Stem Cells?

Is aging a disease? And if it is a disease, what “causes” it? Is it simply natural for bodies to age over time, or is something wrong with them, something that could be “fixed”?

In a report in the January 3 issue of Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine report on work with mice that are bred especially to age quickly. The mice have a version of progeria, a disease in humans that causes children to age well before their time.

The research team looked at differences in stem cells or progenitor cells, which healthy bodies naturally keep in reserve as a source for new cells to replace worn-out cells. Not surprisingly, they found that the progeria mice had fewer progenitor cells than their healthy counterparts. What’s more, the few progenitor cells in the progeria mice failed to function normally. For example, they didn’t produce replacement cells as needed.

If that’s the problem, can it be “fixed”? The researchers, led by senior investigators Johnny Huard and Laura Niedernhofer, injected the rapidly-aging progeria mice with progenitor cells from the muscles of healthy mice. The result was pretty amazing.

"We wanted to see if we could rescue these rapidly aging animals, so we injected stem/progenitor cells from young, healthy mice into the abdomens of 17-day-old progeria mice," Dr. Huard said in a press release issued by the University of Pittsburgh. "Typically the progeria mice die at around 21 to 28 days of age, but the treated animals lived far longer—some even lived beyond 66 days. They also were in better general health."

How did this work? Did the injected cells start producing replacement cells? Possibly, but the main effect of the injected cells seems to have been to change the host cells in the body of the progeria mice. In other words, the injected healthy progenitor cells changed the progeria mouse’s own cells into more healthy, more normal cells.

"This leads us to think that healthy cells secrete factors to create an environment that help correct the dysfunction present in the native stem cell population and aged tissue," Dr. Niedernhofer said. "In a culture dish experiment, we put young stem cells close to, but not touching, progeria stem cells, and the unhealthy cells functionally improved." Fascinating!

What about mice that are aging normally? Would the injection of progenitor cells from younger mice, for example, also “rescue” non-progeria but aging mice?

Whether anything like this could be done safely in human beings is a big question that will require a lot more research. It may turn out that injecting progenitor cells into a human patient with premature aging might help stall the aging but might also create other problems, such as cancer. In time, it may be possible to get the benefits while managing the risks.

The Pitt research, although dealing with mice with progeria, opens profound questions about humanity, aging, enhancement, and the possibility of extending the human lifespan.

The biggest question of all is whether something like this would slow the aging process in normal or healthy human beings. In other words, is this yet another possible pathway to human enhancement? Could this be used to “treat aging as a disease”?

Is aging a disease? Dr. Niedernhofer’s comment is revealing: "Our experiments showed that mice that have progeria, a disorder of premature aging, were healthier and lived longer after an injection of stem cells from young, healthy animals," Dr. Niedernhofer said. "That tells us that stem cell dysfunction is a cause of the changes we see with aging." A dysfunction? A disease? A difference?

On the question of religion and the morality of extending the human lifespan, probably the best book on the market is Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, edited by Calvin Mercer and Derek Maher. I have an essay in the book reflecting on the question from the standpoint of Christianity.

My take? Extending the human lifespan is not immoral or obviously wrong, but Christians hope for a transformation, not an extension. More of the same is too little.

The report appeared in the January 3 issue of Nature Communications. It is entitled Muscle-derived stem/progenitor cell dysfunction limits healthspan and lifespan in a murine progeria model and is available free to the public.

Enhancement and Christianity

Last week I gave a talk at Oxford on "Human Enhancement and Christianity: A Case of Friendly Fire?" The talk was co-sponsored by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, the Future of Humanity Institute, and Sophia Europa Oxford. An audio version is available on the Uehiro Centre site or by going directly to this page.

I just sent a text version of the talk, which should be posted on the Uehiro site in the next day or two.

In the talk, I compare the goals of the secular enhancement project with the vision of traditional Christianity, suggesting point by point that the overlap between the two is not just strong but quite overwhelming. Of course, Christians might say that technological enhancement is an illegitimate means to achieve a worthy goal. But the question I pose at the end is whether theology can look at technology as an alien power, or whether it must say that technology is an emerging tool in the hands of the unfailing Creator.

Enhancing Cognition

The journal Nature has just published a helpful Commentary on cognitive enhancement. Henry Greely and his co-authors describe the widespread use of prescription drugs--often traded illegally on campus across the US--to enhance memory and other core cognitive functions.

Among the drugs being used? Ritilan, Adderal, Aricept, and a relative newcomer, modafinil (Provigil). Each of these drugs has a therapeutic use, but many also use them to enhance their performance rather than treat their disease.

Essentially the authors argue that such self-experimentation should be brought out of the shadows of illegality and into the light of "an evidence-based approach to the evalution of the risks and benefits of cognitive enhancement."

In other words, there is nothing intrisically immoral about using such drugs for enhancement, nothing that requires law enforcement, at least. Of course, no one (including soldiers) should be forced to use these drugs, the authors argue. But neither should the drugs be relegated to an illegal market. Those who wish to use them should have access to the best information about the effectiveness and their possible side effects, and they should be able to contribute to that knowledge base without fear of jail.

Enhancing cognition by eduction is something nearly everyone values. Enhancing mental ability by technology--in this case by prescription drugs--is another question. But what's the difference, and does the difference in method make a difference in morality?

Sure, a pharmaceutically-enhanced mind might become smarter, but it's not likely to become more wise or more ethical. So for a long time, there will probably be an enhanced level of wisdom and understanding that is beyond the reach of technology and can only be attained by classical education, meditation, or deeply reflective thought.

On another subject, the Vatican is about to release a new statement on embryo research and stem cell ethics under the title, Dignitas Personae or "The Dignity of Persons." The document itself is embargoed until 6 am eastern time, 12 Dec 08. But the initial buzz is that it is less open than other recent Vatican statements about the possibility of human germline gene therapy and that it is morally apprehensive about "Altered Nuclear Transfer," championed by Bill Hurlbut of Stanford University as a way to derive human pluripotent stem cells without using embryos. We'll see what the document says.