I finally got round to watching the 30 minute program produced by Mediacorp on stem cells on Monday morning, my apologies for only getting round to writing about it now.
Overall, I thought that the tone of the program was pretty basic, which was fine for introducing Singaporeans to a topic much featured in the press. It is packed with world famous scientists (see below) now residing in Singapore and their views on the topic, but I feel that it is lacking in patient testimonies on how existing stem cell technology already available in Singapore has helped Singaporeans. Maybe they'll do it for the next episode.
This entry describes what's in the program, so read it only if you didn't get round to watching it.
The program starts off on the basis that the "average person" doesn't know a lot about stem cells but that scientists believe that stem cells are the key to unlocking the secrets to diseases (and their respective cures). It moves on to quote Victor Nurcombe, a principal investigator at Singapore's Institute of Molecular Cell Biology (IMCB) who explains how stem cells form different tissues in the body; Dr. William Hwang (Haematologist, Singapore General Hospital) who elaborates that stem cells are capable of infinite self renewal, and more specifically how blood stem cells an form red blood cells etc.
It then moves on to say that despite human stem cell history going way back to the 1960's, it was actually Polly the sheep made stem cells famous. Cut in Dr. Alan Colman, the creator of Dolly the sheep who is now residing in Singapore as the CEO of ES Cell International Pte. Ltd.- who said that stem cells were a wake-up call which inspired people to take another look at the area of regenerative medicine. Cut to Paul Robson, Senior Scientist at the Genome Institute of Singapore whose expressed his focus on stem cells in 3 words: understand, create, manipulate.
After the strong emphasis by the scientists showcasing Singapore's imported scientific prowess, the camera shifts to the plight of a Singaporean patient by the name of David Ong who had suffered from Multiple Myeloma since 2004. David Ong relates that he discovered the condition when he went swimming and got breathless and had fractured ribs. His wife Ong Whee Ling describes with much emotion that she was in disbelief and shock, and that it was a difficult time for the family to accept that Dr. William Hwang gave a prognosis of 4-8 years survival.
*With dramatic music in the background*
Dr. William Hwang, who was David's doctor told David and his family that a stem cell transplant was his only cure, tantamount to pressing a "reset" button in his blood system. Fortuntately for David, he hails from a family of 6 siblings (very unusual for Singapore these days) and was able to establish 2 perfect HLA matches amongst his sisters. David's sister Angie, donated her bone marrow (which they showed being syringed out through a large needle from her hip bone and into an open falcon tube). David then explains how he felt: "After the transplant on the first day, I felt itchy all over and really down and depressed", he just didn't know if he would make it through (marrow transplants are quite anti-climatic). He also experienced some side effects of the chemotherapy whilst his blood type changed from O to his sister's blood type AB. The narrator implies that David is lucky as many others wait for a matching unit and time slips away whilst the patient's condition worsens and they have to spend time looking for other sources of stem cells.
Next interviewee, Fidah Alsagoff the Executive Director of the Singapore Public Cord Blood Bank. His personal view: "...few things as tragic than knowing that there is a cure but having no access to it" and that his bank was there to serve Singaporeans should they need it. He proceeds to reinforce that stem cell transplantation is now mainstream therapy for many previously incurable diseases and "That's very powerful".
Cut in a quip from Professor Lee Eng Hin from the Tissue Engineering Center, saying that "Some scientists are interested in working 3 areas, brain, heart and diabetes" and that governments around the world were racing to be at the forefront of stem cell research".
From this, the program moves on to the topic of embryonic stem cells and Dr. Lawrence Stanton from the Genome Institute of Singapore. He justifies the use of embryos for research by saying that IVF clinics have oocytes, materials generated as part of the IVF process by women seeking to have children. After they [the women] have achieved their goal, they can choose to donate them to embryonic stem cell research.
At this point, I was wondering if they were going to bring up the Korean research scandal... which they did! The narrator explained that in 2005, Hwang Woo Suk fell from grace due to the illegal procurement of their lab's hundreds of "donated" eggs without proper informed consent.
Lawrence Stanton who works on embryonic stem cells said that one has to be very careful with embryonic stem cells as it was very touchy and it was imperative to work with the highest ethical standards. Alan Colman goes further to say that the eggs that were donated to research may be the non-viable ones (not useful to the doctor or mother) and could hold a cure for other people, where the fate of the health of future people was greater than the fate of the entity (embryo), which were discarded anyway.
In a slightly confusing final loop, the program reverts back to David Ong again. The narrator says that stem cells hold the miracle of therapy but the ultimate cure for all diseases remains to be seen.
This open-ended ambiguity was unfortunate given that the program had the opportunity to reinforce two important facts:
1) stem cell therapies have been saving lives for years and
2) advances in the last few years have greatly increased the number of therapeutic applications.
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