// Comments from the Fellows

Maureen L. Condic, Ph.D.

A recent New York Times editorial bemoans the fact that despite a $100,000 advertising campaign mounted by "respected stem cell researchers at Harvard", not a single woman has elected to submit to the medically risky and physically painful procedure of egg donation for the benefit of scientific research. The editorial refers to this situation as the "vexing egg donor problem" that is egregiously slowing the pace of embryonic stem cell research.

As a women and a scientist, I find the attitude of this editorial both patronizing and offensive. The risks of egg donation are considerable; a significant percentage of women undergoing this procedure experience serious complications that include both sterility and death. In light of such risks, would the editors of the New York Times care to volunteer their daughters, wives or themselves as egg donors, in the hopes of speeding the pace of stem cell research?

The editors consider the fact that compensation for donated eggs is "meager" to be yet another factor discouraging donation. Based on this logic it would seem that the simplest solution would be to promote egg donation in third world countries where women facing destitute poverty may see such 'meager' financial gain as a sufficient compensation for assuming significant risks to their health and their lives.

Finally, the editors seem to be profoundly confused about the status of stem cell research; what has been accomplished and what has not. The editorial states that stem cell scientists "typically take the nucleus of a patient's skin cell and inject it into an egg whose nucleus has been removed. If all goes well, the desired stem cell can be derived."

This describes the process of human cloning, a "typical" procedure that has thus far never been accomplished by any laboratory in the world.

There is one point on which the editors and I agree; recent results from several respected laboratories hold out hope for direct reprogramming of human cells to a state that is identical to stem cells derived from embryos. Obtaining medically useful stem cells from non-embryonic sources, including adult tissues, biological artifacts and direct reprogramming, would not only avoid the ethical controversy of embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, but would protect women from the shameful exploitation that would be required to fix the "vexing egg donor problem".

Dr. Condic is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, with an adjunct appointment in the department of Pediatrics. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago , her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley and postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota . Since her appointment at the University of Utah in 1997, Dr. Condic's primary research focus has been the development and regeneration of the nervous system.