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ISSCR Newsletter Editor's Note The ISSCR Newsletter is published quarterly for members and friends of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. Your feedback and submissions to this newsletter are encouraged. Send information, updates, calendar listings, citations and other material for consideration to the editor at sxk79@po.cwru.edu or to ISSCR Headquarters at psullivan@isscr.org. Lastly, I encourage you to forward this newsletter to individuals who might be interested in joining our new stem cell research society.
President's Message The International Society for Stem Cell Research continues to develop a broad base of membership and leadership. We currently have members from 13 countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. To become a truly international society, we added five new members to the ISSCR Board. They are: Giulio Cossu (Italy) We also created several committees to facilitate the operation
of the ISSCR. Membership is growing, and our aim is to integrate the many disciplines relevant to stem cell biology. We are interested in your ideas about how to bring stem cell researchers together. Contact any ISSCR Board member with your thoughts. The bimonthly Stem Cell Newsletter will provide information about the ISSCR to its members. Each issue will include a literature review of a relevant topic. In the future, we plan to include a review of an aspect of stem cell biology or an ethical/political issue. The importance of our Policy Committee has been emphasized over the past months, as the Brownback bill was presented to Congress. Many ISSCR board members testified before Congress, and the opinions of several ISSCR board members were sought by government officials. No vote on the bill was taken. ISSCR supports the findings of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Stem Cell Research, B. Vogelstein, chair. We also learned of the split decision of the President's Advisory Panel on Therapeutic Cloning. One mechanism for addressing issues such as therapeutic cloning is developing ISSCR position statements that will provide scientific information and a basis for the public and governments to form educated opinions and make informed decisions. We are in the process of developing a position statement on nuclear transfer technology, including therapeutic cloning. Your active participation in the ISSCR is important to the development of our society. You can participate in many ways, including encouraging your friends and colleagues to join the society and joining ISSCR committees. Please take a moment to review the committee descriptions in this newsletter and join them. ISSCR's charter membership class has climbed to over 100 individuals. Many of your colleagues have yet to join the Society, and we need your help to reach all of the scientists in the stem cell community. Help us to reach our charter membership goal. Attached is a link to the membership application. Pass it on to your coworkers and friends. http://www.isscr.org/app.pdf First ISSCR Annual Meeting
Dates Announced The first ISSCR Annual Meeting has been scheduled for Sunday, June 8 - Wednesday, June 11, 2003 in Washington, D.C., USA. The meeting will be the first and largest broad-based stem cell research meeting and exhibition held. Every effort was made to schedule the meeting so that it does not overlap other meetings of interest to the stem cell research community. Paul Simmons, Ph.D., Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, University of Melbourne, chairs the Program Committee. Watch the ISSCR Web site and future issues of this newsletter for participation, program and registration information about this scientific meeting and exhibition. Please block the dates in your calendar and plan to join us in Washington next June for this important meeting. ISSCR has developed the following committee descriptions for its emerging committee structure. Roles and responsibilities of the committees are evolving as ISSCR evolves. Communications: Responsible for all
official ISSCR communications vehicles, including the online member
newsletter, the proposed ISSCR section in an established industry
journal, the ISSCR Web site and Internet listserv postings. Finance: Responsible for long-term
fundraising initiatives for the society, including grant writing
and fundraising within the scientific community. Also responsible
for development of ISSCR research grants and fellowships. Membership: Responsible for review and decision-making concerning new ISSCR member applicants. Also responsible for identifying additional prospective membership groups from affiliated societies and complimentary scientific disciplines. Chair: Jonas Frisen jonas.frisen@cmb.ki.se Policy: Responsible for the development and dissemination of official ISSCR position statements on issues of interest to the scientific community, government agencies and elected officials, and the general public. Chair: Catherine Verfaille verfa001@umn.edu Program: Responsible for identifying and developing the program content for ISSCR's Annual Scientific Meeting and all other ISSCR educational meetings. Chair: Paul Simmons p.simmons@pmci.unimelb.edu.au Government Affairs: Responsible for monitoring regulatory efforts that affect stem cell research activities. Works with the ISSCR Ethics Committee to develop and disseminate ISSCR policy statements to appropriate audiences to convey the Society's official position on regulatory initiatives. International: Responsible for representing ISSCR at international meetings and congresses. Also responsible for monitoring and reporting scientific developments related to the industry beyond North America. Planning: Responsible for determining the long-term aims and goals of ISSCR. Recently Published Research and Resources Research The Stem Cell Plasticity Controversy Wumser, A.E. and F. H. Gage. 2002. Stem cells: cell fusion causes confusion. Nature, 416:485-7. A "News and Views" comment on two Nature articles: Terada, N, T. Hamazaki, M. Oka, M. Hoki, D. M. Mastalerz, Y. Nakano, E. M. Meyer, L. Morel, B. E. Petersen, and E.W. Scott. 2002. Bone marrow cells adopt the phenotype of other cells by spontaneous cell fusion. Nature, 416:542-5. In this article, the authors demonstrate that by coculturing bone marrow cells from female mice transgenic for the GFP and puromycin gene with male embryonic stem cells, they obtained a fusion product, displaying embryonic stem cell phenotype and expressing embryonic cell markers. These cells expressed GFP and puromycin resistance, were over-diploid, and were able to differentiate into cardiac myocytes, neuron-like cells and were able to produce teratomas in NOD/SCID mice. Ying, Q. L., J. Nichols, E. P. Evans, and A.G. Smith. 2002. Changing potency by spontaneous fusion. Nature, 416:545-8. With a slightly different approach, the authors demonstrate fusion between forebrain cells of transgenic fetuses with ES cells. The fusion product had full ES cell pluripotent character, including multilineage contribution to chimeras. They also succeeded in establishing fusion products between ES cells and adult brain cells (8-week-old mice). Other Articles of Interest Jiang, Y., B. N. Jahagirdar, R. L. Reinhardt, R. E. Schwartz, C. D. Keene, X. R. Ortiz-Gonzalez, M. Reyes, T. Lenvik, T. Lund, M. Blackstad, J. S. Du, , A. Lisberg, W. C. Low, D. A. Largaespada, and C. M. Verfaillie. 2002. Pluripotency of mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow. Nature, 418:41-9. Toma, J. G., M. Akhavan, K. J. Fernandes, F. Barnabe-Heider, A. Sadikot, D. R. Kaplan, F. D. Miller. 2001. Isolation of multipotent adult stem cells from the dermis of mammalian skin. Nat Cell Biol, 3:778-84. Sata, M., A. Saiura, A. Kunisato, A. Tojo, S.Okada, T. Tokuhisa, H. Hirai, M. Makuuchi, Y. Hirata, and R. Nagai. 2002. Hematopoietic stem cells differentiate into vascular cells that participate in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Nature Medicine, 8:403-9. Morshead, C. M., P. Beneviste, N. N. Iscove, and D. van der Kooy. 2002. Hematopoietic competence is a rare property of neural stem cells that may depend on genetic and epigenetic alterations. Nature Medicine, 8:268-73. Reviews on Plasticity Gardner, R. L. 2002. Stem cells: potency, plasticity and public perception. J Anat, 200:277-82. Orkin, S. H., and L. I. Zon. 2002. Hematopoiesis and stem cells: plasticity versus developmental heterogeneity. Nat Immunol, 3:323-8. Tsai, R.Y., R. Kittappa, and R. D. McKay. 2002. Plasticity, niches, and the use of stem cells. Dev Cell, 2:707-12. Krause, D.S. 2002. Plasticity of marrow-derived stem cells. Gene Ther, 9:754-8. Peterson, D. A. 2002. Stem cells in brain plasticity and repair. Curr Opin Pharmacol, 2:34-42. Gritti, A., A. L. Vescovi, R. Galli 2002. Adult neural stem cells: plasticity and developmental potential. J Physiol Paris, 96:81-90. Special issue on Stem Cell Plasticity It will be available online after August 9 at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/exphemonline And for 112 pages of light reading at the end of the day... On the Web List of the 13 institutions that provide together 78 NIH-approved
human embryonic stem cell lines, including e-mail addresses to request
them. U.S. Government National Institutes of Health Stem Cell Information
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