In Development
Hemaphilia TBA HEK293

2006 The National Catholic Bioethics Center 473

The Ethics of HEK 293

Alvin Wong, M.D.
The author thanks Rev. Lawrence Kutz, Washington, D.C., Prof. Msgr. Angel
Rodríguez Luño, Rome, and Dr. Ian Snodgrass, Singapore, for invaluable assistance.
1 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae (February 2, 1987),
Introduction, 5.
2 Ibid., I, 1.
The topic of embryonic stem cells is very much in the forefront of public
interest. The moral stance on obtaining stem cells from embryos is clear: The Church
has always taught that all human life from the very beginning must be respected and
protected. If human embryos are killed to obtain a certain type of cell, such action is
morally wrong, no matter what good might be derived from the action. The document
Donum vitae, issued by the Church in 1987, states that “from the moment of
conception, the life of every human being is to be respected in an absolute way …
God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning to its end: No one can under any
circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being.”
1 “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment
of conception and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be
recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent
human being to life.”2
What is perhaps not so well known is the fact that cell lines developed from
embryonic cells (cells obtained from embryos) have already been in use for many
years in various areas of laboratory research and pharmaceutical production.
The human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cell line is widely used in laboratory
research. HEK 293 was derived from the kidney cells of a human embryo, as its
name denotes. A student or fellow involved in life sciences research would almost
474

How Was It Obtained?

The question that needs to be asked is how the original cells were obtained:
from an induced abortion, from an embryo naturally miscarried, or from an artificial
reproductive technique? Were they obtained in a morally licit manner?
My investigation began with asking a worldwide distributor of cell lines (who
supplies HEK 293 in the United States). The company replied that they did not know
and recommended that the depositor of the cell line be consulted. In concurrent
communication with the depositor, Dr. F. L. Graham of McMaster University, Ontario,
I was also unable to determine the origin of HEK 293, except that it was unlikely to
be from in vitro fertilization, since the cell line was developed around 19733 (e-mail
message, December 18, 2002).
A publicly available document records the proceedings of a meeting in May
2001 of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological
Products Advisory Committee. In this document, which deals with both the
HEK 293 and the PER.C6 fetal cell lines, Dr. Alex van der Eb, who was involved in
the development of HEK 293, is quoted:
So the kidney material, the fetal kidney material was as follows: the kidney of
the fetus was, with an unknown family history, obtained in 1972 probably. The
precise date is not known anymore. The fetus, as far as I can remember was
completely normal. Nothing was wrong. The reasons for the abortion were unknown
to me. I probably knew it at that time, but it got lost, all this information.4
Could there have been any chance that the “abortion” referred to in the FDA document
might mean a naturally or spontaneously aborted (i.e., miscarried) fetus? The
context certainly sounds as if it referred to a routine-induced abortion, with no qualifications
mentioned. In examining the issue further, it appears that in all probability
the cells were obtained from the embryo of a willfully induced abortion. Not only is
it easier administratively to receive cells from induced abortions of normal pregnancies
than from spontaneous miscarriages, it may also be scientifically more advantageous
to use tissue from induced abortions, which are “healthier,” since the majority
of fetuses are usually genetically normal and aborted for social reasons. In the FDA
proceedings, Dr. van der Eb admits that the fetus was “completely normal.” He later
gives testimony to the development of PER.C6 (human embryonic retinal cells), in
which the evidence that it was obtained from a willfully induced abortion is undeniWONG
\ THE ETHICS OF HEK 293
475
5 Ibid. “So I isolated retina from a fetus, from a healthy fetus as far as could be seen, of
eighteen weeks old. There was nothing special with the family history or the pregnancy was
completely normal up to the eighteen weeks, and it turned out to be a socially indicated abortus—
abortus provocatus, and that was simply because the woman wanted to get rid of the
fetus” (91). “The father was not known, not to the hospital anymore, what was written down
[was an] unknown father, and that was, in fact, the reason why the abortion was requested”
(99). “There was permission, et cetera, and that was, however, was in 1985, ten years before
this. This shows that the cells were isolated in October 1985, Leiden University in my lab”
(91). At that time already 1985, I should say, the cells were frozen, stored in liquid nitrogen,
and in 1995 one of these [vials] was thawed for the generation of the PER.C6 cells” (92).
6 The following article extracts were obtained from the Children of God for Life Web
site, at www.cogforlife.org: “Aborted New Zealand foetuses have become a sought-after
product in a controversial international biotechnology market. A Weekend Herald investigation
has revealed that Wellington’s district health board stood to make money out of providing
tissue from aborted foetuses to a Dutch company, Crucell. Capital and Coast Health
Board pulled out of the deal last week following Weekend Herald inquiries into its application
to the Wellington Regional Ethics Committee to take the tissue for the production
of vaccines against HIV, ebola and other viral diseases. This week it emerged Crucell was
interested in New Zealand because it had been identified as one of only four countries that
can provide a source of foetal tissue clean of mad cow disease contamination…. In what
would have been the first known case of New Zealand foetuses being used for commercial
purposes, Capital and Coast Health would have profited by providing the tissue to Crucell,
listed on New York’s Nasdaq technology stock index,” Eugene Bingham, “Government Asked
to Sanction Foetus Sale,” New Zealand Herald (May 24, 2003), http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
category/story.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=3503775; “A Sydney company is involved in a
secret plan to collect tissue from aborted babies and export it for medical experiments.
The sensitive proposal, to harvest some of the ninety thousand foetuses aborted in Australia
each year has been condemned by pro-life groups for fostering an international trade in
human body parts. The Daily Telegraph has established that a Dutch bio-tech company,
Crucell, working through a Sydney contract research organisation, Parexel International,
has applied to the ethics committee of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide for access to
foetal material. It is believed to be the first proposed commercial collection of foetuses in
able.5 Again, it was a “healthy fetus.” PER.C6 is used for similar purposes as HEK
293 in the field of gene therapy.
For the sake of the consciences of the people who work with HEK 293, I wrote
to Dr. van der Eb at Leiden University, who confirmed that the records pertaining to
the origins of HEK 293 were indeed lost, consistent with his statement to the FDA
(e-mail message, October 27, 2003).
Since Dr. van der Eb does admit to working with tissue from induced abortions,
even if there may have been one or more occasions of working with tissue
from spontaneous abortions, it seems more likely that the tissue would be from an
induced abortion. The convenience of getting tissue from routine, elective abortions
compared to waiting for an unforeseen miscarriage supports this likelihood.
Furthermore, there seems to be an ongoing industry in this area, where obtaining
fetal tissue from routine abortions becomes a standard procedure.