The Jérôme Lejeune Foundation was questioned as part of the future revision of the bioethics law: on March 30 by the National Consultative Ethics Committee and on April 3 by the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices. The director of research, Dr. Elise Saunier Vivar, urges scientists to firmly commit to ethical research by prioritizing iPS cells over human embryonic cells.
Today, it is clear that human iPS cells, which do not involve the destruction of a human embryo, have all the characteristics of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) necessary for use by scientists and clinicians to develop innovative treatments and test new drugs.
Unanimous Experts on the Quality of iPS
I recently attended a Keystone conference dedicated to research on iPSC [1] that took place in Kyoto last January around Prof. Yamanaka, Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine 2012 for his work on the creation of iPSC (cf. 20 years of iPS cells: where do we stand today?). This conference celebrated the 20 years since the discovery and world experts on iPSC, working on the generation and clinical use of these cells, who are unanimous in stating that these iPS cells are comparable in every way to human embryonic stem cells and have all the necessary characteristics to carry out their work successfully.
All trials confirm the excellent safety of human iPSC-derived products (hiPSC), without tumorigenesis [2] or severe adverse events.
Two Commercialized Treatments in Japan
At the beginning of the month, on March 6, Japan, a pioneer in cell reprogramming 20 years ago, paved the way with the authorization of commercializing 2 therapeutic protocols based on hiPSC-derived cells, for the treatment of heart failure and Parkinson’s disease [3]. The first treatment, RiHEART, consists of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, intended for severe ischemic heart failure patients for whom conventional treatments have failed. The second, Amchepry, administers dopaminergic neuronal progenitor cells derived from allogeneic iPSC cells that are transplanted into the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease [5].
This world first marks a historic step in regenerative medicine, especially since in 2026, there is still no authorized commercial-scale treatment based on human embryonic stem cells worldwide, despite the older research on these cells. Indeed, this goes back to the late 90s.
“Our French researchers are brilliant, let them also be creative and engage ethically”
French research must aspire to ethically progress scientific research. Choosing to preferentially use iPSCs, which have all the necessary characteristics of human embryonic stem cells for the development of innovative treatments and disease modeling to test new drugs, is taking on the challenge of responsible research excellence. Our French researchers are brilliant, so they should also be creative and engage in ethical preferences to address scientific questions for which iPSCs represent, after 20 years of international research, a scientific equivalent.
Civil society may set limits, but scholarly society must seek. And it is creative. As evidence, research in Japan, where after the ban in 2006 on the use of human embryo-derived cells for clinical trials, researchers worked and found alternatives, continuing their work even after the ban was lifted in 2009 – until the authorization of the first treatments’ commercialization today.
French research is not doomed to using the human embryo to progress and excel; on the contrary. By preferring the use of iPSCs, it can and must demonstrate its excellence.
[1] Induced pluripotent stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells
[2] Propensity to generate cancer
[3] Kawamura, T., Ito, Y., Ito, E., Takeda, M., Mikami, T., Taguchi, T., Mochizuki-Oda, N., Sasai, M., Shimamoto, T., Nitta, Y., Yoshioka, D., Kawamura, M., Kawamura, A., Misumi, Y., Sakata, Y., Sawa, Y., Miyagawa, S., 2023. Safety confirmation of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte patch transplantation for ischemic cardiomyopathy: first three case reports. Front Cardiovasc Med 10, 1182209. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2023.1182209
[4] Cardiac muscle cells
[5] Sawamoto, N., Doi, D., Nakanishi, E., Sawamura, M., Kikuchi, Takayuki, Yamakado, H., Taruno, Y., Shima, A., Fushimi, Y., Okada, T., Kikuchi, Tetsuhiro, Morizane, A., Hiramatsu, S., Anazawa, T., Shindo, T., Ueno, K., Morita, S., Arakawa, Y., Nakamoto, Y., Miyamoto, S., Takahashi, R., Takahashi, J., 2025. Phase I/II trial of iPS-cell-derived dopaminergic cells for Parkinson’s disease. Nature 641, 971–977. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08700-0
