G O V E R N M E N T & POLICY
INSIGHTS BY SUSAN MORRISSEY contaminated with mouse feeder cells that may carry mouse pathogens. Despite the miscommunications, misconduct, and the federal funding limitations, stem cell research is continuing to push forward in the U.S. as well as elsewhere in the world. To keep pace with other countries, researchers in the U.S. have turned to other sources to support their work, such as private and state funding. Six states have moved to provide support ATE LAST MONTH, RESEARCHERS not show that stem cell lines can be derived for this research on their own. Most notably, from the biotechnology company through single-cell extraction without deCalifornia voters passed a $3 billion, 10-year Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) stroying the embryo. ballot initiative to provide grants for stem published a paper in Nature inEarlier the field was shaken when the cell research. Other states such as Connectidicating that they had derived work of South Korean Woo Suk Hwang, a cut, Illinois, Maryland, and Newjersey have embryonic stem cell lines from human Seoul National University researcher, was embryos without destroying the embryos found to be fraudulent (C&EN Online Lat- committed funds to directly support stem (C&EN, Aug. 28, page 10). The work was est News, Jan. 11). The work, published in a cell research, while Wisconsin is supplying significant because it appeared to remove a pair of papers appearing in Science in March funds to make the state more attractive to companies working in this area. major ethical roadblock to stem cell research, 2004 andJune 2005, reported the first stem namely that an embryo must be sacrificed to cell derivation from a cloned human embryo To further address the funding barrier, develop stem cell lines that have the potential and the first patient-specific stem cell line Congress attempted to pass legislation that to treat a range of diseases. derived in this manner. Both claims were would expand the federal policy and allow found to be falsified, and the papers were federally funded research to include stem cell But appearances are not always realities. retracted earlier this year. lines created since August 2001 from excess It turns out that the work reported in the in vitro fertilization embryos scheduled to Nature paper did not leave the embryos The controversy surrounding ACT's be discarded as medical waste. The House unharmed, as was widely touted on the work and the Hwang misconduct cases are passed the legislation in May 2005, and after basis of a press release from the journal. just the most recent obstacles for the field. more than a year of behind-the-scenes Instead, all of the embryos used in the educating and lobbying byfellowmemACT work were destroyed. (Nature has bers of Congress and other advocates, since issued a corrected press release.) the Senate followed suit injury (C&EN This miscommunication is the latest Online Latest News, Jury 19). bump in the road for embryonic stem cell research. The celebration by stem cell supporters was short-lived. Within 24 The ACT work was intended to hours of the measure clearing the Senbe a proof-of-concept experiment for ate, Bush made good on his promise an alternative cell line derivation that to block the expansion of stem cell Robert Lanza, ACT's vice president for funding by issuing the first veto of his research and scientific development, six-year presidential tenure. discussed during a Senate hearing last Jury (C&ENJury 25,2005, page 42). In All was not lost, however, as states his testimony, Lanza described how a answered the veto by increasing their single blastomere cell could be removed own funding initiatives. For example, (or biopsied) from an eight-celled emin the days immediately following the bryo and used to derive a viable cell veto, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzline. The idea for this technique builds CHALLENGING Access to new stem cell lines is enegger (R) announced that $150 on the fact that for years in vitro fer- fraught with ethical complications. million would be lent from the state's tilization clinics have been extracting general funds to support grants for a single cell from a preimplanted embryo scientists working on stem cell research. The rocky road began five years ago when for genetic testing without inflicting harm And in Illinois, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich President George W. Bush announced a to the embryo. (D) pledged $5 million in additional suppolicy that the government would fund port for stem cell research. The Nature paper, however, reports that only research using embryonic stem cell the 16 embryos used were biopsied multiple lines derived prior to Aug. 9,2001. As reThe road to developing treatments for times to obtain multiple single cells that search advanced, the number of eligible, diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes yielded only two stable cell lines and that viable cell lines dropped from more than shows no sign of leveling out in the near all of the embryos used in the experiment 70 to 21. The viable lines, moreover, have term, but if the past is any indication, stem were destroyed. The paper, therefore, does limited therapeutic use because they are cell researchers are up to the challenge.
ROUGH RIDE FOR STEM CELL RESEARCH
Embryonic stem cell scientists are on roller coaster of funding, research highs and lows
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C&EN
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