Scientists Urge President-Elect Obama to Restore US Funding of Stem Cell Research
Advocates of stem cell research are counting the days until the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama, reports the Los Angeles Times. Although President George Bush has strictly limited stem cell research from cell lines derived from human embryos, Obama has long favoured such research and is likely to put a quick end to the federal ban that limits funding of research. Obama has pledged full support of stem cell research, stating recently:
I strongly support expanding research on stem cells. I believe the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations.
As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines … and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight.
The Vancouver Sun reported on Thursday that researchers attending a stem cell conference in Canada were elated with Obama’s win. Clayton Smith, an American researcher who moved to British Columbia five years ago to perform stem cell research, and now heads a lab at the BC Cancer Agency’s Terry Fox Laboratory, told the Sun: “Watching the election last night was a singular event, like watching the Berlin Wall fall.” USA Today reported that people attending the annual fundraiser benefiting the Michael J Fox Foundation in New York Wednesday night were giddy over Obama’s win. “In all fairness, Sen McCain has been supportive of our foundation in the past and supportive of research. But I think this administration will really embrace it,” said Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease. Researchers are hopeful that stem cell research could eventually yield a successful treatment for the disease.
In a press release issued on Thursday the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), which represents the world’s leading stem cell scientists, has urged Obama to restore federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in the first 100 days of his presidency. “On August 9, 2001, President Bush declared an executive order banning funding for certain kinds of stem cell research on ideological and religious grounds, not on the basis of the promise of such research for advancing medical knowledge and therapies,” ISSCR President-elect Irving Weissman, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (and a signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning), is quoted as saying in the press release. He added: “This was a dangerous precedent of politicisation of biomedical research, perhaps the first ideological ban of a type of research in America. We urge President-Elect Obama to return to the former policy of investigator-initiated research in all areas of stem cell biology and medicine, overseen by the kinds of safeguards we have advocated in the ISSCR’s Guidelines for the Conduct of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research.”
According to the Wisconsin Technology Network, to reverse the President Bush’s stem cell policy, which he has pledged to do, Obama does not need an act of Congress or to have his aides prepare an executive order for his signature. He only needs to give a simple order to the director of the National Institutes of Health. Alta Charo, a Warren P Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, indicated to WTN News that it would be very simple for President Obama to make federal funding available to more embryonic stem cell lines. “Bush’s policy was just that, a policy; that is, a direction given to his NIH director,” Charo wrote in an email. “So Obama can simply direct his NIH director to feel free to fund research on newer lines. No executive order or Congressional action needed.” Charo noted that the only time Congressional action would be needed is if the new President wanted to change the legislative prohibition on using federal funds to work directly on embryos (eg to derive new lines). That’s a reference to the so-called Dickey-Wicker Amendment, said WTN.
Reporting on Friday’s annual stem cell conference at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA, the North County Times said that stem cell researchers expect a surge of funding, an easing of restrictions and accelerating scientific progress in turning stem cells into disease treatments. The “Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa” was presented by the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, an alliance of four San Diego research powerhouses: UC San Diego, The Burnham Institute, The Salk Institute and The Scripps Research Institute. Philanthropist T Denny Sanford, after whom the consortium is named, was attending the conference. In September, he gave the consortium $30 million to advance stem cell research. Sanford was optimistic about the prospects for stem cell research, which he called “the medicine of the future”, and the incoming Obama administration’s support of it. “Everything that I’ve heard thus far is that Obama certainly is behind stem cell research, he’ll lift the restrictions currently in place [on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research], so it adds that much more excitement to the field,” Sanford said in an interview before the conference began. (Several distinguished scientists from the Sanford Consortium have signed Declan’s petition.)
The Harvard Crimson quotes Brock Reeve, the executive director of The Harvard Stem Cell Institute (and another signatory of Declan’s petition) as saying: “I think it’s a great moment for the country because one of the things that Obama is doing is placing a greater emphasis on science and relying on different experts in different fields. He’s definitely making science and investment in general a much higher priority.”
According to a report by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan, it is regenerative medicine that is driving the life sciences business sector in Michigan, the United States, and the rest of the world. The report says: “Stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, is seen by many as vital to advancing regenerative medicine. According to a 2006 US Department of Health & Human Services report, a conservative estimate of the worldwide market for regenerative medicine by 2010 is $500 billion. The projected US market is $100 billion.”
Our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning will argue that stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, is not only vital to advancing regenerative medicine, but has the potential to be an economic boon for countries throughout the world and to lower overall domestic health care costs (see blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?”). And we will voice strong support for researchers and research institutes doing breakthrough work - such as, for example, the Japanese scientists from the Riken Center for Developmental Biology who announced on Thursday that they have been successful in creating a cerebral cortex from embryonic stem cells, thus boosting the possibility of future treatment of brain-related diseases; and the Scottish scientists from the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine of Edinburgh University who have been turning embryonic stem cells into a cell type lost in Parkinson’s patients. We will also report on joint international efforts on embryonic stem cell research and applications.
