While a University of Wisconsin scientist may win a Nobel Prize for his work on embryonic stem cell lines, U-M scientists would face 10 years in prison and a $10 million fine for the same groundbreaking work.
This was one observation made at a Sept. 22 panel discussion on the “The Promise of Embryonic Stem Cell Research,” co-sponsored by the University and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
“The science of stem cells is one of the most important and fascinating areas of research today,” President Mary Sue Coleman said in her welcome address. “The potential of stem cells to help us better understand human biology and how disease affects our bodies is, at this point, limitless.”
More than 250 people attended the discussion, which featured Lawrence Goldstein, director of the stem cell program at the University of California, San Diego, and Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, discussing ethical issues and scientific opportunities that impact human embryonic stem cell research.
Moreno noted how this research was founded only 10 years ago in Wisconsin and has been politicized and debated both in federal and state policies in a patchwork of laws that either prohibits or funds stem cell research.
In Michigan, a 1978 law, predating the discovery of embryonic stem cells by 20 years, prohibits the use embryos for research, thereby preventing the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines. The law carries a criminal penalty.
Moreno said he believes the federal funding ban on embryonic stem cell research will be lifted under a new presidential administration. He predicts, however, that the National Institutes of Health, which oversees federal science funding, will be facing an obstacle to sift through the patchwork of state laws that either prohibit or promote the research.
Michigan, for example, is one of only six states where embryonic stem cell research is restricted, while states such as Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Massachusetts and New York actively fund the research.
“One of the peculiar aspects of this debate has been that people who are not stem cell biologists have presented themselves to the public as experts on the question,” Moreno said.
Goldstein explained the basic science behind embryonic stem cell research and the differences between adult, embryonic, and reprogrammed cells. Adult cells come from a number of sources including umbilical cord blood and other tissues, and already are specialized — or programmed — to become certain cell types in the body, such as muscle or skin. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, can become any cell type in the body.
Embryonic stem cells come from the inner cell mass of microscopic embryos that are created in a dish in fertility clinics. Those that scientists seek to use are embryos that otherwise would be discarded.
Goldstein would like to take the unused embryonic stem cells and introduce genetic mutations for Alzheimer’s disease to discover better treatments and drugs. He says it’s not possible to do this research with any other kind of stem cell.
“It is mistakenly said that there are 50, 70, 100 diseases that are cured with adult stem cells,” Goldstein said. “But it is simply not true.”
“Nobody wants, more than I do, to find treatments for people with these diseases. If I thought there was an adult stem cell treatment that would work for people with Alzheimer’s disease, we would be working on it. It is not there,” he said, explaining the importance for scientists to be able to use embryonic stem cells in research on disease.
For a complete archive of the program go to umich.edu/stemcell.
