Stem Cell Research: An NPR Special Report
A 'Virtual Roundtable' on Federal Funding

Daniel Perry

Daniel Perry, executive director, Alliance for Aging Research:

When it was first announced in 1998 that American scientists had grown cultures of self-renewing human stem cells from
5-day-old embryos no bigger than a grain of sand, the scientific community hailed the advance as the "breakthrough of the year." Many say the potential for curing or treating diseases is so great that the derivation and propagation of human embryonic stem cells deserves to be the breakthrough of the decade, if not the century.

The initial breakthrough was reported nearly three years ago. To date, not a single dime of the federal government's annual spending of more than $20 billion for medical research has gone to follow-up this historic achievement. The reason? The politics of abortion in this country have kept stem cell research in limbo, even as millions of patients and their families wait for science to find better answers for their illnesses. Patients with Parkinson's disease, diabetes, or spinal cord injuries will have their waiting period cruelly extended. Tragically, many may never find help from stem cell research; because some abortion activists so fiercely oppose research on human embryonic stem cells they would block this research indefinitely.

In biological terms, embryonic stem cells have a virtually unlimited future. Given the right signals, these stem cells can be coaxed to grow into any specialized cells in the human body -- from brain cells, to the lens of the eye, to heart muscle. It would be truly immoral if the nation does not move to capitalize on the tantalizing potential of these new medical treatments to improve the lives of millions of people suffering from devastating and life-threatening diseases.

We know that the best and fastest way to expand scientific knowledge is to allow academic investigators the freedom to study mechanisms at a fundamental level of human biology. The means to do this is public funding through the National Institutes of Health, peer review to assure high quality of research, and publications in relevant journals to assure openness, public accountability, and rapid dissemination of research results. Patients and their family members deserve nothing less than the mobilization of these tested methods to advance science.

Opponents say they have no objection to using stem cells from adult body tissues, which are sometimes found and isolated in the brain, fat deposits, or bone marrow. While researchers agree that adult stem cells may hold promise for certain therapies, they point out that adult stem cells are not as versatile, nor self-renewing, as embryonic stem cells, and do not therefore offer the full range of therapeutic possibilities. Federal research funds should be used to develop the potential uses of both embryonic and adult stem cells. It would be folly for government to dictate to scientists where the most promising leads may lie.

Shutting off federal funds for university research would still would allow the research to go on in private labs and biotechnology companies, and in other countries. But the pace of medical discoveries almost certainly would slow to a crawl if it were limited only to the private sector. Privately funded research, and studies done abroad, would surely eliminate the matter of public accountability and oversight that is the best protection against abuses in the use, sale, and transfer of human embryonic tissues.

Our organization agrees with the 80 Nobel laureates who wrote to President Bush urging him not to halt federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. "It would be tragic to waste this opportunity to pursue the work that could potentially alleviate human suffering," they told the president.

They are so right.

Daniel Perry is executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research (www.agingresearch.org), a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and independence of aging Americans through public and private funding of medical research and geriatric education.

Other voices:
• Douglas Johnson, legislative director, National Right to Life Committee
• Ihor Lemischka, associate professor, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
• Micheline Mathews-Roth, MD, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School
• David A. Prentice, founding member, Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics
• Arti K. Rai, assistant professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School