CALIFORNIA: Stem Cell Project Energizes Other States to Act
To keep researchers from being lured away, other funding efforts are
in the works.
By Megan Garvey - Times Staff Writer
SOURCE: The Los Angeles Times / KTLA 5, CA
WWWeb: http://tinyurl.com/3upwc

November 22, 2004

As California moves quickly toward setting up a $3-billion embryonic
stem cell research agency, other states are scrambling to prevent
their top researchers from being raided.

The lure is clear: $300 million a year for embryonic stem cell
research in California for the next decade, more than 10 times the
yearly federal funding available and free of the Bush
administration's tight restrictions on what research can be conducted
with federal money.

"Everyone I talk to wants to move to California," said Kevin Wilson,
director of public policy for the American Society of Cell
Biologists. Wilson, only half jokingly, suggested "staking out the
airports" to get a preview of which top researchers outside the state
are thinking of relocating.

A few states have announced or plan soon to announce new funding for
stem cell research, and others are considering legislation that
endorses the research, moves influenced at least in part by the
California initiative.

Embryonic stem cells can become cells of any type, so many scientists
believe they have great promise for treating diseases. But the
research requires destroying human embryos to obtain the stem cells.
Opponents of the research believe the destruction of embryos makes it
immoral, regardless of the potential for curing disease.

Under restrictions Bush imposed early in his first term, federal
grants can be used only for work with a small selection of embryonic
stem cells that existed before August 2001. Because of those limits,
states have taken the lead in basic scientific research in the field,
usurping the role traditionally played by the Washington-based
National Institutes of Health.

Officials in the few states where such research thrives have paid
close attention to policies elsewhere, particularly to California's
voter-approved Proposition 71.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, for example, said in a telephone interview
that he had tracked the Proposition 71 campaign with an eye toward
its effect on his state. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison were the first to discover how to isolate and grow human
embryonic stem cells. Doyle said he strongly supports the California
effort and believes the more research done in the field, "the better
it is for everyone." Still, biotech companies clustered around
Madison, the state capital and home of the university, make up one of
his state's fastest growing industries, and Doyle said he wanted to
act quickly to protect it.

He announced a $750-million initiative devoted to stem cell research
and biotechnology at state institutions last week.

"Wisconsin can't match California dollar for dollar," Doyle conceded
at a news conference at which he announced the initiative, which will
include a $375-million institute for stem cell and other biomedical
research at the university. But, he insisted, his state can still
compete.

"We have a lot of things that I know will be major attractions to
researchers," Doyle said in the interview. "That's not to say many of
them aren't going to go to California, but we won't run and hide from
that." Proposition 71 "galvanized and focused us," he added. "I see
it both as a challenge to Wisconsin and an opportunity."

In New Jersey, where pharmaceuticals are one of the state's largest
industries, Richard J. Codey, sworn in Tuesday as acting governor to
replace James McGreevey, who resigned, already has said he will
expand stem cell research efforts, which include a $9.5-million
investment in a new state institute. As New Jersey's Senate
president, Cody sponsored legislation making the state the second
after California to endorse embryonic stem cell research.

The efforts to create a hospitable research climate go beyond a
policy debate, said Michelle Ruess, spokeswoman for the New Jersey
Commission on Science and Technology. "Biotech is a huge business,"
she said. "It's not an industry we'll walk away from."

And in Illinois, backers of embryonic stem cell research are pushing
a law that would officially endorse embryonic stem cell research and
set guidelines for it in the state, similar to the laws passed in
California and New Jersey. After an emotional floor debate on
Thursday, the bill fell two votes shy of passing the state Senate.

Illinois state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg said he called for the vote
believing he had secured the votes for a narrow victory. Instead he
fell short. The bill faced strong opposition from the state's
influential Catholic priests, who, among other efforts, placed
letters in church bulletins urging parishioners to contact their
representatives and ask them to vote no.

"Some of my colleagues told me they got calls from every parish
priest in their district," Schoenberg said. He sees the bill, which
he plans to bring to a vote again next year, as a first step to
keeping Illinois competitive in the field, even if no money was
attached.

"For a state like Illinois, which is already seeking to grow its
biomedical research, the big part of the challenge is to slow the
departure of funding and researchers," he said, "not only to
California and other states but from the country."

Illinois' experience illustrates the conflicting pressures on
officials in at least some states. Stem cell research is an important
emerging field in biology, and many believe that it could become the
foundation for new industries that could generate well-paying jobs as
well as cures for disease. At the same time, although polls show that
seven in 10 voters nationally support the idea of stem cell research,
the moral debate over using human embryos makes the subject
politically controversial.

Even in states where there has been political support for research,
there have been debates over how much should be done at the state
level financially. California's $3-billion initiative is well beyond
most states' reaches. Officials elsewhere say the difficulty they
face is not only keeping top scientists, but also holding onto
promising graduate students, postdoctoral students and skilled lab
technicians.

Sarah Youngman, a spokeswoman for the University of Minnesota's Stem
Cell Institute, said she anticipates action from state officials to
keep the institute competitive. Because the focus there has been on
adult stem cells, which do not face the same federal restrictions as
embryonic stem cells, Youngman said she thought the repercussions of
California's investment would not be immediate.

"But it is a vulnerability for our institute. Three, four, five years
from now, it could be a problem," Youngman said. "The attraction of
California to those using stem cells goes beyond scientists to lower-
level researchers, the people who make the lab a lab."

Further, the California Center for Regenerative Medicine, created
earlier this month when Proposition 71 passed with 60% of the vote,
also funds research using a procedure that advocates sometimes call
therapeutic cloning, in which the DNA of an egg is stripped and
replaced with the DNA from a donor, producing embryonic stem cells
that are an exact genetic match to the donor.

Many scientists consider cloned stem cells to hold exciting
possibilities for understanding why people develop such diseases as
Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or insulin-dependent diabetes. But opponents
of the approach say it would open the way to cloning babies and argue
that it is unethical to create embryos solely for research.

The House of Representatives has twice voted to ban therapeutic
cloning, but the bills have been blocked in the Senate. California
and other states that have expressly permitted such research ban
reproductive cloning.

For some leading stem cell scientists, the jockeying among states is
both heartening and disturbing.

"It makes sense that states will respond to try to make up for the
federal government's deficiencies," said Doug Melton, a Harvard
University biology professor and a strong critic of the Bush policy
restrictions.

"I think the California initiative is very important both politically
and scientifically," he added, "but in the best of all possible
worlds it shouldn't have had to happen."

Dr. Wise Young, who heads the department of cell biology and
neuroscience at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said he thinks
California's investment will expand the field of scientists pursuing
stem cell work.

"There are three ways that more researchers can be added to the
field," said Young, co-chairman of New Jersey's recently created
Institute for Stem Cell Research. "The first is to recruit scientists
working in other areas to stem cell research. The second is to
attract such scientists from overseas. The third is to grow such
investigators from students and postdoctoral fellows."

For now, Young said, the additional funds may create a temporary
shortage of stem cell scientists and make it harder for institutions
outside California to retain researchers.

"Because recruitment offers will be made to stem cell scientists by
California institutions, there will be tremendous pressure on
research institutions to provide [enticements] to keep people," Young
said. "This will probably mean millions of dollars of salary
increases or promotions, and research support, to match the offers
that are made."

Aside from the potential financial boon for scientists, those funded
through the California initiative probably would be able to avoid
many of the issues facing researchers who get at least some of their
funding through the federal government. Melton, for example, operates
his lab under a dual system in which equipment bought with federal
grants is marked so that it is not used for work on embryonic stem
cells that are not on the federally approved list. Not having to
worry about such things would be a relief, he said.

"I don't like the situation where myself and my students are planning
our next experiment and thinking about the political election
results," he said. At the same time, Melton said, he thought funding
at a state level, even at billions of dollars, was only a partial
solution.

"It doesn't do a huge amount of good to be reshuffling people," said
Melton, who is using embryonic stem cells to try to understand and
cure juvenile diabetes, a disease that requires his two children to
take daily shots of insulin. He has not had any offers from
California, but he said he was concerned about the energy wasted by
anyone having to start up operations in a new location.

Like many other stem cell scientists, he is closely watching to see
the guidelines set up for the California agency, particularly any
provisions for sharing information derived from the research and
possibilities for partnering with out-of-state laboratories. The
initiative requires the grants to be spent on research in California.

The 29-member panel that will set policy for the institute must be
named by the governor, five university chancellors and other top
lawmakers by Dec. 16, the deadline set for members to choose a
chairperson and vice chair. Already, a number of appointments have
been made, including board member selections by the chancellors of UC
Irvine, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco, state
campuses where stem cell research is underway.

With little indication that the Bush administration will
significantly revise its restrictions, those outside the state
concede that California's billions will put the state in a leading
role in embryonic stem cell research.

"It's kind of crass to say," said the University of Minnesota's
Youngman, "but I think as a researcher, to a certain extent, you have
to follow the money."

SOURCE: The Los Angeles Times / KTLA 5, CA
WWWeb: http://tinyurl.com/3upwc

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