The source of this article is Virtual Jerusalem: http://tinyurl.com/dlhgy

Stem-cell researchers in Israel warily eye debate in Washington
by Dina Kraft, the JTA

Dr. Shulamit Levenberg pulls out a dish of human embryonic stem cells from 
an incubator and carefully places them under a microscope to see how they 
are beginning to take form as human tissue.

Levenberg, a researcher at the Technion University in Haifa, is working on 
cutting-edge tissue engineering research with the help of human embryonic 
stem cells — research that she hopes will eventually lead to the creation 
of lab-manufactured tissues and organs for transplants.

These days, Israeli scientists who have helped pioneer the field of 
embryonic stem-cell research are warily eying Washington, where a showdown 
is brewing between the U.S. Congress and the White House over federal 
policy on research in the field.

A bill passed in May by the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to expand 
government funding for embryonic stem-cell research and now is set to go to 
the Senate. President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, which 
would expand the number of research lines of stem cells eligible for 
federal funding.

According to current law, funding is available only to research lines that 
existed in 2001 and before.

Developments in Washington are a cause of concern for Israeli scientists 
because if research funding in the United States decreases, there will be 
less of a pool for funding worldwide.

“It may affect progress in the field if Bush stopped the process of more 
liberal funding,” said Dr. Binyamin Reubinoff, who heads the Hadassah 
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center. “It has an influence on scientists and 
the availability for money for research.”

In the United States, there has been opposition to embryonic stem cell 
research from some Catholics and conservative Christian groups who link it 
to human cloning and abortion.

Furthermore, Bush and his supporters claim that life is being destroyed by 
using the stem cells because embryos are destroyed in the process of the 
research.

American Jewish groups across the religious and political spectrum have 
joined together to advocate for more stem-cell research.

And in Israel, following the dictates of Jewish law that do not view the 
embryo as potential life until it is inside the uterus of an expectant 
mother, such research is not controversial.

“In Israel the attitudes are much more positive,” said Levenberg, who 
herself is an observant Jew. “Here it is not thought of as killing the 
cells but of using them to save life.”

Researchers are eager to use embryonic stem cells, which appear just days 
after fertilization, because the cells have the ability to develop into 
body tissue.

Theoretically, once the DNA of such cells is successfully manipulated in 
the lab, they can one day be transplanted into humans to help treat a wide 
range of diseases, among them neurodegenerative disorders such as 
Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and Multiple Sclerosis, as well as 
heart failure, diabetes and other conditions.

In Israel funding for research is scarce and researchers rely heavily on 
grants from abroad.

The Hadassah Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center has been one of the 
leading labs for stem-cell research internationally. Hadassah, in 
cooperation with universities in Australia and Singapore, was the second 
group in the world to derive stem cells from human embryos.

The group produced six of the human embryonic stem-cell lines that are 
currently available for federally funded research in the United States. 
Some of these lines are among those that are distributed to labs 
researching stem cells around the world.

In Jerusalem, Reubinoff’s team at Hadassah found that by implanting human 
stem cells into the brains of rats, some symptoms of Parkinson’s disease 
are alleviated. The discovery, announced last year, gives some hope to the 
millions around the world who suffer from the disease because it may pave 
the way for using embryonic stem cells as a treatment.

Along with the Technion and Hadassah, the Hebrew University is the other 
cutting-edge research leader in the embryonic stem-cell research field in 
Israel.

Recently, Hebrew University’s Dr. Nissim Benvenisty went to Capitol Hill 
together with several other U.S. researchers to brief lawmakers in the 
House and the Senate about embryonic stem-cell research.

A professor of genetics and the head of the stem-cell unit department at 
the life sciences institute at Hebrew University, Benvenisty presented new 
data from his lab as he tried to convince the lawmakers that embryonic 
stem-cell research, properly regulated, was the responsible scientific way 
to go.

Benvenisty’s research team was the first to genetically manipulate human 
embryonic stem cells and in doing so, found that such cells have a lower 
chance of being rejected by the body than other cells, he said.

His lab is also involved in taking diseased embryos that were discarded 
during in vitro fertilization treatments and studying them in order to 
better understand the diseases they carry.

He recalls getting word that he and his lab would be able to use human 
embryotic stem cells for the first time. Previously they had been limited 
to the embryotic stem cells of mice.

“I literally could not sleep at night,” said Benvenisty. “We are in special 
days where we can do real pioneering research; we call it ‘the cell that 
can do everything.’

“It can generate every cell in our body,” he said, while at the same time 
it is involved in so many aspects of human medicine.

“I am sure it will revolutionize the way we will do research and also 
transplantation medicine.”

In her lab at the Technion in Haifa, Levenberg describes the process she 
and her team are undertaking to help create human tissue — a technique she 
learned while doing post-doctoral work at M.I.T. in Boston.

They have created sponge-like structures out of biodegradable scaffolds 
made from a combination of polymers. On those scaffolds they attach cells 
and by exposing them to certain hormones, are trying to grow specific types 
of tissues, including skin and cartilage.

Levenberg and other researchers credit Israel for quickly assembling 
regulations and guidelines that helped enable their research.

In 2001 the Bioethics Committee of the National Committee of Science wrote 
the regulations that now govern the research in Israel. It stipulates what 
kind of embryos could be used for research and how consent should be 
procured from families who were no longer using the embryos as part of in 
vitro fertilization treatments.

Since then, the guidelines have been studied around the world by other 
countries attempting to set their policies for such research.

Jewish law’s tenet that an embryo outside of the uterus does not constitute 
life helped pave an easier path for research in Israel, said Dr. Michel 
Ravel, a professor in the department of molecular genetics at the Weizmann 
Institute of Science and the chair of the committee that set Israel’s 
regulations on embryonic stem-cell research.

“Jewish law has a strong tendency towards saving lives,” he said. 
“Therefore it was easier than in many countries that are under Christian 
influence to accept the ethical value of the guidelines.” 

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