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Va. Institute on Embryonic Frontier -- Again By Craig Timberg Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 16, 2001; Page A01 News that Virginia scientists had created human embryos for research rather than to spark new life made national headlines last week. But it was no shock to Elizabeth Jordan Carr, who 20 years ago was herself an embryo in the hands of some of the same scientists. Only she wasn't destined for research. Carr became the nation's first test-tube baby, launching an industry that has helped hundreds of thousands of couples have children and that put a tiny Norfolk clinic in the vanguard of medical research and ethical quandary. The Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, as it is now known, was born of that controversy and during the past two decades has helped pioneer the science, forcing a gradual reconsideration of what constitutes life itself. It is a legacy applauded by Carr, who considers the institute's founders, Georgeanna and Howard W. Jones Jr., to be "my second set of grandparents." "The Joneses pushed the envelope 19 years ago . . . and look at all the good it's done," said Carr, a college student in Boston. Of today's embryo research, she added, "This is technology that can help people, period." Not all have reacted with support. Jones Institute researchers, who had seen the criticism marking their original efforts largely fade away, angered even many within their own industry last week by announcing that they had created human embryos exclusively for stem cell research that destroys the embryos. Researchers believe stem cells hold great promise for treating a variety of diseases because they can become any human tissue. However, the institute exploded a fragile consensus among researchers to use only frozen embryos created for in-vitro fertilization but slated to be discarded. Opponents of such research reacted to the news with fury, warning that the Jones Institute had switched from creating life to ending it, beginning a slide into the realm of Nazi scientists who used concentration camp inmates for medical studies. "We deplore the relegation of any human life to the status of pure experimentation," said Fiona Givens, spokeswoman for the Virginia Society for Human Life, which opposed the research that led to Carr's birth two decades ago. In conservative Virginia, such an argument is politically dangerous for the institute. It has thrived in Norfolk, not far from conservative Christian power centers in Virginia Beach, home to religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and his Christian Broadcasting Network. Funding for the embryo research was raised privately, the institute said, but the Eastern Virginia Medical School that houses it gets $14.1 million a year in state funding. After news of the research broke last week, Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) asked one of his Cabinet officials to investigate the Jones Institute research and make a report. The research also became a hot topic at Saturday's first gubernatorial debate, during which both Democrat Mark R. Warner and Republican Mark L. Earley expressed reservations about the work. At the Jones Institute, where a 90-year-old Howard Jones still comes to work most days, criticism doesn't deter researchers. Jones said the institute determined it was more ethical to use embryos created for research than ones originally intended for procreation. "We always want to take the next step," Jones said. The Joneses came to Norfolk's fledgling Eastern Virginia Medical School in 1978, arriving through a quirk of history on the same day that English doctors delivered the world's first test-tube baby. When a reporter from Norfolk's newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot, called the school for comment, she ended up with an interview of the Joneses that Howard Jones still recalls well. The reporter asked: Could you do that? "Of course," Jones said. The reporter then asked: What would it take? It would take some money." The exchange was mostly flippant, but the Joneses had worked with one of the English doctors, Robert Edwards, at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, which the Joneses left upon reaching the mandatory retirement age. When the article appeared the next day with Jones's comments, a former patient from Johns Hopkins called up to offer money. Her $5,000 donation launched what would become the Jones Institute. It remains part of Eastern Virginia Medical School, a private medical college founded in 1973. Controversy gradually ebbed as the institute cemented its reputation as a national leader in fertility research and treatment with a series of advances. They included a technique for injecting sperm into eggs even when the father's semen is in poor condition. The institute also helped pioneer a testing regimen that can detect genetic diseases before an embryo is implanted in a mother's womb. More recently, the institute helped develop a way for an HIV-positive man to fertilize an egg without passing the virus to the mother or their child. Though still part of Eastern Virginia Medical School, the institute has grown to 150 doctors, scientists and staff members, and it opened a satellite clinic in Fairfax County in March. Along the way, the institute sought to protect its image, suing the Virginian-Pilot for $5.5 million in 1982, alleging libel. The case concerned a column that appeared in the days after Carr's birth which suggested that the institute's doctors would not allow the birth of "defective" babies conceived with their help. The paper paid an out-of-court cash settlement and printed an apology. The institute also took the lead in developing standards in the often-freewheeling world of fertility clinics, earning it a reputation as not only a scientific innovator but also an ethical one. "The Jones Institute is the granddaddy of all fertility clinics in the United States," said Joe B. Massey, co-founder of Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta. "They were bold in the beginning, and they're bold now." That boldness comes with a price. With fertility treatment of the sort that led to Carr's birth routine, embryo researchers face intense political and ethical questions. State Del. Robert F. McDonnell (R-Virginia Beach), author of Virginia's new law banning cloning of humans, wondered aloud last week whether the Jones Institute's stem cell research was so scientifically similar to cloning that it would be fall under the new ban. Institute officials, who supported the cloning ban, said the science is not similar. But they could soon face far sharper official scrutiny than they have had since Carr's conception and birth. Carr said the controversy might fade if the public comes to better understand the science behind the embryo research. She often must remind people, she said, that she's no longer a baby and wasn't conceived in a test tube; it was a petri dish. And for the record, she argued that her life didn't begin there, either. It began, Carr said, when she took the identifiable form of a baby, in her mother's womb. "Yes, I was an embryo, but the things that they're doing with the stem cell research . . . they're making sure it's going to be pre-embryos," she said, using a term some scientists prefer for describing a fertilized egg in its first 14 days. "They're just cells." Metro research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report. SOURCE: The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/A751-2001Jul15.html * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn