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Yahoo Daily News / Reuters Tuesday August 21 6:03 PM ET Government Holds Talks on Stem Cell Access By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) opened talks on Tuesday with a key Wisconsin group as the agency sought to ensure that federally funded researchers get access to human embryonic stem cells from the organizations and companies that hold supplies of them, officials said. NIH negotiators met with representatives of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), including University of Wisconsin stem-cell research pioneer Dr. James Thomson, to discuss the terms under which these stem cells would be made available, said foundation spokesman Andrew Cohn. The two sides also addressed key scientific issues such as how to evaluate the quality of a stem-cell line, Cohn said. WARF is a non-profit technology licensing foundation affiliated with the University of Wisconsin. Thomson in 1998 became the first researcher to isolate human embryonic stem cells. The NIH doles out federal medical research money. President Bush (news - web sites) announced on Aug. 9 that he will allow federal funding of research involving human embryonic stem cells -- versatile primitive cells found in human embryos that can transform into virtually any cell type in the body. Researchers hope to develop treatments for various medical conditions -- including Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites), Parkinson's disease (news - web sites), juvenile diabetes and spinal cord injuries -- by using these cells to regenerate healthy tissue to replace tissue damaged by disease or injury. But Bush said government money would pay for research involving only existing stem cell lines -- reservoirs of genetically identical stem cells derived in laboratories from a single human embryo. Bush said 60 of these cell lines existed, although many scientists have questioned that figure. A NIH spokesman, who asked not to be identified by name, said the agency this week is speaking with ``all of the holders of the stem cell lines,'' either in person or by telephone. ``The NIH is very interested in clearing the way to get the stem cell lines into the hands of NIH-funded researchers as absolutely quickly as possible. And so the talks would be to advance that general goal,'' the NIH spokesman said. NIH officials have said the cell lines are held in the United States, Australia, Israel, Sweden, Singapore and India. The NIH has refused to identify the companies or organizations that possess stem cell lines beyond those that have stepped forward themselves, which include Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, California, and Australian companies BresaGen Inc. and ES Cell International Pte Ltd. NIH money is critical for allowing U.S. academic scientists to perform research on human embryonic stem cells -- work that until now largely has been confined to the private sector. AUSTRALIAN COMPANY ENVISIONS FREE ACCESS BresaGen holds four stem cell lines at its U.S. offices in Athens, Georgia. Dr. Allan Robins, senior vice president and chief scientific officer for BresaGen, said the company would allow NIH researchers free access, provided that the researchers agreed to give the company first crack at acquiring rights to any commercially useful applications that are discovered. ``We don't want to restrict the field of use or the research that the researchers might want to conduct with the cells,'' Robins said. ``Our preference would be to be giving the cells away -- in other words, no upfront fee -- and that we would have a first right of refusal to any intellectual property that was invented using the cells.'' Robins, who said he was heading to Washington to speak with NIH officials, said the ``only restriction that we can think of putting in there is that the cells wouldn't be used to try to clone somebody.'' Cohn, of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, said he did not expect problems in reaching an agreement with the NIH. The foundation has five stem cell lines. ``We've been coming to accommodations with researchers for a year and a half. And we're excited that now there's federal money available and we'll be able to do that with more researchers,'' Cohn said. SOURCE: Yahoo Daily News / Reuters http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010821/sc/health_stemcell_talks_dc_1.html * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn