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Harvard Starts Its Own Controversial Cell Batch By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 03 Mar 2004 16:23:13 GMT WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - Scientists at Harvard University announced on Wednesday they had created 17 batches of stem cells from human embryos, in defiance of attempts by President George W. Bush to limit such research. Bush has forbidden the use of federal funds to manipulate human embryos and limited scientific research to a few existing batches of cells taken from fertility clinic leftovers. But scientists have complained this limits a promising field of biological research and medicine based on the potential of the cells, which theoretically can be directed to form any tissue in the body. Dr. Douglas Melton, a stem cell researcher at Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said he and colleagues had used private, legal funding to make 17 batches of the cells, and made them available free of charge. "What we have done is to make use of previously frozen human fertilized eggs that otherwise were going to be discarded," Melton told reporters in a telephone briefing. His team's achievement, announced ahead of publication by the New England Journal of Medicine, doubles the number of stem cell batches or "lines" that are available to researchers who also have access to private funds to work with them - - or who are based outside of the United States. Melton said a variety of cells is needed so that scientists can study them. Although the potential is there to grow new tissues and even organs to treat diseases such as Parkinson's Alzheimer's or cancer, no one quite understands how to do it yet. NOT ENOUGH CELLS AVAILABLE "These cells do represent a rich source of material that could be used for transplantation. But to do that we have to learn how to control them, to tell them what to do," he said. "In my case we want them only to become pancreatic beta cells that make insulin," said Melton, who is seeking a cure for his two children with type-1 diabetes, a disease that affects as many as 2 million Americans. "I was not convinced that there was sufficient number or sufficient quality of cells available to us to do our research," Melton said. Stem cells are a kind of master cell that have the potential to grow into various tissues. Taken from embryos, this power to differentiate into various cell types is unlimited. They also appear not to cause potentially deadly transplant responses such as rejection. "Embryonic stem cells are unusual in being much less immunogenic than other cell types," Melton said. "It will be interesting to learn why." But opponents, led by Bush, some members of the U.S. Congress and some religious and anti-abortion groups, say any use of a human embryo, however tiny, amounts to murder and is unethical. They are pushing for legislation that would outlaw it completely and in the meantime Bush has restricted the use of federal funds -- the largest source of scientific research money -- to work with embryos. Bush argued that stem cell lines that existed when he announced the ban in August 2001 would be sufficient. But in a letter to Bush yesterday, Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Louise Slaughter of New York quoted National Institutes of Health researchers as saying that was not true. "We have now learned that such statements misinformed the public," said the letter, a copy of which was sent to Reuters. SOURCE: AlertNet news Reuters, UK http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N033935.htm * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn