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Stem Cell Research Race Is Wide Open Doyle, scientists ready new strategy to keep Wisconsin competitive By KATHLEEN GALLAGHER and PAUL GORES [log in to unmask] Posted: Nov. 13, 2004 On a Friday afternoon in late October, Gov. Jim Doyle huddled with a select pair of scientists he had summoned to his office The governor needed advice from University of Wisconsin-Madison biologist James Thomson, the first person to isolate and culture human stem cells six years ago, and from UW professor Michael R. Sussman. The researchers engaged in an hourlong brainstorming session with Doyle and aides. The meeting centered on how Wisconsin could maintain its importance in the fledgling but promising field of stem cell science. With California voters poised to authorize their state to spend $3 billion over the next 10 years on stem cell research, Doyle was concerned. "We threw out a lot of ideas, just exploring how to help the state take advantage of this discovery and take us to the next step," said Sussman, director of UW's Biotechnology Center. "We've been the leaders in this, but other states are really coming to the forefront and putting a lot of money into this." Doyle says he plans within the next two weeks to announce a strategy to expand the state's position in the tantalizing but still-unproven realm of stem cell research. He wouldn't disclose details or the cost of the plan but said it will be aimed at helping UW-Madison have the most modern laboratories possible and encouraging more scientific collaboration. At stake for Wisconsin is the potential - although it may be decades away - for jobs, royalties on patents and the eventual commercialization of therapies and cures for spinal cord injuries and diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes. Research on human embryonic stem cells - master cells that can form virtually any tissue or organ in the body - has been championed by Nancy Reagan, who cared for her husband as he suffered from Alzheimer's disease; actor Michael J. Fox, who is afflicted with Parkinson's disease; and the late actor Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed from a spinal cord injury. Global competition California's massive funding effort, which was approved Nov. 2, is not the only challenge to Wisconsin's attempts to maintain a foothold in the stem cell arena. China, Singapore and South Korea all have well-funded research efforts in the area, and countries such as England are far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to having coordinated plans. Almost 60% of California's voters - spurred by proponents' promises that it would accelerate scientific advances and generate thousands of jobs and millions in state tax revenue - approved a bond issue that sets up the state to dole out $3 billion in grants over the next 10 years on human embryonic stem cell research. Although it will take time to set up the program and disperse money to the state's universities, many expect it to make California the epicenter of the new science. California's annual funding of $300 million is 12 times the $24.8 million the U.S. government in fiscal 2003 distributed to UW-Madison and other institutions. Doyle and other Wisconsin officials insist California's efforts will not knock their state out of the picture in terms of stem cell research. "I dispute absolutely that on Nov. 2 Wisconsin lost its lead or dropped out of the race or anything of the sort," said John Wiley, UW- Madison's chancellor. Yet, even if Wisconsin manages to continue as a player in stem cell research, some observers say the state's shot at future job development took a serious blow when California voters approved the $3 billion in funding. "There's going to be a big movement of existing companies to California and a whole new generation of start-ups to help them spend that constitutionally guaranteed spending," said Bill Warren, an intellectual property partner at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP in Atlanta. "As far as job-building, California is clearly a big winner." California bound Advanced Cell Technology, a Worcester, Mass., company, said last month that it would open a human embryonic research stem cell lab in California because of the state's support for such research. That's just the kind of behavior the California initiative hopes to encourage. It aims to create a consortium of government, education, venture funding and private sector groups that will lead to the creation of areas like the Route 128 corridor in Boston, where the computer industry got its start, or Silicon Valley, said Peter Balbus, managing director of Pragmaxis LLC, a Glen Ellyn, Ill., technology commercialization consulting firm. "In all honesty, Wisconsin hasn't done a great job in pulling all those pieces together," Balbus said. Wisconsin has the most difficult piece - the research - but unlike California or New Jersey, the state hasn't raised money to stimulate development of start-up businesses, he said. 'A drop in the bucket' The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, is the university's patenting and licensing arm. It will likely receive licensing and royalty payments, but "frankly that's a drop in the bucket," Balbus said. He says Wisconsin should consider more tax incentives for bioscience companies and develop a broad-based public relations campaign to educate Wisconsin citizens about the importance of developing technology-based industries. "If Gov. Doyle could do anything special to create a fund to retain and draw top scientific talent, that would be a great initiative - to make sure they have the money to do the research they want to do," said Carl R. Clark, director of marketing and licensing for the Medical College of Wisconsin Research Foundation. If Wisconsin is to stay in the game and retain even a part of the lead it got when Thomson in 1998 was first to isolate human embryonic stem cells, it will need the money and talent to compete fiercely against not only California, but a growing stem cell research effort that already reaches well beyond the United States. "The Chinese and South Korean governments have put enormous amounts of money into stem cell research, and their labs are as well-equipped as any lab in the West - I think that's where the action is," said Stephen Minger, an American scientist working at King's College in London who isolated a human stem cell line with the most common cystic fibrosis mutation. He recently returned from a two-week trip to China, Korea and Singapore, during which he and a group of scientists visited four or five labs a day. Key patents Wisconsin has key patents and WiCell, the non-profit subsidiary of the school's licensing arm whose mission is to distribute the school's five embryonic stem cell lines and support stem cell research at UW-Madison. California will have the money to lure top and potential scientists and companies looking to commercialize their research, said Arthur L. Caplan, chairman of the medical ethics department at the University of Pennsylvania and co-editor of the fourth edition of the book "The Human Cloning Debate." "Wisconsin's leadership ended Nov. 2," Caplan said. The university has "active measures under way" to address potential faculty raids and research funding issues, UW's Wiley said. He declined to elaborate on those measures, but he also cited the privately funded WiCell facility, which has "a number of breakthroughs that haven't been announced." The goal for WiCell is to double within three years the ranks of the 54 investigators working with human embryonic stem cells and double the $4.5 million in research grants it received in 2003, said Andy Cohn, a spokesman for WARF, the university's patenting and licensing arm that oversees WiCell. Cohn said that in terms of the number of published articles and patents, and funding, UW-Madison leads stem cell science and "we have every intention of maintaining our leadership." "Sure they're going to make a run at (our scientists), but most places don't have a WARF providing a whole independent lab; and a lot of the hassles other researchers have to put up with, ours don't," Cohn said. UW-Madison over the last 10 years has spent $1 billion on infrastructure, much of it involving science buildings and labs, Wiley said. In 2000, for example, it launched its $317 million Biostar Initiative to build labs and attract top scientists to the campus. "We can't let up. This is an area where if you stand still, you fall backward," said UW's Wiley. Jason Gertzen and Steve Walters of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report. From the Nov. 14, 2004, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel SOURCE: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI http://tinyurl.com/5uc8f * * * Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]> Please place this address in your address book Please purge all others Web site: Parkinsons Resources on the WWWeb http://www.geocities.com/murraycharters ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn