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Top Government Scientist Quits Human Stem-Cell Trials Stem-Cell Patient Roasts Lawmaker Rao: In a larger sense, it hasn't changed all that much. I have focused on whether we can use stem cells for therapy and on the nervous system as the model since I was trained as a neurologist, when I practiced medicine. We fell back (in terms of development) because of what I call the source problem: For any kind of cell therapy in humans, you need a certain number of cells with a certain amount of expandability and certain sets of characteristics, and so far the best choice -- and we evaluated all of these -- has been embryonic stem cells. So, yes, we work on fetal tissue cells. We work with adult cells. We work with cadaver cells. But none of them have fulfilled the criteria that we needed for certain kinds of therapy in the central nervous system. WN: Are you getting closer to finding the type of cell that will fill that criteria? Rao: Yes, and that's been my big excitement in the embryonic stem cell field. I think we are getting much closer. It was a big, big breakthrough in my mind and it's only been six years, but already it's clearly shown that we can make progress in this field. WN: Sounds like a lot of exciting progress is going on and at the same time, so many roadblocks keep going up. Proposition 71 is going through lawsuits and there are President Bush's 2001 regulations -- are a lot of young scientists shying away from the field because of the controversy? Rao: Yes, actually two big problems for the field have slowed things down.... Labs that explore technologies we would like to use in the stem cell field, just like you would in the cancer field, for example, have shied away because it's just not worth their while, everything's much more difficult. Not just policy, but it's also the patent situation. The other big problem is that when you're making career choices you want stability, knowing the field will be around and it will be supported and it's not clear how much support there is from the government. In the United States, more than 70 percent of all funding for research comes from the NIH and the NSF and other government funding agencies. So when students look at this, they say five years from now after I get a degree, I'm not going to have a career in this field. Lots of my students don't want to work on embryonic stem cells, but will work on something related. WN:: The Wisconsin patents have been called too restrictive and it sounds like you think the patents surrounding stem cells may be restricting research. Rao: I won't blame Wisconsin or WiCell or WARF alone. Stem cell work is going on worldwide, but the patent was issued only in the United States, and it's pretty clear the patent won't issue in several other countries with a policy on human tissue and human samples and what can be patented. So we have extremely broad claims in one market and essentially no protection in another market.... (When) WiCell and WARF first got the patent they weren't clear on how to use it to help the field. So initially the licensing requirement was too expensive for any of the companies that need to enter the field first. In any field, you want the tools and reagent companies -- they're the ones that supply the pick and shovel for a gold rush, so to speak, and if it's too expensive, then you don't have a pick and shovel to be able to mine the gold, and that's been a big, big problem for the field. WN: What do you see as the most promising research going on right now? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn